Is it bribery to reward a child for going to bed cooperatively? Dr. Ray reacts to a podcast guest who said rewarding a four-year-old is far more effective than a consequence. He explains why he thinks it gets the order of cooperation and privileges backwards.
What the podcast got wrong
I listened to a fellow on a podcast last night. This guy has written some books on the formation of habits. It was good stuff, really was. He said a couple of things, though, that got me pondering.
He used positive reinforcement, meaning putting a positive reaction or reward on something to increase the behavior that you want. And then he used the phrase “negative reinforcement” to mean putting a negative consequence on it. That’s not exactly right. I would have thought he would have known that. Negative reinforcement is the removal of something negative. So, for example, “If you do this, I will unground you.” That’s an example of negative reinforcement.
But he said something that just makes me so uneasy, though I understand it because this is dominant psychological thinking. He said positive reinforcement is far more powerful than negative reinforcement. I think in the main that’s very true. However, the example he used gave me pause. He said if you want your four-year-old to go to bed, you say, “If you don’t go to bed cooperatively, tomorrow you lose your…” and then he named a device. My four-year-old wouldn’t have a device anyway, but that was the first place where I had a little trouble with it.
He called that negative reinforcement: go to bed cooperatively, or you lose this. Then he said it would be far more effective, “twenty times more effective” I think was the phrase he used, to say, “If you go to bed cooperatively, I’m going to give you fifteen more minutes on your tablet tomorrow.”
“It smells a little bit like bribery”
I was ill at ease about that for several reasons. First of all, let’s just leave the tablet aside for a four-year-old, okay? That’s the first thing. Secondly, the implication, “I’m going to give you fifteen more minutes,” means how much time do you have to begin with? Now you’re giving them another fifteen? All right, those are really not the main issues.
Here are the main ones for me. It would seem that you want to teach your children that cooperation, responsibility, and mature conduct are the condition for privileges and perks. In other words, your cooperation is what leads to the kinds of perks that you normally get. He chose to phrase the other side in terms of consequence. You should have used the word “punishment,” really. You can water it down by saying “consequence.”
The other thing is this. It smells a little bit like bribery. If you cooperate in going to bed, if you don’t make this an hour and a half hassle, I’m going to give you something more. Well, why stop with that? Why not say, “Okay, I’ll let you stay up later tomorrow night”? I’ll let you watch an hour more TV. I’ll let you have two desserts instead of one. In other words, if you cooperate with me, I will pay you off. That just sits so badly with me in terms of trying to teach virtue.
He was talking about establishing the habit. If you go to bed cooperatively, I will give you extra privileges. And I wanted to say, “Okay, are you going to do that every night? Are you basically going to say, ‘Every night I’m going to give you fifteen extra minutes on your tablet’?” I think he was really way off.
Cooperation leads to perks and privileges
Much of what he said was very helpful and useful. But again, I think he just reflected so much of the psychological thinking that is out there. I remember I got this when I was in grad school. Nothing but positive, nothing but positive. Reinforcement, reinforcement, reward, reward, reward. No consequences, no punishment. That was just pounded into us. And I remember being ill at ease then, before I even had forty years of experience with parents and kids.
I think the main lesson you want to teach the kids is that cooperation leads to perks and privileges. That’s the order of things. It seems like he was reversing the order.
Now, cooperation can lead to extra perks and privileges. You can say, “You know what? You were so cooperative last night. Tell you what I’m going to do today.” You can do that, but it’s a random thing, and it’s after the fact. It’s not before. If we go out to the restaurant and you’re really good, I’ll let you have extra dessert. Well, it would seem to me that getting dessert is a privilege, a perk. Heck, going out to eat in a restaurant is a perk. But if you’re pleasant and cooperative, yes, you’ll get the standard. We’re all going to have dessert and you’ll get it too. But if you’re not, that’s a privilege. Responsibility, cooperation, and pleasantness beget the stuff of your age. I think the other way just reverses it.
Dr. Ray lays out his approach to discipline that builds character in Raising Upright Kids in an Upside-Down World.
Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.