Parents Say: Don't Reward My Kid

JeanneSager — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:03:00 GMT

A set of parents at a small elementary school in Canada are righteously indignant this week. They say the school is . . . rewarding their kids for good behavior. Ooooh, I'm going to tell.

Of course there's more to the story. The kids are being issued an index card on a string that they sling around their neck. When they're caught "being good," they earn a punch on their card. Get enough punches, and they earn a reward - like attendance at today's school-wide Halloween party. To keep kids from being singled out as goody two shoes, the school has set up the cards so they're hidden in a pouch on each kid's neck.

So what's the big deal? Parents of seven "boycotting kids" say it puts too much focus on rewards, and it's stressing out their kids. The kids are getting competitive, to see who can have the most hole punches. When they get home, they're expecting their parents to reward them for the simple things, like cleaning their rooms. Parents say the focus should simply be on education, especially considering the lack of discipline problems in the district.

Except, studies have shown younger children learn better from positive reinforcement. My daughter is still at the nursery school level, but this seems similar to the practice at the kindergartens and daycares the children of some of my friends attend. There teachers use a green, yellow and red card system - akin to a stoplight. All the kids start the day with a green card in a slot on the wall. If they have to be disciplined, the card is changed to yellow (a warning). If the poor behavior, it moves on to red, and the children suffer the loss of recess or a similar reprimand. Stay on green all day, and the kids can earn a sticker or some other small prize. Heading out to dinner on a girl's night out the other day, my friend got a call from her ex-husband reporting their son stayed on green all day at daycare. The little boy was so proud of himself, he wanted to tell not only Mommy but Aunt Jeanne too.

It seems like the stoplight would have more potential to damage kids' psyches - after all, they're right out in the open where everyone can see while these cards are carefully hidden away. But I've never heard a parent - or a kid - complain. When their cards go red, they're embarrassed, and just as chastened as they would be if the teacher handed out a tongue lashing. Which seems like the only other option here; making punishments so severe kids are "scared straight."

What works for your kids? Rewards for good behavior or punishment for the bad?

Image: DailyMail

Is Cutting the Sitter's Pay the Best Way to Save Money?

They Say: Children 'Programmed' to Share

Barack Obama - A Secret Communist Because He Shared His Toys in Kindergarden

Babble Talk: How Do We Know When We Are Scaring Our Kids?

Disaster Girl Strikes!

Where Does Halloween Rank on Your Family's Holiday-O-Meter?

The Right and Wrong Way to Use Timeouts

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:17:00 GMT

Timeouts seem self-explanatory: your kid acts out; you make him go to his room or sit on a chair in the corner, by force if necessary; the worst the offense, the longer the timeout, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, says renowned child psychiatrist Alan E. Kazdin, writing for Slate. While timeouts can be effective, relying too heavily on the timeout as a method of punishment will do nothing to change your child’s problematic behavior. In fact, excessive timeouts worsen bad behavior—which means you give more and longer timeouts, which means your child acts out more, which means your home becomes a battlefield.

To avoid this, Kazdin recommends returning the timeout to its original meaning: a “timeout from reinforcement.” Rather than an angry punishment, the timeout was originally meant to be a simple withholding of attention, since kids tend to repeat behavior that garners attention of any kind. To hope that a timeout will cause a child to “think about what they’ve done” and repent is to be self-delusional.

Instead, use timeouts briefly, calmly, and immediately following the problematic behavior. Timeouts should never be physically enforced—dragging your child to his room, for instance, completely negates all of the timeout’s benefits, which are mostly accrued in the first minute or two of timeout. If your child refuses to cooperate with a timeout, raise the penalty by one minute or take away a privilege. On the other hand, always praise compliance with timeouts.

Kazdin points out (rather obviously, though it’s easy to forget in the heat of the moment when Susie hits her little sister for the third time in an hour) that the most important tool for changing problematic behavior is to actively work on replacing the hitting—or yelling or food throwing or painting on the walls—with positive behavior, through constant reminders and positive reinforcement.

And when that’s not working and all you want to do is lock the little miscreant in his room for 20 minutes, perhaps you need to give yourself a brief timeout from reinforcement.

Photo: hometown9.com

Strollerderby : positive reinforcement

Parents Say: Don't Reward My Kid

The Right and Wrong Way to Use Timeouts