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Save Your Stars:
Fostering Internal Motivation and Avoiding Reward Junkies
By Jody Johnston Pawel, LSW, CFLE
Many parents use "behavior modification" programs, such as rewards,
sticker charts or token systems to teach children skills, get children
to take on responsibilities, or curb an unwanted behavior.
Unfortunately, over 30 years of long-term studies with adults and
children by distinguished researchers as
Alfie Kohn
conclusively show that these programs may appear to have positive
short-term results but are consistently ineffective and often
counter-productive long-term.
These negative long-term outcomes include:
· Performance declines over time
because people only work for the incentive or reward, not because they
see value in the tasks they are doing.
· When the incentives are gone or if
people lose interest in the reward, motivation stops.
· If the rewards don’t keep
increasing, motivation decreases.
· People try to take short cuts to
find the easiest way to finish the task to get the reward, rather than
doing the best job possible.
· People can be more easily
manipulated and led. With children, this potentially increases their
risk of being tricked by adults who try to offer them toys or candy to
do what they want them to do.
· In real life, people do not get
“paid” for every task they do. There are many things we do because they
are the right thing to do, because we feel good when we do our best or
help others, or because they simply need to be done, such as laundry,
cooking and dishes! This internal motivation has an endless source that
is not dependent on someone else giving us something. Most importantly,
the long-term results are always positive.
Use Charts to Track Goal Achievement Only, Using Internal
Motivation
Behavior charts that get a quick fix but have negative long-term results
are structured like this:
· The adult sets up the system and
imposes it on the child
· The adult focuses on the reward as
the reason they give for the child to do the task
· The child only does the task to
get the reward, sticker or prize.
· Multiple children may compete to
see who can win the reward (with all others being losers)
· The adult decides if the child was
good or did the task
· The reward is tangible and given
by the adult.
With just a few changes, you can use a similar but distinctly different
process that gets short term results and exclusively positive long-term
results. Just tweak it to be a “goal” or “to-do reminder” chart that
operates like this:
· The child helps set up the system
and create the chart. Pre-literate children can use pictures.
· The adult focuses on the intrinsic
value of doing the task as the reason they give for the child to do the
task
· The child does the task to learn a
new skill, accomplish a goal, improve oneself, help others, or some
other internal benefit
· The entire process is positive.
There is no competition and no demerit points. The focus is on the child
doing his or her personal best.
· The child checks off what he or
she finishes.
· The reward can be intangible, such
as giving descriptive
encouragement (not praise). Tangible rewards can be presented as a
“celebration.”
If another adult, such as a teacher or therapist, imposes an incentive
or reward system on your child, ask questions to help your child see the
intrinsic value of learning whatever the program will be “paying” them
to do. Then, if they do participate, you both will know the child isn’t
doing it just for the reward.
External motivators produce children and adults who expect rewards for
every little accomplishment. This expectation is unrealistic and such
dependency on rewards is unhealthy. By shifting our focus from external
rewards to internal motivation, we can help our children become
self-motivated and develop cooperative, helpful attitudes.
Get
more information about this topic from Jody Johnston Pawel, LSW, CFLE,
second-generation parent educator, president of Parent’s Toolshop®
Consulting, and author of 100+ practical parenting resources, including
the award-winning book, The Parent's Toolshop at: http://www.parentstoolshop.com/tele/telearchive.htm
More
articles from Jody Johnston Pawel >
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