Rewards and sanctions - what are your opinons about the effectiveness of these?

[cornsilk]

Just interested really - not on any particular side of the fence. Have been reading on here about Alfie Kohn who I think seems to suggest this is not neccessarily a productive approach. Then in college the lecturer was talking about this last week and how rewards and sanctions 'control' children but don't actually teach them how to behave. All the secondary teachers on the course agreed with this (I'm primary) and said that in secondary the rewards/sanctions approach just doesn't work. Any thoughts?

[kate00]

I read Alfie Kohn's book Unconditional Parenting a couple of years ago, and it's definitely changed the way my partner and I parent our children (now aged 4 and 2). I actually disagreed with quite a bit in his book, but what he says about how children's moral sense develops makes very good sense to me. We do not punish our children, ever, nor do we artificially reward particular behaviours (e.g. eat your brocolli and you can have some ice-cream).

Instead we concentrate on helping them learn how to empathise with others, deal with conflict, and manage their own emotions (e.g. how to communicate when they're frustrated, how to calm themselves down when they are angry).

Kate

[cornsilk]

That's really interesting. I was wondering whether the pendulum would swing that way in the future in education. It wasn't that long ago that children didn't get 'rewards' in school, although there's always been sanctions. I haven't actually read that book yet but will order it as I am really intrigued.

[kate00]

The book's certainly worth reading (though a bit irritating in places!)

Going back to the title of this thread - are rewards and sanctions effective? - it's worth thinking about exactly what you mean by 'effective', i.e. what you are trying to achieve.

If you want short-term compliance, then rewards and sanctions can be effective ways of controlling behaviour. If you want to develop a child's moral sense, I would say that not only are rewards and sanctions not effective, they are actually counter-productive.

[cornsilk]

So ideally parents would need to use techniques that develop a child's maoral sense and encourage good behaviour. Do Alfie Kohn's ideas achieve this or is it more of a long term outcome.

[Anchovy]

Hmm - I prefer to see my rewards and sanctions as consequences.

DS - 6 - is very keen on playing on the lego website on my laptop. The family rule is that he gets 30 mins computer time at the weekend. Now that 30 minutes can go up or down depending on behaviour. When he is kind to his younger sister, or does something that helps us all out, he gets a couple of extra minutes. The consequence of his good behaviour is that it enriches him as well as all of us.

Similarly he is the world's dawdliest eater if the fancy takes him. We are all on a schedule in the morning to be up and out. He is told that if there is any toast left at 8am, it gets whisked away (he's had cereal already, and it really should not take him 15 mins to eat a piece of toast. So again, if he does delay, then there is a consequence.

This is a currency which DS understands well. He is an inordinately polite, kind and thoughtful boy so I don't know if these have helped or that is just his nature.

[cornsilk]

I like the term consequences Anchovy. Obviously works well in your family.
Where I teach we do Golden Time once a week, so all the children have 30 mins golden time but they can loose it in 5 minute blocks. In the class where I work p/t there is one boy who looses part of his golden time everyweek and other handful of boys who loose part of it most weeks.(always same boys) This bothers me, they're 8/9, but it's always boys who loose it. Teacher isn't being mean or anything, just following school system. It bothers me, 'cos for those few children the system isn't working. I don't know what message they are getting. They aren't changing their behaviour in response to being excluded from the treat and excluding them doesn't teach them how to change their behaviour. It's not that they don't want to join in, they're usually devastated when golden time arrives and they're missing out on it again. So for those children the rewards/consequences or sanctions doesn't work.

[Anchovy]

Interesting - DS also has a golden time system at school and for the whole class it is the best part of the week. They are allowed to do anything they want (within reason, LOL). However I'm pretty sure that the idea is that they have time added or taken away as a class, not as individuals.

They are Yr 1, and not a particularly naughty class, so the peer pressure thing obviously works quite well as a dynamic on that age and that group of children.

[Anchovy]

[cornsilk]

oooh that's interesting about the class losing time in golden time rather than individuals. I agree peer pressure is very effective.