Rewards and Achievement.

Rewards are very powerful in the short-term in getting people to behave in the way, you want them to act. People may actually feel more focused, but the focus is typically more  narrow than when no rewards are involved. This helps only in doing manual jobs where little thinking is involved. However rewards change in a negative manner the way we engage in a given behavior. We do exactly what is necessary to get the reward and reach the desired goal and no more. So we are less likely to notice or remember things that are not immediately relevant to what we are doing. Kids were given different colored cards and had to memorize all the words. The kids were unexpectedly asked to recall the color of the card that corresponds to each word. Kids who were promised a prize had more difficulty in remembering as rewards undermine this 'incidental learning '. In another experiment ,one group of people  were  asked  to do a task , and another group were promised a reward for doing the same task  well. The group that was not promised a reward did much better. Also people who were promised bigger sums of money did worse than those who were promised small sums of money. The explanation is that problem solving and non-manual tasks need more exploratory and creative  thinking and  so need a wider focus.A salary is not a reward but ' compensation' for work put in. And still if employers want to promote creativity and excellence that must pay well and then do their best to take their employees minds off money.  
  Rewards narrow our focus. Creativity is stifled because people need to feel self-directed and autonomous and people  experience  rewards as controlling. The objective is to succeed in obtaining the reward with as little effort as possible. So people will choose easier tasks avoid risk taking and  challenging ones and spend the least amount of time as possible. Rewards are problematic even when used with tasks that are less interesting than others. Not only do they reduce interest in the task itself but also in strategies  for reconfiguring a dull task and brightening it up. 

Rewards Punish

Rewards are used to elicit behaviors which would not naturally occur. The message is Do this and you'll get that, which is not much different – Do this and this is what will happen to you. Rewards punish because they are controlling .Even if the kid wants the rewards but they experience it as controlling, the experience assumes a punitive quality. The carrot becomes the stick when kids do not get rewards that they were hoping for. And when everything a kid gets is either a reward or a privilege when he does not behave he is punished by losing his privilege or reward.

Rewards rupture relationships.

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They focus on individualism; create competition and conflict between kids where complaints of unequal treatment and playing favorites are common. It interferes with efforts to promote collaboration, cooperative learning and a sense of community which improves the quality of learning.

Rewards also interfere with a genuine and trusting relationship with a teacher where a kid feels safe to be open, expose his vulnerability, admit mistakes and ask for help when problems develop. It is the judgmental nature of rewards and praise that encourages kids to try and impress and curry favor with the person handing out the rewards. Rewards are a tool for ' doing to ' kids, control and manipulation through seduction, rather than ' working with ' kids in an unconditional way. Kids feel valued and accepted only if they behave as they are told and do well in school.

Rewards ignore reasons.

The traditional approach to problems with behavior and learning is to make the kid 'wanna behave and put more effort into learning by giving rewards and incentives. Rewards are appealing because they are simple to use and don't require any attention to the reasons why the trouble developed in the first place.  Dr Ross Greene, the originator of the CPS collaborative problem solving approach says kids are already motivated, they would rather do well, be flexible and adaptive than are failures. We need to ask not how to motivate them, but what's getting in their way. The research shows that rewards caused more stress and anxiety and caused the very problems they were supposed to treat. Instead we need to address the underlying problems, the lagging skills and unmet emotional needs of the kid etc...

Rewards interfere with moral and spiritual development and learning

Rewards interfere with moral and spiritual development, commitment to values and a love of learning.

When a teacher reminds a class of the ' worth ' of an assignment towards a grade – instead of 'worth in terms of its meaning ' or a parent asks a child what he ' got' on a paper – rather than what he got from the act of writing it , kids are taught they go to school to get grades and not to become long-life learners

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When discipline is achieved by using rewards and consequences kids are not taught to reflect on how their behavior impacts on others and the community but ask what will I get or what will be done to me if I behave in a certain way. Also rewards are used in character education and promoting religious values.

If our goal is to teach them , that the reward of a good deed is the deed itself why give rewards ? Rewards might change behavior in the short-term, but this is without any change or an emotional commitment to the underlying value behind the behavior. 

.  A child promised a treat for learning or acting responsibly has been given every reason to stop doing so when there is no longer a reward to be gained. Children whose parents make frequent use of rewards tend to be less generous than their peers. . A school tried to encourage kids to return lost articles or money found in school or on the playground by rewarding them. All of a sudden , kids were finding so many coins on the playground. So we see how rewards promote immoral behavior.

Dan Ariely explains that when we use rewards we change social norms – pro-social reasons for behaving in a certain way and doing good deeds into economic norms. Not only is the reward presented to kids as the  desired object , but kids learn to convert social and spiritual norms into economic terms. We should be educating children to convert money and goods into spiritual deeds. We can use ' goodies' not as incentives but to give learning and pro-social activities an association of joy and happiness.

We should be helping kids to think in the following way.

A man who was about to go overseas for while approached his neighbor's  10 year old son. He asked him to look after his dog, take him for walks etc while he was away on holiday. 

He asked the kid  -   How much ? The kid -  I am willing to pay  $15

Instead of rewards, grades and competition, we can create an environment which focuses on making learning intrinsically valuable in the context of a caring family or community of learners by adopting the 4 Cs of intrinsic motivation – Community- Cooperative learning, Choice- autonomy ,Content- engaging curriculum and Competence. Here the reward for a good deed is the deed itself and how it contributes to the community. The reward for cooperative - learning is how it gives us more understanding, richness and meaning to our lives and those of our peers.

Parenting approaches – What questions should we be asking?

I always ask the following questions when reviewing a particular ' parenting approach '.

 Is it a ' working with ' approach with children focusing on relationship and with problems solved in a collaborative way or a 'doing to' approach focusing enhancing parenting authority and control using behavior modification techniques and extrinsic motivation.

 I also ask whether the child's needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are met with the particular approach.

 The starting point of each approach may be different.  Collaborative Problem solving originated out of a need to help challenging kids where traditional parenting and behavior modification techniques were failing them because their problems were lagging skills and not motivation. The CPS mantra is children do well if they can and not children do well if they want to. Kids would prefer to be successful, adaptable and flexible. While CPS does not use extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation of the child is being supported because the needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness are being met.? Other working with approaches like Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting start out with an ' attachment –relationship ' approach to parenting and focus on relationship and the academic-socio-moral growth of the child. CPS is very much the HOW of the 'working with 'parenting approaches.

 Parents will obviously benefit from knowledge of various working with approaches as they complement each other.

Collaborative Problem solving - Steven Covey 7 Habits for highly effective People

I always ask the following QUESTIONS ( click)  when reviewing a particular ' parenting approach '. Is it a ' working with approach  that addresses the child's needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness or a 'doing to' approach focusing on  enhancing parental authority and control. Steven Covey's approach is clearly a working with approach that addresses the needs of kids.

How does the CPS approach fit in with Steven Covey's  7 Habits of Highly effective people.?

A habit is the intersection of knowledge – what to do and why with the Skill of how to do it and the Motivation preferably intrinsic to do it.

Habit I  - Be Proactive

Traditional parenting is reactive offering rewards, consequences and punishments as a consequence of a behavior. CPS encourages Parents to be pro-active and solve problems that are predictably and frequently occurring with kids. In the heat of the moment is a bad time for engaging in CPS ,  ' out of the moment at an agreed time and place will ensure better discussion.

Habit 2- Begin with the End in Mind

Parents should have their long term goals for their goals and needs of their kids in mind. In particular CPS has the goal of solving problems in a way that is mutually satisfactory. However, parents must not go into the process with a preconceived ' solution '  and the belief that using Plan B= using CPS is the best way of getting kids to comply with their solution.

Habit 3- Put First Things First

First we make a list of lagging skills in the context of unsolved problems. We can't work on all problems at once , so parents need to prioritize 2-3 problems. The others we will put on the shelf = use Plan C , or the child's plan. Here we also reduce the number of negative interactions between parent and child. We need to  plan as to how to use Plan B with the particular problem.

Habit 4- Think Win/Win

CPS is more than think win/win. We want mutually satisfactory solutions that address the concerns of both the parent and child , not just the solutions they presented.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.

The first stage of the CPS process – the empathy stage focuses on gathering information about the child's concerns. We need to forget all our 'theories' about the child's concerns and why the child is behaving in such away. An effective solution will depend on having a clear understanding of the child's concerns and the child is more likely to ' hear' our concerns if he feels understood and  supported.

Habit 6 – Synergize

Synergy occurs when we integrate all the other habits. The highest form of synergy occurs when we apply  the 4 unique human endowments – self awareness ,conscience=our morality, imagination=creativity, and independent will power- , the motive of Win/Win and the skills of empathic communication to the toughest challenges of life. In the CPS process Synergy allows us to move out of our comfort zones and relinquish control , be more open to other solutions and begin to trust the new developing relationship we have with the child.

Habit 7-Sharpen the Saw

Parenting is a very tough and messy. Parents need to nurture themselves and take care of their physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional needs. Becoming better at CPS takes time , learning , practice and a belief that the approach addresses the needs of your child and the family as a whole,  promotes trust, relationship and bonding. 

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