What’s a few minutes alone with your spouse worth to you? How about getting through a dinner out at a restaurant with a pair of rowdy kids? Good grades? A cleaner room?
What’s it worth to ya?
Is offering a little deal sweetener to your kids getting you the results you want?
Many Parents Admit They Bribe Their Kids phillyBurbs.com | National
Call it a reward, or just “bribery.” Whichever it is, many parents today readily admit to buying off their children, who get goodies for anything from behaving in a restaurant to sleeping all night in their own beds. Often, the rewards are for behaviors their own parents would have simply expected, just because they said so.
I’d like to say we’ve never bribed the kids. Not with candy, TV or a trip to the ice cream parlor. But we have. I think everybody has who has kids. We just don’t make a habit of it.
Believe me we get hit on for plenty of under-the-table deals for the kids. Camille used to offer up her toes for popping if we’d give her a treat. Well, she used to offer ‘em up to Susan ’cause I’ve been locked out of toe poppin’ for a long time. (I sneak ‘em now and then, though).
But paying for good behavior is not what we’re about. The kids pay us for bad behavior in pushups or situps.
But we’re always up for a good deal.
For example, Abby wants to get her ears pierced in the worst way. The deal we offered: Jog a mile without stopping. That’s something I’d be hard-pressed to do right now.
Cruel you say? We’ll they’ve got to do it for school anyway so we might as well provide a little motivation. Just like situps and pushups. They’ve got to do those for school and for karate, so we might as well give ‘em plenty of practice.
I don’t know if bribing really gives you the long-term results you want as a parent and it might be good in small doses.
But I think I’d rather make a good deal for longer term success. And they learn a little about negotiation and compromise in the process.