I recently read a paper titled “What’s the Problem with Bribes?” by Dr. Steven Dennis, Dean of Education & Human Development at Brigham Young University Idaho.

As a parent, I have often used bribes in order to get my child to comply. Maybe I was tired, or impatient. In all cases, I was ignorant. Now I’m a little less ignorant in this area.

Bribes, although powerful, facilitate short-lived compliance. They do not truly empower our children.

In the paper, Dr. Dennis points out that parents typically rely on bribery as the only “tool in their parenting toolbox.” (Dennis, n.d.) As a parent, I know that this is due to at least two reasons: (1) I don’t know how to effectively get my child to comply, and (2) bribing them is a rather easy and hassle-free quick-fix to immediate compliance. Oftentimes, focusing on immediate behavior blinds our long-term vision, or as President Russell M. Nelson masterfully taught in a spiritual sense which can also be applied to our parental duties, “myopic.” (Nelson, 2020)

We certainly want more for our kids than to manipulate them to obey us.

As parents, ours is the sacred role of empowering our children to become agents of their own destiny, to be prepared to navigate this mortal terrain and know how to access God’s power to become all that He has put into our power to become. By empowering our children, we help instill in them the desire to adjust their moral compass and get their “bearings” at any time, in any situation. When obedience is a desire to demonstrate our love for His law, we are one.

To avoid becoming manipulative in our parenting and in order to remain authentic with our children, we should provide small rewards “after-the-fact”. This demonstrates appreciation for their embodying of the desired behavior. (Dennis, n.d.) This reinforce the behavior that we want to see from them, in them, through them. Rewards should neither embellish nor diminish the central focus of rewarding desired outcomes.

By rewarding our children in a timely manner, we cultivate a sense of mutual gratitude and appreciation. By giving them small tokens of acknowledgment, we validate their choices to do the right things and hopefully for the right reasons. Not only does it empower a child by promoting a growth mindset, it can reinforce grit, especially if the action deserving of the reward was “practice[d] on the edge of [that child’s] abilities”. (Williams, 2012, 13:12)

 

References

Dennis. S. (n.d.). What’s the Problem with Bribes?

Nelson, R.M. (2020, October). Let God Prevail. Ensign. Digital Archive: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2020/10/46nelson?lang=eng

Williams, B. (2012, September 24). True Grit, Can You Teach Children Character? [Video] https://www.nbcnews.com/video/true-grit-can-you-teach-children-character-44432451969