AskHal

jen

Dear Jen,

I definitely hear and understand the desire for an effective charting/reward system, one designed to improve my kids' behavior. This desire usually comes strongest when we start to intentionally become ScreamFree, start to focus more on ourselves, and yet still get frustrated with continuing behavior problems.

There have been times during my own parenting journey when I have explored and then implemented different reward systems, with my refrigerator bearing the spreadsheet marks to prove it.

The difficulty with such reward systems is twofold--they don't work, and they lead us down a path of future failure.

They don't work because apart from some possible short-term changes, such reward systems are only as effective as the parents' ability to constantly keep up with and monitor their kids' behavior, and constantly keep upgrading the rewards. This constant monitoring and upgrading usually leaves the parents just as exhausted as they were before implementing the system, and leaves the kids behaving well only when monitoring and upgrading are close at hand.

And this leads to future failure because it only exacerbates the very patterns that are leading to problems in the first place--the parents are too involved with, orbiting too much around the kids and their behavior. This creates a dynamic of purely external motivation in the kids' lives, and they begin to act only out of fear Dad is watching or expectation that Dad is paying.

And they never grow their own inner motivation.

Alfie Kohn, in his recent book Unconditional Parenting, shows extensive research (and logic) into the failure of reward systems. I highly recommend it, as a companion to ScreamFree Parenting, because we parents need alternative ways of thinking.

So what's an alternative to reward systems? Continuing to focus less on your child's behavior and more on your own. If you want to create a behavior chart, make one for yourself, and learn to congratulate yourself on how well you respond to your kids.

Your kids are going to continue to present challenges, especially as you grow as a parent, because they want to see you continue to grow. They want to respect you, depend on you, be inspired by you.

And that's the only way we can really influence their behavior. By inspiring them to respect us by showing how much we respect them. By inspiring them to make choices and learn from consequences by highlighting those choices, respecting their ability to choose, and refusing to tell them what to do all the time.

Always remember that you are not the boss of them. They are the boss of themselves, and they've got choices to make. The reward they are seeking is not ever something you can provide. The reward they're really seeking is the same we're all seeking, self-respect and self-confidence. Seek that for yourself, in every situation with your kids, and you'll be amazed at what happens in them.

And remember to take care,

Hal

[follow up]

Hal,

I liked the AskHal section from last week's newsletter, but it left me with a question: Isn’t a “reward system” a provision of consequences? Positive or negative?

Isn’t me saying, “Talia, you don’t get to watch your movie because you didn’t clean up the living room” or “Talia, as soon as the living room is cleaned up, you can watch your movie, but not before” an on-the-fly reward system? The living room needs to be tidied up and I’m not doing it (there are things that your child must do to be a part of the family “system”, are there not?)

Do I inspire her to put her things away by me cleaning my bedroom? Not sure how effective that’s going to be. I get what you’re saying — of course I understand the basic principles of ScreamFree — but if I was the woman writing the AskHal question, I’d be a little frustrated.

Fritz

Thanks for questioning my response, Fritz. Yours is a question I receive very often, especially when explaining the principal of "Let the Consequences Do the Screaming." That principle is designed to move us away from our anxiety-led ways of changing our kids' behavior, and move toward a calmer appreciation of the power of our kids' freedom to choose, and experience the consequences of their choices.

What you're describing is a movement towards just that, letting Talia know precisely what the consequences of her choices are. And that is invaluable not because it's changing her behavior. That's invaluable because you are teaching her through repitition that life carries with it a law of sowing and reaping.

And that's one of the points of "Let the Consequences Do the Screaming": teaching our children (and ourselves) that choices have consequences, freedom has responsibility.

What is NOT one of the points of that principle is using consequences to change our kids' behavior. And there lies the difference between reward systems and the ScreamFree approach. The concern is not to change our kids' behavior, the concern is to change our own. Having consequences in place, and welcoming them into our homes, gives us parents something to do other than tell our kids what to do all the time. It gives us something to do other than "scream" our kids into compliance.

Reward systems are all about manipulating our kids into behaving; letting the consequences do the screaming is all about calming our own behavior and giving our kids the respectful space to make some of their own decisions. It is not our job to make sure our kids behave--that will always be their choice. It is our job to make sure we behave in such a way that allows our kids to learn the lessons of life.

I hope that helps--looking forward to more conversation on the subject!

Take care,

Hal