Candy or money as a reward? The answer might surprise you

We’ve all been there: Our child is refusing to do something that, to us, seems super reasonable. Do we offer them a reward to get them to cooperate? Where is the line between bribery and rewarding a child? Will we ruin them?

In this episode of In It, hosts Gretchen Vierstra and Rachel Bozek welcome Dr. Andy Kahn back to the show. Dr. Andy is a licensed psychologist and Understood’s associate director of behavior change and expertise. He’s also the host of the podcast Parenting Behavior with Dr. Andy Kahn.

Tune in to get Andy’s expert advice about bribes and rewards.

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at init@understood.org.

Related resources

• What are positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS)?

• 7 ideas for using rewards and consequences

• The power of motivation for kids who learn and think differently 

• How to give praise that builds kids’ self-esteem

• “I’m not yelling—you’re yelling!” Tips for staying calm when kids act out

Timestamps

(1:22) The difference between a bribe and a reward

(5:08) Pairing verbal praise with reinforcement

(8:31) How close to the behavior should the reward be

(16:03) Money as a reward

(21:08) Behavior charts and LTDs

(25:14) Helping kids change behaviors

Episode transcript

Gretchen: Hello and welcome to "In It," a podcast for families with kids who learn and think differently.

Rachel: Here you'll find advice, camaraderie, stories of successes and, yes, sometimes failures from experts and from parents and caregivers like you.

Gretchen: I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood.org.

Rachel: And I'm Rachel Bozek, a writer, editor, and mom who has definitely been in it. Today, we're digging into the thorny territory of bribes and rewards because who among us hasn't on one occasion, or maybe many, dangled some sort of treat out there to get their child to do something that they're absolutely refusing to do?

Gretchen: I don't know what you're talking about, Rachel. I'm just kidding. I have definitely been there and I feel so conflicted about it.

Rachel: Yeah. Well, lucky for us, we've got "In It" regular Andy Kahn with us today to really break down what works and what doesn't work when it comes to trying to change behavior this way.

Gretchen: Andy is a licensed psychologist and the associate director of behavior change and expertise here at Understood. He's also the host of the podcast "Parenting Behavior with Dr. Andy Kahn." Welcome back, Andy.

Rachel: Yes, welcome back.

Andy: Thank you.

(1:22) The difference between a bribe and a reward

Rachel: Let's start off just by defining our terms here. What's the difference between a bribe and a reward? Because I feel like sometimes we use those two words interchangeably.

Andy: Great question. And it is something that I get in almost every first therapy session with younger kids' families. And it's really a conversation about reinforcement, which is why do I have to give my kid something or privilege to get them to do something I think they should already do? So, then they'll say to me, "I don't feel like I need to bribe my kid," and I smile and then I give them the explanation I'm going to give you, which is a bribe is different than reinforcement.

A bribe is something that we give someone in advance of a behavior we want to see. So, you bribe the county official before the vote on the real estate pact, right? So, that you want them to vote and give you something, a future favor, OK? With our kids, this is not what we hopefully are talking about, although I think many of us have done this, right? Like, "OK, here now just behave," right? Like "I give you here, have this ice cream and then just behave for me for the next hour."

Yeah, it's not great reinforcement because the kids already got what they wanted.

Rachel: Right.

Andy: Reinforcement is getting the behavior in advance of the reward. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with having some desire to have your child be internally motivated. "I want my child just to do the right thing when I ask them to. Is that too much to ask?" That's very common question. So, we've got to think about how we help parents. I'm anticipating here that you're going to want to talk about. So, how do we help parents in this situation?

Well, one, we correct terminology because when parents are saying they think it's a bribe when we're talking about reinforcement, I stop the discussion a little bit early and I'll say, "OK, hang on a second. What part of this doesn't feel right to you?" Because if it doesn't feel right to the parent, they're not going to buy in and do it after the fact.

So, we've got to figure out that terminology in the motivation with them first and help them see what comes next in terms of, guess what? There's a secret to this. We can reinforce a new behavior or a desired behavior, and then over time, we can taper that away and let the behavior live on its own.

Gretchen: OK, what I've heard so far is most of us are just using the word bribe incorrectly because we're actually talking about rewards that we give after a behavior has happened. So, what makes for a good effective reward and what makes for a not-so-good reward plan?

Andy: So, I'm going to be very annoying. The first thing I'll say, it's so lame, but it depends.

Gretchen: Of course.

Andy: So, first thing is that if you're trying to teach your child a brand new behavior that you want them to do and they're reluctant, this is where you have to think about,OK, rewards sometimes are a little bit larger or more unique, meaning not things you give them every day for doing something that might be higher value or more challenging. So, if your child just got back from the dentist and they've got their sixth cavity in the last year and you're really looking to drill down on, I need my child to like put in three minutes with the, you know, with the electric toothbrush and maybe do some flossing. And I really need to drill down on this behavior, pun intended, right?

But, you know, thinking about getting that new behavior built up, you may need to really think about being concrete and providing some bigger initial reinforcers, because in that situation, there's sort of a high-value outcome, right? You want your child and you don't want to pay the extra money for the dentist, but you really want your child to take that behavior on. So, those reinforcements need to be somewhat unique. They need to be something that the child can really feel is worth the effort. And what are the tricks?

(5:08) Pairing verbal praise with reinforcement

One of my favorite tricks is also pairing verbal praise with your reinforcement. Sharing with your child, "You know, that was a really great job the way that you were able to to brush your teeth for that amount of time. And I saw how well you moved from side to side and you were really, really conscientious about it." You know, why are we doing that? OK. One of the things that I like to talk about with families is that what reinforces your child in the future is actually what we do in creating self-talk, OK?

Think about doing a hard task for yourself as an adult and how often do you catch yourself talking yourself through it? And then every now and then "OK, so first I do this and then. OK, OK, good. All right, good." Like, if you've been given good verbal praise in your background, you will actually self-praise when you're doing these kind of things. But praise is meaningful only when it's paired with details. If you just say, "Hey, great job." Great job for what?

Gretchen: Right.

Andy: Like, it's a piñata party, right? I don't really know where the candy is coming from. I'm blindfolded and flailing here, OK? So, I want you to be able to repeat the behavior that I like. So, I tell you, "Great job. I like it." I tell you exactly what I liked. And you want to add the secret cherry on top ingredient, and then you say, "Wow, you must feel really good about yourself for what you just said. That was awesome." We're reminding them to check in with how they feel.

And we just told them sort of in a parent roundabout way "Don't you feel good? Didn't that feel good?" Because I helped you feel good. Dopamine fires, will increase serotonin. Then you pair it with something you say. And over time, some of those messages actually start to become internalized. And that's one of the magical steps here, is that kids like our attention and they like our approval.

So, those can be things that we can give that aren't going to break the bank, force you to go to GameStop, and cost you an extra 30 minutes of screen time, any of those things. And that's one of the key ingredients over time in that as you start to think about reinforcement, you're going to start tapering away some of that reinforcement over time. So, if you gave them, "Hey, you got 20 minutes of screen time for doing this," you start to put the screen time rewards somewhere else. "OK, cool. You did that today." Verbal praise. "Love how you did it. How you're feeling?" And then they're like in ten minutes of time.

Start to pull your emphasis away from the activity. And then you observe. Does the behavior continue the way it was going before? If it does, you know that your reinforcement tapering is working. If the behavior goes away, you got to back up and start again and say, "OK, what didn't work for me? Was my reward too strong that I can't peel it away?" The reinforcement is only as good as what happens next, right? And you don't want to get trapped as a parent.

That's the big thing. Parents are like, "Got a lot of effort, got maybe more than one kid, and I got to figure out how to make this more efficient for me." And I'm totally down with that when it comes to parents. But having the right attitude going in makes a big difference. There are many parents who are a little reluctant to use reinforcers because they don't see where it goes and how to connect it and how to disconnect it so they can keep the behavior going.

Gretchen: In that example you gave at the toothbrushing. And I get that the praises is immediate, right? So, the kid is this hearing, "Wow, I did a good job and this is what I did well," is the reward immediate, too, in that scenario?

(8:31) How close to the behavior should the reward be

Andy: So, ideally, rewards are going to be best placed closest to the behavior. Similarly, with consequences or punishments. The closer they are, the behavior and the reward or the behavior, and let's say the outcome, let's be very behavioral about it, then the better the connection is going to be formed. So, yes, ideally you can say, “Oh great, you did that this morning. Tonight at 6:00 PM you're going to get that screen time." For younger children, that's especially important because they really need to have the behavior aligned.

Give you an example. I’ve been working in classrooms for two decades, and I'd come in and they say, "You know, Johnny just had a meltdown. He flipped the desk and, you know, things got really off track. He's calmed down now. So, what are we going to give for consequence?" And it's like three hours later, I'm like, "Well, you know, do you want something that feels connected? Or do you just want to, like, set off the next meltdown?" So, in those situations, the connections really need to be made. It's like connective tissue between behavior and outcome.

Why is that important? You want children to have realistic expectations of their world. If I do A, then B happens. And I think that is what allows them to create logic. Kids who have too many unexpected things happen in their day to day develop feelings of anxiety, of worry, of nervousness, because the world is not predictable. And that's something that drives a lot of child behavior.

Rachel: Before I ask my next question, I want to just kind of acknowledge something that I think comes up a lot is the idea of, and I'm not a fan of this word, but spoiling the kid right like that, if they're getting a reward for something that, you know, we expect to happen or that should just be happening, it's like, "Oh you're going to spoil them." Can you just talk about that a little bit?

Andy: Yeah, it's another terminology game, which is like when you say spoiling, I would ask, "So what is it that we're spoiling," right? Like, so…

Rachel: Yeah.

Andy: In one way, we can spoil that behavior's ability to happen in the future by giving too much reward so that when the reward's not present, the behavior is not present. So, that sort of spoils our attempts to create an independent behavior on your child's part. So, I get that. But let's talk about this on a pure, sort of a pure impression standpoint.

Meaning I'm a parent and I'm then in mixed company. Family is visiting, friends are visiting, and I've got to queue my child to do it. And then the reward is coming. And then I have someone who's philosophically different than me or doesn't know my method, and they go, "Well, you're spoiling that kid. Wow."

Rachel: That's exactly what I was talking about.

Andy: I never had, when I was a kid, my mom said, "Do it," and I said, "How fast and how well?" right? And like, oh yeah. So, here's the parent advice there. You know, if you've got a method and you're doing it in mixed company that you're going to have to stick to your method. Like I'll give you an example. Sometimes when my parents would come and visit with my daughter was very young and we'd be doing like the drive back from the airport because they live far away, I'd pre-teach them, "Hey folks, just so you're aware, like I'm teaching my daughter a couple of things" and I just almost like make fun of myself in a sense because I knew they didn't really get my methods.

And I'd say, Listen, "I'm doing some psychologist stuff, OK? I'm going to do some rewards. I'm going to use some specific language. And if you feel like it's, Oh gosh, this is like too touchy-feely, do me a favor and just like give me space or give me a little bit of leeway because I'm trying something."

And in that situation, the pre-teach can sometimes buy you a little bit of grace in the events where you can't. Sometimes you're just going to have to tolerate that stuff.

Rachel: Yeah.

Andy: But I think, Rachel, your point was an important one. Sometimes parenting can feel embarrassing.

Rachel: 100%. So, what if your child kind of gets obsessed with the idea of getting the reward? Like, that's not a great outcome either.

Andy: It's so, and it's so tough because, you know, it's. It's a delicate balance. If you notice that your child basically you're seeing a new behavior, right? Like your child is obsessed with the reward. Then it really becomes important that you try to create another place to give them access to whatever that is and make it attach to something different. Because right now what you're seeing is that getting stuck behavior in kids.

And just saying to them, "You know what? What I'm trying to do isn't helping you and you're getting stuck" and, you know, validate your child like "This must be really frustrating."

Rachel: Yeah.

Andy: "Because you can't stop focusing on this thing." So, make the discussion of like, that reward, attach it somewhere else, make it a bigger goal. Just do something to take it away from reinforcing that one activity and then try something different.

Rachel: Makes sense.

Gretchen: All great advice. So, that's why we want to even get into more great advice by getting into the nitty-gritty here.

Andy: All right.

Gretchen: So, let's talk about food rewards. A friend of the show tells us that she got her child potty trained with the help of M&Ms. What's your take on that?

Andy: So, it's so funny you bring this up. So, again, my background as I was working in schools for many, many years. And for example, I worked with kids across the functional spectrum. I had a number of kids early in my career who were non-verbal, who might have been very, very aggressive with their behavior, and their communication wasn't terribly strong. And we had a huge debate around our schools about using edibles to get a child to reinforce because we couldn't we weren't having a lot of other success.

In situations like potty training is a great example because most kids who are seeing the relief and benefit of potty training and are still getting some edible rewards aren't usually going to completely backslide when they realize "This is better than what I was doing before." So, I don't I don't have an issue with a short-term use of an edible reinforcer. When you start getting into more day-to-day activities that are not as big developmental tasks, I tend to stay away from them because Americans have a very complex relationship with food.

And remember, food can help fire and trigger dopamine. And, you know, our neurotransmitters respond to certain kinds of things. And we want to be, we want to be careful about that. Potty training, I don't have an issue. Makes total sense. Real easy to keep it on hand. And once that behavior is developed, very, very unlikely the child's going to abandon their successful potty training because they're not getting M&Ms. And I don't tend to use them in other situations.

Like I'm not a huge fan of using like dessert as a reward because, like, if I'm feeding my child a healthy array of foods, I want them to be able to eat all of the foods that I'm offering to my family as part of our diet at home.

Gretchen: Yeah.

So, it's really more about choice and giving them good access to food. So, I get a little bit leery of that. In that one example, no, I don't have an issue with that. I think that makes sense, but I tend not to use edible reinforcements otherwise.

Gretchen: Oh my God, you're killing me with the edible though. And I'll think about is non candy things. That people use that term for other stuff.

Andy: Oh gosh. Yeah, I know. I need to come up with a new terminology for there. Yeah.

(16:03) Money as a reward

Rachel: Can we talk about money as a form of reward? Good idea? Bad idea? We know it's going on.

Andy: I'm so lame at the start. It depends.

Gretchen: Oh it depends.

Rachel: That actually makes me feel a lot better.

Andy: It does. Well, you know, the value of money is its own, it's its own life skill. And if we don't teach children how to value and appreciate money and earning, time for dollars, then we're leaving them without an important life skill. And I think there's something to be said for that. So, here's how I approach money rewards, Ok?

As a family, there are core activities of daily living that families do that you will decide with your own family unit "Here are the core activities we all do that contribute to keeping our house clean and to keeping our space safe and keeping our space, you know, presentable for if we have someone come over that we can all share the load of this is a family."

And those activities of daily living are not activities that we necessarily will give money for because it's just about being a member of the household, OK? I think of money rewards for activities that are above and beyond something that you might hire out or activities that other people would, might do for you or are things that are higher level like I'll give you an example.

In my household, one of the things, if my daughter helps groom the dogs, for example. So, doing an in-depth brushing out and washing the dogs is something that I would have brought them to, you know, some place to have done. But I could put money away from my daughter for that. And then I have a secondary lesson. "Hey, I'm going to put that first in this account.

And let's think about the things you can get with that and see if we can delay gratification or talk about planning for a purchase, you know, saving and Oh wow, we have a high-interest savings account. We're going to put a little money into that because you're not using it today. Did you know your money can earn interest if you don't touch it?" You know, so there are lots of ways to make this a life lesson.

Rachel: Yeah.

Andy: Teaching our kids about money saving and also, like the value of hard work. Like, how many hours did it take to earn that? Because remember, the things we give them that are money based, we earned with our time.

Rachel: Yeah. Right.

Andy: So, we would like to teach them similar lessons.

Rachel: Yeah, it's a really interesting point. Like that sort of division or difference between a reward and like getting an allowance.

Andy: Exactly.

Rachel: And the criteria for each one.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Andy: Correct. And I guess, you know, an allowance is another like family philosophy thing. Like if an allowance was unconditional and you could not help with the family responsibilities in any way, shape, or form, to me, that feels like a setup for the parents, right? Because it allows the child to continue to get and do all the things they want without earning it. And I wouldn't, if you were to then say, "You know, you haven't earned this," you know, "Well, it's my allowance." "Well, if I don't, if I go to work and just don't do anything and watch YouTube all day, they're eventually going to stop paying me."

Gretchen: Right.

Andy: And I think that, you know, this is there's a there's a quid pro quo here. I have expectations. When you meet your expectations, I will give you the expected from me to you, which might be this allowance. The other way to navigate that is if you're going to not make the allowance contingent. There's another trick which is providing opportunity to spend the money. So, oh sure, you're accumulating that money, but until you're back on track, you're not allowed to spend that money. It's just going to sit in an account.

Gretchen: I have a follow-up to this because I've gotten from my kids the "Oh so-and-so gets paid for their A's. Why are you not paying me for my good grades?"

Andy: Oh I love those.

Gretchen: What are your thoughts on this, Andy?

Andy: Comparison is the thief of joy. I think the idea that, you know, this is the same as why we're all miserable when we go on social media. Because we're comparing ourselves to other families and situations isn't really fair. So, if a family has another approach, cool to see that, but that's not how we're operating here.

And I, that's just one of those areas where I pull sort of a tough, tough love moment, which is, you know what, there are a lot of things these other parents do that I would never do. And when you leave my home, I want you to be most prepared for being independent and responsible as you can be. And my methods are different than that. So, cool for them, but not really something I can help you with.

Gretchen: Yup. OK, I've said all that, so I'm going to give myself a pat on the back.

Rachel: So, we're going to take it back to the younger years. So, we kind of we went from like cash for A's, which feels very kind of like middle school, high school.

Gretchen: That's like kindergarten in your world?

(21:08) Behavior charts and LTDs

Rachel: I mean, but I think there's a kindergartner, maybe elementary and even preschool version of this, which is behavior charts, right? So, can you talk to us about what you think of behavior charts and and we can even maybe define them for the audience, for anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of running into a class where they're confused.

Andy: Sure. So, here's the honest truth about this. I'll start with my own background. As a kid, my sister and I were having some challenges behaving when we were young, and we went to a lovely psychologist who sent us home with a pretty large behavior chart. And we proceeded to destroy that chart by competing and yelling and screaming over who was getting what for what. And we basically took away all aspects of the effectiveness of that plan because it has to be done in the right spirit and kids have to have a strong understanding of why it is they're doing certain behaviors for certain things.

I'll tell you where I've used a behavior chart that I found very helpful. I was working in a classroom environment for kids who were having severe challenges in navigating safe behaviors. And we had a large expectations chart on the wall. That was a token reward chart. So, if we saw a positive behavior coming up, we would note it, we would mark it on the board, and we would give them a token in a jar for them. We would not penalize them for the absence of the behavior, only reward them for the presence of it. Because the goal is, remember, what am I trying to do?

Rachel: Yeah.

Andy: When I give you a token or a reward, what do I want to see? More of that behavior. But if it becomes a to-do list where all you can do is not complete it, then what we're doing is we're punishing.

Rachel: Yeah. And actually, the thing I was thinking of was kind of from the opposite entry point, which is I remember seeing behavior charts in, like, daycare and very early elementary school years that where you started at the top, like, the green light or the, you know, the apple on the tree. And your only option was to fail. Like, it's basically like whatever happens throughout the day, you either stay where you are or you're going down to like the red light or your apples falling on the ground.

And for a kid who, you know, maybe has trouble managing themselves throughout the day, that is just like I feel like setting them up for failure. And I just saw so many kids so discouraged by that, so young. And we recently had a guest on who does a lot of work with kids who have ADHD. And he said that these charts can sometimes give kids the feeling like they're failing all the time when they're not able to meet the expectations of the chart or like stay at the top or whatever that goal is.

Andy: Yeah, I think any time you're using a strategy to try to increase theoretically a behavior, you have to ask yourself like, what's my motivation here? The idea about a behavior chart that can be really tricky is that for my purpose, I want kids to feel as good as they can about what they're doing well. I want them to feel seen and heard when they do well. And here's the magic of magics, OK? The most reinforcing thing you give a child is your attention. So, if you're giving them attention for their misbehavior and moving them down a chart or marking them off, you're actually saying to them your misbehavior is more valuable than your positive behavior.

Rachel: Right.

Andy: And in that situation, ask yourself, "What is my intention? Do I intend to pay more attention to bad behavior, or do I intend to build up and reward and notice all the good things?" And what you see is when you praise what you see around you that you like, people in the vicinity see that and they often mimic the positive behavior. You get more positive when you give positive. So, that's if you're giving a lot of negative with a chart or the behavior program, you're probably going to see a lot more dissatisfaction and have more trouble managing it.

Gretchen: I love "You get more positive when you give more positive."

Andy: Yeah, for sure.

(25:14) Helping kids change behaviors

Gretchen: And I think that partially answers this next question I have, which is putting aside bribes and rewards, what are some of your favorite ways to help kids change behaviors when things aren't working out for them?

Andy: You know, the trick to this is obviously I'm modifying the whole idea about like the catching your kid being good kind of thing. So, part of it is when your child's not feeling great about how things are going, you do need to remind them about what's going well. So, noticing some of the things they're doing — well, don't be over the top. Don't be like, "Oh my gosh, it was so great that you tied your shoes." That's like, yeah, kids are going to see through that really quickly.

But if you're like, "You know, I really appreciated that you got your stuff together and got your backpack ready to go this morning. That really helps me a lot get out the door in the morning." Kids who are feeling that flavor of positive are much more likely to follow along in that thread. I think the other part of this is to keep in mind that oftentimes kids don't do what we need them to do because they're not sure how or they're not confident that what they're going to do is going to be correct.

And so, sometimes if your child is just not following through on the task, isn't doing what you're asking them to do, instead of trying to reinforce in consequence them, take a moment and reteach the skill, model the skill, do the skill together, and ask them, "You know, in the process, did you already know how to do it this way or was this helpful to remind you?" A lot of the kids will roll their eyes, "Yeah I guess." Like we want to do it the right way. And if we're not doing it well or we're not confident, one of the most natural behaviors is to avoid an escape from it or to just freeze and do nothing.

So, I think sometimes the assumption is if kids know how to do the thing we want them to, they're more likely to do it. And if we assume from a positive perspective, my kid's not sure, maybe I should show them again, praise them along the way and see what happens. I think those sort of kind empathic ways of approaching your child goes a lot further than when you're frustrated and notice it's just not happening fast enough, what are you going to bring that child? Negative emotion. They're going to want to avoid you because you're showing them your discomfort. Your "I'm frustrated with you." And that makes it less likely that you're going to get the behavior that you want.

Gretchen: Yep. Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been great.

Rachel: Thank you so much, Andy.

Andy: It's been my pleasure. I love the questions. It feels really real and I'm glad I'm able to share it with you guys because I talk about this stuff a lot.

Gretchen: Fun stuff, but hard.

Andy: Oh yes.

Rachel: It’s hard.

Rachel: Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any thoughts about the episode, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at init@understood.org.

Gretchen: And check out the show notes for this episode, where we have more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

Rachel: This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at Understood.org.

Gretchen: "In It" is produced and edited by Julie Subrin, with additional production support from Cody Nelson and Ash Beecher. Justin D. Wright mixes the show and Mike Errico wrote our theme music. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

Rachel: From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. Thanks for listening.

Gretchen: And thanks for always being "in it" with us.