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Mark Brandenburg has a Masters degree in counseling psychology and has been a counselor, business consultant, sports counselor, and a certified life and business coach. He has worked with individuals, teams, and businesses to improve their performance for over 20 years.
Prior to life and business coaching Mark was a world-ranked professional tennis player and has coached other world-ranked athletes. He has helped thousands of individuals to implement his coaching techniques.
Mark specializes in coaching men to balance their lives and to improve the important relationships in their lives. He is the author of “25 Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers,” and “Fix Your Wife in 30 Days or Less” (And Improve Yourself at the Same Time).
BOOKS BY MARK BRANDENBURG
Click here to buy
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Monthly Column... |
Rewarding Our Children
by
, M.A., C.P.P.C., C.S.C.
To use rewards with our kids we generally must see them in the act of doing something we approve of or we must respond to the favorable results of their actions. We use punishment in the same way. We are aware of them doing something we disapprove of and we then shell out the punishment. The problem here is not that rewards and punishments don’t have immediate results. They often do have quick results. Kids often will become more obedient when threatened with punishment and work hard when promised a valuable reward.
The problem is what happens when the parents aren’t around. To develop responsible, self-disciplined kids, fathers can promote the idea that we do certain things because it’s the kind of thing that this family does and because there is some enjoyment in the actual doing of the task. Even if it’s a task we don’t like doing we understand that it’s for a good cause (our family can enjoy the house more because I helped clean it).
This is how we help them develop what’s called an internal locus of control. When our children have a well-developed internal locus of control they will be more responsible, more disciplined, and they will have better self-control. They learn that we often do things because there is some inherent value in doing these things and that they are necessary and sometimes even enjoyable!
When we give rewards to our kids for the things that they do we effectively reduce any internal locus of control that they have. We also create children who may temporarily perform to a certain standard but who aren’t likely to continue the performance without the “carrot” dangling in front of them. These kinds of values must come from inside of our children.
In his book, “Punished by Rewards,” author Alfie Kohn writes, “But if we are ultimately concerned with the kind of people our children will become, there are no shortcuts. Good values have to be grown from the inside out. Rewards and punishment can change behavior (for a while), but they cannot change the person who engages in the behavior, at least in the way we want. No behavioral manipulation ever helped a child develop a commitment to become a caring and responsible person. No reward for doing something we approve of ever gave a child a reason for continuing to act that way when there was no longer any reward to be gained for doing so.”
Fathers can also remember how important it is to allow your young children to help out with tasks around the house (without being rewarded!) Children naturally want to help out their parents and to be a part of the family chores. There is recent research that suggests that one of the main factors responsible for success and happiness in adults is how involved they were in doing household chores when they were as young as age three or four! Fathers can tap into this natural inclination of children to be involved in
family chores and to allow them opportunities to be active participants.
While it is easy to do things yourself because of how messy or slow your children may be, it is far messier and slower in the future when they refuse to help out unless they are rewarded for it. In other words, treat your kids like they’re capable; give them tasks and you will be rewarded! Not only that, you won’t have to give out rewards yourself!
Here are some action steps for fathers concerning rewards:
• Look at how you are doing or not doing rewards now. Are you promising candy for behaving well at grandma’s house? Even the smallest rewards now can “set the table” for bigger expectations by your kids in the future.
• Start giving your kids tasks that they can be responsible for at a very early age. See them as capable of it and treat them that way.
• Talk often about how you are a family that “works together” and “cooperates” with each other in order to complete the tasks that need to be done.
• Use “subtle” rewards with your kids. “As soon as you clean up you can go to grandma’s,” can work very well. “If you clean up I’ll give you some candy,” will usually turn around and bite you in the rear later on.
Fathers can help give their children a sense of helping and shared responsibility for the family which can last a lifetime. The idea of cooperation isn’t something kids are born with. They learn it from the inside out. Help your kids to learn it and you’ll both benefit.
Happy Fathering,
Mark Brandenburg M.A., C.P.P.C., C.S.C. © 2003
BOOKS BY MARK BRANDENBURG - Click here to buy
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25 Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers
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60 Tips for Fathers to Create Happy, Connected, and Responsible Kids
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"Fix Your Wife in 30 Days or Less" (And Improve Yourself at the Same Time)
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