I want to open a conversation about bribes vs. incentives, and give you some ideas about impactful approaches to changing challenging behaviors. Lots of parents I work with express a desire to move away from bribing their children to make good choices. Once someone understands the difference between a bribe and an incentive, implementing incentives becomes second nature.

Bribes

Bribes are bargains for behavior changes. They may look similar to incentives, but the motivation behind them is to stop something undesired and essentially conduct “damage control”.

Incentives

Incentives are motivating rewards to encourage desired behavior. Even adults enjoy incentives! Would you go to work if you didn’t get anything in exchange for your time and energy? Even volunteering experiences, for no money or tangible rewards, have incentives: building community, spending time doing something you love, making friends, and helping others. The idea is that using incentives will help children become more intrinsically motivated to make positive choices, eventually allowing the incentive to fall away or lessen.

What's the Difference?

Incentives are helpful tools to help with behavior, compliance, routines, and more. Bribes are attempts to stop an undesired behavior. Incentives can help extinguish or lessen unwanted behaviors. Bribes might work in the moment, but the unwanted behavior typically returns, or even increases. The idea with implementing incentives is to focus on the rewarding positive things you see, rather than coerce with a reward after the negative behavior starts. If an incentive is already put in place, a reminder about the incentive is okay - it is all about the motivation behind the reward. If the goal is to cultivate more good, rather than "stop the bad" -- that is what you want to embrace!

Implementing Incentives

There are many different ways to implement rewards/incentives, but an approach that has worked for several of my clients are either points, or stickers, to earn daily -- for a listed out checklist of behaviors/tasks that can earn the point/sticker, and those points/stickers add up to earning something the child would really enjoy. The actually incentive will depend on what motivates the child, but could include things like a trip to the park, going to the movies, a treat, or time spent doing something fun at home. One way to track reward progress is to make a dry erase chart or printed chart with the days of the week, and add up the points/stickers at the end of each week. The idea is to catch the child "being good" and cultivate more of that!! If you are seeing frequent difficult behaviors, you may start with a daily incentive, and work up to a weekly, biweekly, or monthly incentive.

Example of Weekly Point System:

"Earn 20 minutes of iPad time on Saturday, if you earn 15 points this week!"

Points can be earned by:

1. Transitioning with a Positive Attitude
2. Cleaning Up Toys
3. Saying 1 Kind Thing to a Family Member
4. Asking for Help in a Calm Voice
5. Finishing Homework
… & Add any other desired behavior(s)!

You can set a desired points “goal”, and then challenge your child to start earning!

Happy incentivizing! <3