Hill, Kennedy: Taking Sides

Karen Nazor Hill: My 2-year-old granddaughter is at the stage where she gets excited when we tell her that she has done something good such as putting away a toy, going to the potty, singing a song and so forth. Pretty soon, though, she may expect more for good behavior or acts of kindness, and I am a stickler for not offering monetary rewards for anything. I realize that’s not the case with many parents. I remember when my children were growing up and their friends getting money from their parents for home runs, goals or scoring points at a swim meet. My kids got a hug.

Mark Kennedy: I find it really hard to be consistent with rewards. And kids have long memories. I remember during one reward phase, my then 6-year-old son asked for 25 cents for flushing the commode.

We have a dry-erase chore list on the side of the refrigerator. For a time, my older son could earn stars towards a reward — like a trip to a Lookouts game — after doing a specified number of chores. Somewhere along the line, though, we stopped posting his work, and now the board is a daily reminder of our backsliding as parents.

Karen: At one short period while raising my four children, we did the same thing with a dry-erase board. What I learned, though, was that one of my mischievous children (who is now a doctorate student, so, parents reading this — there’s hope) would add his own good marks to the board, and thus get the top reward. His siblings were aware he was doing this and thought it was funny, so they let him get away with it. My children learned, early on, that doing something the best you can do it is the reward. Believe me, as an adult, you rarely get rewarded for good behavior. It’s reality.

Mark: That’s right. But you certainly do get punished for bad behavior at every age level, whether you’re 5 or 50. At the end of the day, you just want your kids to know that lack of self-control has consequences and that unruly behavior at any age is going to eventually cost them some privileges. The jails are full of free-spirited folks who couldn’t moderate their own “fun.”

I guess you most want your children to understand that there is a correlation between hard work and personal freedoms. If they get that, they won’t develop an oversized sense of entitlement. I see a lot of young adults who get knocked around by life because they never had to work for the things they enjoy.