Bribing Children Research Paper

Should Parents Bribe Their Children to Establish Good Behavior? Bribing children has become common nowadays. Parents pay their children for good grades, they pay their children to do the household chores, and some even pay their children to go to sleep. Many parents believe that bribing children plays an important part of parenting strategy and most parents today openly admit to using this persuasive technique with their children. In fact, according to a recent survey in the U.K, nearly 50 percent of parents admitted to bribing their children to read. (Barack, “Parents, Think Again before Bribing Kids to Read.” Web.) Another new survey by Mumsnet.com, a parenting website, shows an even remarkable result. Of those who responded, 85 percent

It is certainly the easiest way to deal with difficult children and it is only a natural thing for parents to turn this persuasive technique on their children. Raising children can be really demanding and tiring job. “Parents are now busier than ever before, with both parents juggling careers and parenting duties. Frazzled, overworked, and overtired, many parents admit that they don’t want another power struggle.” (Cotter, “Upper-Intermediate News: Bribing Children to Behave.” Web.) In addition to that, “parents and experts alike agree that the dynamic is partly a reflection of the world we live in — where many families have more than previous generations.” (“Parents Buying Off Kids for Good Behavior.”

They can help the children, especially the young ones, to focus their efforts on a task because small children usually need more time to develop internal motivation. (Kutner, “Rewards vs. Bribes.” Web.) Offering rewards for establishing good behavior to children can also make them feel rewarded and appreciated; therefore can motivate them to continue this type of behavior. Toward this matter, Fredric Jones, who would prefer to use the term “incentives” than “bribes”, agrees that motivation can be managed through the use of incentives. However, he immediately adds, “But incentives must be used correctly, or they can create more problems than they solve.” (Jones, “Tools for Teaching.” Web.) An experiment conducted by Roland Fryer Jr., a Harvard economist, also proves this. Fryer used mostly private money to pay 18,000 kids a total of $6.3 million in hundreds of classroom in Chicago, Dallas, Washington, and New York. Some kids were paid for good test scores, others for reading a book. As a result: “If incentives are designed wisely, it appears, payments can indeed boost kids' performance as much as or more than many other reforms you've heard about before — and for a fraction of the cost.” (Ripley, “Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?” Web.) However, the result of Fryer’s experiment is not consistent and it draws a lot of criticism from experts, especially from Edward Deci, a psychologist