كافئ أطفالك - تسع عشرة طريقة أخرى لتحفيز الأطفال .. كتاب عندما تكسب قلب طفلك

Reward Your Kids - Nineteen More Ways to Motivate Children .. Book When You Win Your Child's Heart

8- Reward Your Children

The parents of a little girl who had a habit of sucking her thumb used the reward method to discourage their daughter from continuing this habit. They would give her a small gift every time she stopped sucking her thumb for a whole week. When she completed a month without sucking her thumb, they gave her a larger gift. The reward method is an effective motivator for changing people's behavior and is most effective with young children. Of course, we must be very careful not to accustom our children to requiring us to reward them for every good deed they do or achievement they accomplish, especially those routine tasks expected of them inside the house. Children must realize that they are part of the family, and that everyone is responsible for specific tasks around the house without expecting a reward for doing their duty.

When our son Greg was fifteen years old, we found that there was a way to motivate him to do some housework. We would make a list of the chores that needed to be done around the house, and we would give each of these tasks an appropriate reward. Of course, this list of chores wasn’t the small chores that kids weren’t expected to do without a reward. It was more strenuous work like cleaning the garage, weeding the garden, trimming the trees in the backyard, and so on. These jobs were open to all of our kids. But Greg was racing the others, doing most of these jobs for the money he would get for them. This didn’t embarrass or make our other kids jealous, as the opportunities were open to everyone. But sometimes some of them would race to put their name next to the job they wanted, indicating in large letters: “Hands off this job. It’s mine.” He would sign next to this, and the job would become his, and the reward would go to him.