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I always thought the allowance system worked ok, but this might be better? Starting at around 5yo my parents would reward my chores with weekly allowance money
by gkhartman 5y ago
I always thought the allowance system worked ok, but this might be better? Starting at around 5yo my parents would reward my chores with weekly allowance money (usually a few bucks a week). If I neglected my responsibilities, my allowance was reduced that week. They would explain the reasoning for the lower reward and I would often make it up by doing a different chore. They laid it out with an explanation along the lines of: "if you do x, you get the pay, if I do x, I keep the pay". Even to a 5yo that just seemed fair and it would encourage me to pick up extra chores in hopes of getting a few extra bucks. I learned fast that doing nothing meant I had little control over the purchase of Batman Action figures and video game cartridges.
- spoonjim 5y agoThis works well to get the chore done, as a captive supply of low wage labor. If the goal is rather to instill a set of responsible habits that will serve the child in adulthood, the allowance system might fail when a “Deus ex machina” is no longer present to reward or punish.
- gkhartman 5y agoI've found that there's a natural shift at some point where you know the reward has shifted from a financial one to something different. In the dish washing example, it's the reward of clean dishes vs the punishment of having no clean dishes combined with a smelly sink full of dishes. That said, I've definitely lived with roommates that didn't go through that transition.
- kqr 5y agoExtrinsic motivation (which is what this is) is tricky for several reasons. First of all, it kills intrinsic motivation. Once you start to reward someone materially for behaviour, you have to continue in perpetuity because they no longer see any reason to do the thing "for its own reward", as we say. Second, you replace an imperative (one washes one's dishes) with a business transaction (is the proposed payout really superior to the opportunity loss of my time?) Third, you introduce odd incentives to optimise and find loopholes that allow you to get away with as little as possible for as much as possible. It simply becomes a very different game. It seems like that worked out for you, which is great, but I'd be very careful about doing it with my children.
- andrei_says_ 5y agoAlfie Kohn’s book Punished by Rewards goes in depth with this and provides tons of research. It is mind blowing how ingrained extrinsic motivation methods are in our families, culture, and institutions - despite being clearly counterproductive and downright harmful.
- kqr 5y agoI think our obsession with extrinsic motivation is a fairly recent phenomenon, that came with the industrial revolution and the capitalist bureaucracies it spawned to control workers. So it's not that surprising. But I'm glad more and more people are starting to see it for the historic anomaly it is!
- mensetmanusman 5y agoAs an adult, do you feel like this had any effect on your intrinsic motivation levels when tasks are unrelated to financial gain?
- gkhartman 5y agoThat's an interesting one. I've asked myself this question before, but it's a hard one to answer since we can't reset our age for scientific comparison. It worked pretty well for me, but I could see it going sideways for other personality types.
- kayodelycaon 5y agoThis system completely failed to work for me. Mostly because the consequences were too far removed from the actions. (ADHD throws a wrench into a lot of things.)
- nicoburns 5y agoThis completely failed with me. I wasn’t interested in the money and was very happy that I no longer needed to do chores. My parents abandoned the approach after about 6 weeks.