Reward or Punishment? How to Get the Behavior You Want

By Courtney Drake-McDonough

It’s one of those nightmares of parenting. Your child is having a full-on-sit-down-and-won’t-budge fit in the store. People stare, some in judgment, others in commiserating recognition. Do you threaten punishment or entice with a reward to get your child to behave? Which way will prevent you from being either the Wicked Witch of the West or the world’s biggest pushover in your child’s eyes?

Being a parent means confronting behavioral challenges from your children every day. And there’s no shortage of information and advice on how to effectively guide your kids to better behavior.

Among the latest additions are two books: Your Kids Are Your Own Fault: A Guide for Raising Responsible, Productive Adults, by Larry Winget (Gotham, 2009), and How to be a Good Parent by Dealing Effectively With the Most Common Behavioral Problems of Children, by Don Fontenelle, Ph.D. (Pelican Publishing, 2009).

At first glance, you’d think that no two authors could be more different in their approaches. Winget is a flamboyant cowboy-boot wearing speaker, author and television personality whose blunt, “stop whining and just do it” personal- coaching style has many fans. Fontenelle is a noted psychologist who has worked with kids, parents and teachers for some 35 years. He’s the author of 22 books on child and adolescent behavior and an advocate of positive parenting techniques.

We asked each of them whether rewards or punishment yield better child behavior.

Should parents try harder to catch their children doing the right thing – rewarding good behavior, rather than punishing bad?

Winget: Rewarding good behavior so that you get more good behavior is the way to create the kind of kid you want. Ideally, you reward the good behavior so you never have to deal with the bad. However, we don’t live in an ideal world with ideal kids reacting to ideal situations. Bottom line, every kid misbehaves and that behavior must be dealt with immediately. Even if it isn’t convenient, bad behavior can’t be ignored and the correction can’t be put off. Stop, get the child’s attention, communicate what you expected and implement the appropriate consequences.