Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #137 Punishment & Rewards with Alfie Kohn
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The research is very clear rewards like punishments, can only
- 0:04Speaker 1: get temporary compliance, and in both cases they retard moral
- 0:10Speaker 1: and social and intellectual development.
- 0:16Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
- 0:19Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Now.
- 0:21Speaker 2: Hello, I'm doctor Justin Colson here with my wife and
- 0:25Speaker 2: co host. I got in trouble for saying that Kylie
- 0:27Speaker 2: was my co host. She said, no, no, no, I'm wife
- 0:29Speaker 2: and co host. So we're going to get this right.
- 0:31Speaker 2: Here with my wife and co host and missus Happy Families, Kylie,
- 0:34Speaker 2: thank you for being here.
- 0:36Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 0:36Speaker 2: This is day four of our podcast. How are you
- 0:40Speaker 2: finding it?
- 0:41Speaker 3: I'm loving it.
- 0:42Speaker 2: It's a bit stressful.
- 0:43Speaker 3: Is a bit stressful, be honest, pushing me out of
- 0:45Speaker 3: my comfort zone. But I am absolutely loving the challenge.
- 0:50Speaker 2: I've got to tell you, all we talk about now
- 0:51Speaker 2: is the podcast. That's all we talk about, and we've
- 0:54Speaker 2: got to listen to every episode five times so that
- 0:56Speaker 2: we can deconstruct it. And I think we're actually learning
- 0:59Speaker 2: some really cool stuff about each other and about how
- 1:01Speaker 2: we can work together.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Yeah. I agree.
- 1:03Speaker 2: Anyway, we're the parents of six kids. I've written six
- 1:05Speaker 2: books about raising happy families. And today on the podcast
- 1:08Speaker 2: something pretty big.
- 1:09Speaker 3: I'm pretty excited about our interview today. We're going to
- 1:13Speaker 3: talk to someone who's been on Oprah. Do you know
- 1:15Speaker 3: how big a deal that is.
- 1:16Speaker 2: I haven't been on Oprah, so I don't know it's
- 1:18Speaker 2: a big deal. I'd love to be on OPRAH. That
- 1:20Speaker 2: would be I.
- 1:21Speaker 3: Would love you to be on Oprah too. That means
- 1:23Speaker 3: I might actually get to meet her. Time magazine has
- 1:26Speaker 3: described him as being perhaps the country's most outspoken critic
- 1:31Speaker 3: on education's fixation with grades and test scores, and justin
- 1:35Speaker 3: he probably is one of the biggest influences on you
- 1:39Speaker 3: of any author. I know.
- 1:41Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. If I was to put a list
- 1:42Speaker 2: together of people that I would love to interview for
- 1:44Speaker 2: this podcast, this guy would be right at the very
- 1:46Speaker 2: told the list. And we've got him. So I'm crazy exciting.
- 1:50Speaker 2: I'm ecstatic. Alfie Kohane is the name of the person
- 1:52Speaker 2: we're speaking to in just a sec. He's a very
- 1:55Speaker 2: very well known author and writer around parenting and education,
- 2:00Speaker 2: those kinds of areas. In nineteen ninety three, Alfie wrote
- 2:03Speaker 2: a book that was called Punished by Rewards, and that
- 2:07Speaker 2: was pretty much the central reason that I left my
- 2:11Speaker 2: radio career and went back to school to study psychology.
- 2:14Speaker 2: Alfie is the reason that I am, in many ways
- 2:17Speaker 2: who I am today. His influence has been far reaching,
- 2:20Speaker 2: and he's affected not just me, but our family and
- 2:22Speaker 2: obviously thousands and thousands and tens of thousands, if not
- 2:24Speaker 2: millions of parents around the globe. So so excited to
- 2:27Speaker 2: be able to talk to Alfie today.
- 2:29Speaker 3: You know, I actually remember when you brought that book
- 2:31Speaker 3: home and you wanted me to read it. It's not
- 2:33Speaker 3: a book for the fainthearted. It was a really, really
- 2:36Speaker 3: intense book. But I remember how excited you were about
- 2:40Speaker 3: all of the concepts you were learning, and specifically actually
- 2:44Speaker 3: having an opportunity to talk to Alfie on the phone
- 2:46Speaker 3: for the first time. I remember that.
- 2:49Speaker 2: Yeah, not only did I talk to him, but then
- 2:50Speaker 2: a few years later he was in Australia and I
- 2:52Speaker 2: got to hang out with him. In fact, I drove
- 2:53Speaker 2: him from the central coast of New South Wales down
- 2:55Speaker 2: to Sydney because he needed transport, and I was the
- 2:57Speaker 2: one that contacted the organizers and said, what you need,
- 3:00Speaker 2: how can I help? And I said, oh, we really
- 3:01Speaker 2: need someone to get taken for a drive. So I
- 3:04Speaker 2: can do that. So that was pretty epic. And Alfie,
- 3:06Speaker 2: we've got you here right now.
- 3:07Speaker 3: Elfie, can I start Hubert, I'd love to ask you
- 3:10Speaker 3: a question when we think about punishment and discipline together,
- 3:15Speaker 3: why is punishment such a lousy way to discipline our kids?
- 3:19Speaker 1: Because punishment teaches power. It undermines the possibility of moral
- 3:25Speaker 1: growth in children. If I say to kids, do this,
- 3:28Speaker 1: or here's how I'm going to make you suffer, which
- 3:31Speaker 1: is what punishment is, and by the way, you can
- 3:33Speaker 1: call it consequences, it's still the same thing. It says
- 3:37Speaker 1: to kids, do this or here's what I'm going to
- 3:39Speaker 1: do to you. Then kids are first of all thinking
- 3:43Speaker 1: only about themselves how do I avoid the punishment, never
- 3:48Speaker 1: about the impact of their actions on others. All use
- 3:53Speaker 1: of consequences punishment focuses kids narrowly on self interest. And secondly,
- 4:01Speaker 1: what they have modeled for them is that someone who
- 4:04Speaker 1: has more power than they do can coerce them into
- 4:08Speaker 1: doing whatever he or she wants. And that's the main
- 4:11Speaker 1: lesson that kids learn. Sometimes they take it out on
- 4:16Speaker 1: others that very same day when they come across peers
- 4:19Speaker 1: who have less power than they do, so punishment is
- 4:22Speaker 1: a way of doing things to children, and the only
- 4:26Speaker 1: way we help kids become good people is by working
- 4:29Speaker 1: with them. To put it slightly differently, the only thing
- 4:33Speaker 1: you can ever get from any kind of punishment, from
- 4:37Speaker 1: forcible isolation, which is euphemistically called time out, to withdrawal
- 4:43Speaker 1: of privileges or yelling, spanking, whatever it is, the only
- 4:47Speaker 1: thing you can ever get is temporary compliance at an
- 4:52Speaker 1: enormous cost.
- 4:53Speaker 2: Yeah, that reminds me a story that I love to tell.
- 4:56Speaker 2: When I was about fifteen years old, I was I
- 4:58Speaker 2: was in the kitchen. My little sister was driving me
- 5:01Speaker 2: up the wall, and I said a word that we're
- 5:03Speaker 2: not supposed to use in my family. You know, we
- 5:06Speaker 2: had some very strict rules around the kind of language
- 5:08Speaker 2: we used. And I called my sister a stupid idiot.
- 5:10Speaker 2: I said something like, oh, shut up, your stupid idiot.
- 5:13Speaker 2: My mom heard and came dashing into the kitchen, said, justin,
- 5:16Speaker 2: we don't speak like that in this house. You need
- 5:19Speaker 2: to say sorry to your sister right now. And so
- 5:22Speaker 2: here's a false apology. So I'm obviously being dishonest when
- 5:24Speaker 2: I apologize. But I looked at my sister and I
- 5:28Speaker 2: said to a fine carena, I'm sorry, you're a stupid idiot,
- 5:31Speaker 2: which obviously made a lot of sense to my fifteen
- 5:34Speaker 2: year old brain, but it infuriated my mum, who, with
- 5:37Speaker 2: the best of intentions, said, you go to your room
- 5:39Speaker 2: right now, and you think about what you just said.
- 5:41Speaker 2: And you know, Alfie, I went.
- 5:42Speaker 1: I had any child in history ever thought in a
- 5:46Speaker 1: constructive way after being forcibly isolated. What you're thinking about
- 5:50Speaker 1: in that room is how unfair it is that you're there,
- 5:54Speaker 1: how you're misunderstood, and how you're going to get back
- 5:57Speaker 1: at your sister when your mother isn't looking. Never can
- 6:01Speaker 1: you get a response by simply making kids unhappy, by
- 6:05Speaker 1: taking things away from them or putting them in their
- 6:07Speaker 1: rooms or whatever, and forced apologies, Well, that teaches kids
- 6:12Speaker 1: to lie. Yeah, and what all say things that they
- 6:14Speaker 1: don't believe.
- 6:15Speaker 2: What I was going to say is that I went
- 6:16Speaker 2: to my room, I sat on my bed, and I
- 6:17Speaker 2: thought carefully about how I was an impediment to my
- 6:19Speaker 2: family's happiness, and I resolved to be a bit of human.
- 6:22Speaker 2: But I didn't really I did exactly Yeah, what you said.
- 6:26Speaker 2: I was furious about my mom and how she didn't
- 6:28Speaker 2: understand me. It really ruptured my relationship in that moment, right,
- 6:31Speaker 2: and boy boy, I couldn't wait to get back at
- 6:34Speaker 2: my sister when mom wasn't watching.
- 6:37Speaker 1: Right, And the alternative to anticipate maybe where you're going next,
- 6:41Speaker 1: Sin said, no, we have very limited time. That is
- 6:44Speaker 1: offered to many parents is instead of using sticks, use tarrots.
- 6:48Speaker 1: Instead of controlling them by making them suffer if they
- 6:51Speaker 1: don't do what you want, give them a doggy biscuit
- 6:54Speaker 1: if they do do what you want. But rewards are
- 6:57Speaker 1: just the flip side of punishment. So if I threaten
- 7:01Speaker 1: to punish a kid, I'm saying, do this, here's what
- 7:04Speaker 1: I'm going to do to you. If I reward children
- 7:07Speaker 1: or offer to reward them, I'm saying, do this and
- 7:10Speaker 1: you'll get that. So in the first case with punishment,
- 7:14Speaker 1: kids come to ask the question what do they want
- 7:17Speaker 1: me to do and what happens to me if I
- 7:19Speaker 1: don't do it? If you offer a reward for good behavior,
- 7:24Speaker 1: which typically means mindlessly obedient, not generous or thoughtful, but
- 7:30Speaker 1: then the question kids come to ask is what do
- 7:33Speaker 1: they want me to do and what do I get
- 7:36Speaker 1: for doing it? And so the research is very clear
- 7:40Speaker 1: that rewards like punishments, can only get temporary compliance, and
- 7:45Speaker 1: in both cases they retard moral and social and intellectual development.
- 7:52Speaker 1: Because we have hundreds of studies showing that the more
- 7:57Speaker 1: you reward people for doing something, the more they tend
- 8:01Speaker 1: to lose interest in whatever they had to do to
- 8:04Speaker 1: get the reward. So, on the one hand, if you
- 8:08Speaker 1: want to destroy children's interest in reading, for example, you
- 8:12Speaker 1: would offer a prize for reading a book because now
- 8:15Speaker 1: you've taught them that reading is something you would never
- 8:18Speaker 1: want to do, and it becomes devalued. They say, well,
- 8:22Speaker 1: you know, if this was so much fun, they wouldn't
- 8:24Speaker 1: have to bribe me to do it. But the other
- 8:26Speaker 1: reason that it devalues, that that kids lose interest in
- 8:30Speaker 1: whatever they're rewarded for doing is because it's it's control.
- 8:35Speaker 1: If I punish a kid for doing something, it's obvious
- 8:37Speaker 1: I'm controlling them. But what a lot of parents don't
- 8:40Speaker 1: realize is if they reward kids, and that includes verbal
- 8:44Speaker 1: rewards like good job, I really like thewau dot dot dot,
- 8:49Speaker 1: this is just a verbal doggie biscuit, and all rewards
- 8:53Speaker 1: are just sugar coated control, and kids don't like being controlled,
- 8:59Speaker 1: So We have research that shows that almost anything that
- 9:02Speaker 1: kids are rewarded for doing becomes less appealing to them.
- 9:06Speaker 1: They have less commitment to it over the long haul
- 9:10Speaker 1: of Several studies have shown a couple of just in
- 9:13Speaker 1: the last few years that children who are frequently rewarded
- 9:18Speaker 1: or praised by their parents are less generous and helpful
- 9:22Speaker 1: than other kids. And the effect is most pronounced if
- 9:27Speaker 1: they're rewarded or praised for being helpful. So you are
- 9:32Speaker 1: undermining with the use of any kind of reward, including
- 9:37Speaker 1: praise or punishment, including time out. The only alternatives to
- 9:43Speaker 1: this are not quite so easy to script or to
- 9:47Speaker 1: sa a one size fits all when you do this,
- 9:49Speaker 1: when your kid does this, you should do that. So
- 9:52Speaker 1: it's frustrating because you actually have to think, as opposed
- 9:54Speaker 1: to being scripted out by a parenting expert. But rewards
- 9:58Speaker 1: and punishments are ways, as a say, of doing things
- 10:01Speaker 1: to children forms of control. What helps us to become
- 10:05Speaker 1: the best parents we can is to figure out ways
- 10:08Speaker 1: of working with them to solve problems.
- 10:11Speaker 3: Alvie, what about those parents who would say, but I
- 10:14Speaker 3: just can't get my kids to do anything without a reward.
- 10:17Speaker 3: You know those parents who are using reward charts or
- 10:20Speaker 3: other ways of coercing the children to do the household chores.
- 10:25Speaker 3: Some parents would actually say that the kids are more
- 10:28Speaker 3: motivated by using them.
- 10:30Speaker 1: Right, and the question is not how do we motivate kids?
- 10:34Speaker 1: The question is how our kids motivated. For the last
- 10:39Speaker 1: few decades, psychologists have helped us understand that there are
- 10:42Speaker 1: different kinds of motivation, and the kind matters more than
- 10:46Speaker 1: the amount. Specifically, psychologists talk about the difference between intrinsic motivation,
- 10:52Speaker 1: which means you do something because you want to do it,
- 10:54Speaker 1: because you get a kick out of it, it's satisfying,
- 10:57Speaker 1: and extrinsic motivation, which is where you do it to
- 11:01Speaker 1: avoid a punishment or to get a reward. And what
- 11:04Speaker 1: we know from research as well as experience is that
- 11:07Speaker 1: the two tend to be inversely related. So the child
- 11:11Speaker 1: who seems quote motivated to do it in order to
- 11:15Speaker 1: get the gold star, the ice cream, calm, the good job, whatever,
- 11:18Speaker 1: has more extrinsic motivation, and as a direct result, is
- 11:23Speaker 1: now less committed to being a helpful person, less interested
- 11:28Speaker 1: in whether his actions around the house are making other
- 11:31Speaker 1: people feel good. So I guess when I see the
- 11:34Speaker 1: when parents say, you know they work. I always ask
- 11:37Speaker 1: work to do what what's your goal? You can get
- 11:41Speaker 1: mindless obedience in the short run if the reward is
- 11:45Speaker 1: juicy enough or the punishment is awful enough. What you
- 11:49Speaker 1: can never get is a child who is happy, more ethical,
- 11:54Speaker 1: more compassionate, or caring, more of an independent thinker, all
- 11:59Speaker 1: of the things we parents want in the long run
- 12:03Speaker 1: for our goal. Rewards like star charts and stickers and
- 12:07Speaker 1: the life actually get in the way of those more ambitious, meaningful,
- 12:12Speaker 1: long term goals.
- 12:13Speaker 2: If I'm not going to use punishments and I'm not
- 12:16Speaker 2: going to use rewards, what does Alfie Kane and the
- 12:19Speaker 2: research suggest would be the best way to respond to
- 12:23Speaker 2: this child who is just driving me up the wall?
- 12:26Speaker 1: Talk less, ask more. There's no one size fits all solution.
- 12:32Speaker 1: As I indicated before, everything will depend on what's going
- 12:35Speaker 1: on in this child's environment and in this child's head.
- 12:39Speaker 1: Five different kids who are seen as difficult or troubling
- 12:43Speaker 1: or making us go crazy and pushing our buttons, maybe
- 12:47Speaker 1: doing it for five completely different reasons, and each of
- 12:50Speaker 1: those reasons calls for a different course of action. I mean,
- 12:54Speaker 1: this is the thing. When I wrote my book unconditional parenting,
- 12:57Speaker 1: which is get specifically to looking at paran punished by rewards,
- 13:01Speaker 1: also looks at schools and workplaces as well as families.
- 13:05Speaker 1: But I had to in the working with section the
- 13:09Speaker 1: what do we do instead? You know, break the bad
- 13:11Speaker 1: news that I'm not going to give you a magic formula.
- 13:14Speaker 1: If a child is acting this way rolling the eyes,
- 13:18Speaker 1: because frankly we're saying stuff that deserves an eye rolling,
- 13:23Speaker 1: then the problem is not the kid. The problem is
- 13:26Speaker 1: with what we have been doing that we need to rethink,
- 13:30Speaker 1: and we need to come to the child and say,
- 13:33Speaker 1: I'm really frustrated sometimes by your attitude here, and I
- 13:36Speaker 1: want to hear where it's coming from. And then you
- 13:38Speaker 1: have to listen for the answer without getting defensive or huffy.
- 13:41Speaker 1: And then when there's a particular problem, like we want
- 13:44Speaker 1: to get to the house clean, I don't know about
- 13:46Speaker 1: using a different technique to get the kid's room clean.
- 13:49Speaker 1: I mean, it's the kid's room, isn't it. Why would
- 13:51Speaker 1: the kid have to keep it up to our standards?
- 13:54Speaker 1: In other words, the premise of the question here ought
- 13:56Speaker 1: to be called into question. Don't ask how I get
- 14:00Speaker 1: the kid to do X? If I can't use punishments
- 14:03Speaker 1: and rewards. Begin by asking whether X really needs to
- 14:07Speaker 1: be done. But if we're convinced it does like everybody
- 14:10Speaker 1: should pitch in with stuff around dinner, then I would
- 14:13Speaker 1: be asking the child, you know what's the problem here?
- 14:18Speaker 1: What can be done? What do you think you can
- 14:21Speaker 1: do in order to help help things go smoothly whenever possible.
- 14:26Speaker 1: Kids learn to make good decisions by making decisions, not
- 14:31Speaker 1: by following directions, and so we end up getting kids
- 14:35Speaker 1: who are happier to participate because they feel trusted and
- 14:40Speaker 1: respected as a result of our asking about their experience
- 14:46Speaker 1: and responding appropriately rather than mindlessly and unilaterally trying to
- 14:51Speaker 1: impose our demands and agenda on them.
- 14:54Speaker 2: It sounds like something that I share with parents is
- 14:56Speaker 2: what I call the three a's of effective discipline. When
- 15:00Speaker 2: I say discipline, I mean discipline is teaching and guiding
- 15:02Speaker 2: and instructing. It's helping our children to internalize those things
- 15:06Speaker 2: that matter most. So I talk about how we need
- 15:08Speaker 2: to explore their world, explore why they're struggling with this
- 15:12Speaker 2: question that we've asked, which helps us to understand whether
- 15:14Speaker 2: it was a good question or a good behavior or
- 15:17Speaker 2: requested in the first place, and then we explain what
- 15:20Speaker 2: our rationale is so that they can at least see
- 15:22Speaker 2: what our perspective is, and then we empower them to
- 15:24Speaker 2: work together with us to find a solution that's mutually agreeable.
- 15:27Speaker 2: It sounds to me like that's the kind of process
- 15:29Speaker 2: that you're describing.
- 15:31Speaker 1: Uh yes, but with not to throw away, but to
- 15:35Speaker 1: really linger on the problem. On that one aspect that
- 15:39Speaker 1: a lot of times when kids don't do what we've
- 15:41Speaker 1: told them, the problem is with what we've told them,
- 15:44Speaker 1: and so we have to begin by being willing to
- 15:48Speaker 1: question the premise, whether it's what we're asking of them
- 15:51Speaker 1: is reasonable, whether it's developmentally appropriate, and so on, and
- 15:55Speaker 1: then to keep checking back with them. It's let them
- 15:58Speaker 1: propose and then let's talk about it later to see
- 16:04Speaker 1: how it's going.
- 16:04Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like effective exploration is the is the
- 16:07Speaker 2: central pillar there, Alfie. This has just been such an
- 16:10Speaker 2: awesome conversation. Thank you so much for your time. It's
- 16:12Speaker 2: been an absolute pleasure speaking about the problems of punishment
- 16:16Speaker 2: and rewards being used as a way to get our
- 16:19Speaker 2: kids to do what we want them to do.
- 16:21Speaker 3: I reckon we need to get Alfie backy In Justin,
- 16:23Speaker 3: that was just such a worthwhile conversation.
- 16:26Speaker 1: Do you reckon We could have you back, Elfie, Sure
- 16:28Speaker 1: be happy to do it.
- 16:29Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe we can talk about one of your other books,
- 16:31Speaker 2: Unconditional Parenting. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast.
- 16:37Speaker 2: I want to just Kylie, I'm going to get you
- 16:39Speaker 2: to share a review ruther than me because I always
- 16:41Speaker 2: shared these reviews. But we've had another five star review
- 16:44Speaker 2: coming in the last day or so. We sure have.
- 16:46Speaker 3: Mookie wat said, my friend recommended this podcast channel, and
- 16:51Speaker 3: I'm so glad I gave it a go. It was
- 16:54Speaker 3: great content and very relatable. My daughter is still quite young,
- 16:57Speaker 3: but I think it's great as a parent to get
- 16:59Speaker 3: an good mindset when it comes to parenting and start
- 17:02Speaker 3: working on those techniques that have been.
- 17:03Speaker 2: Discussed five stars.
- 17:05Speaker 1: Love that.
- 17:05Speaker 2: Thank you so much for the five star reviews. It's
- 17:07Speaker 2: your reviews that help people to find the podcast. It's
- 17:10Speaker 2: the five star reviews that bump it up along the
- 17:12Speaker 2: Apple let's take notice of this podcast sort of ratings thing,
- 17:16Speaker 2: So please jump onto either Apple or wherever you get
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- 17:22Speaker 2: makes so much of a difference. Other than that, if
- 17:24Speaker 2: you'd like morefo about how we can make your family happier,
- 17:26Speaker 2: please jump onto our website Happyfamilies dot com dot au,
- 17:31Speaker 2: or you can find us on Instagram and on Facebook.
- 17:34Speaker 2: Dr Justin Colson's Happy Families. Oh by the way, a
- 17:37Speaker 2: quick note before we run tonight. If you're a Happy
- 17:40Speaker 2: Family's member, we've got the Q and A your questions
- 17:44Speaker 2: answered live by me via zoom. Please join us for that.
- 17:47Speaker 2: And on Monday we've got teams, tweens and screens a
- 17:50Speaker 2: webinar that is looking to be very very popular. Hope
- 17:53Speaker 2: to see there