It is no secret to most parents that many children do not like to read. Reading is an act that requires considerable effort, especially at the beginning, when they still have to automate reading. Therefore, it is not surprising that they are reluctant.
Moreover, in a world full of mobile phones with hundreds of video games and thousands of videos at our fingertips, reading seems like a boring and uninteresting activity. That’s why more and more parents are paying their children to read.
One parent said that after paying $300 for a year, it seems her child has finally made reading a habit. Another said she went a step further and financially rewarded her children for doing homework because “positive reinforcement is a powerful tool.” Even some mothers, initially reluctant to “bribe” their children to read, have eventually relented.
Parenthesis required…
Have we gone crazy?
End of parentheses.
Why is it not a good idea to pay children to read?
In 1973, psychologists at Stanford and Michigan University recruited preschool children who showed an intrinsic interest in drawing. They divided them into three groups:
1. Guaranteed reward. The children were asked to draw in order to obtain a reward.
2. Unexpected reward: The children drew and at the end received a surprise reward.
3. No reward. The little ones did not receive any reward.
One to two weeks after the experimental sessions, the researchers reintroduced the drawing activity into the classrooms. They found that children who were rewarded with a guaranteed reward spent half as much time drawing compared to those who did not receive a reward, meaning their intrinsic motivation for the activity had decreased.
This is not the only study to show that, as a general rule, external rewards do not contribute to developing intrinsic motivation and can even harm it. Another experiment recently conducted at the Max Planck Institute found that at just 3 years of age, the expectation of receiving a material reward undermines children’s initial motivation to share.
Positive reinforcement is an educational tool that we should use whenever possible. There is no doubt about it. But external rewards are not the best way to reinforce a behavior, especially if we want it to be maintained in the long term and be a source of personal satisfaction, rather than a simple habit or an obligation.
External rewards fuel extrinsic motivation, which can quickly change children’s behavior, but it also tends to fade just as quickly when the reinforcement is removed. In addition, behaviors driven by extrinsic motivation are often passive.
Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is autonomously reinforced through the positive emotions generated by the experience itself. As a result, these behaviors will be more persistent and stable over time and will not be as influenced by external changes.
The easiest path doesn’t always lead to where we want to go
Paying children to read or do homework is the easy way out. And today, we all seem too exhausted or self-absorbed to take any other route. In fact, there are many parents who see nothing wrong with it since, after all, “many adults work because they are paid to do so” – I quote their reasoning verbatim.
And that is precisely one of the problems with this approach. Teaching children that others can pay us to take up time in our lives, to do things we don’t like, will not help them become more self-determined people who pursue their dreams. Instead, it will push them to become cogs in the system that move according to the value of external rewards.
If you want your child to read, study, or help you with chores, show them the importance of these activities and find strategies to make them enjoy them. Is it complicated? Yes. Impossible? No, millions of mothers and fathers from generations before us have done it.
Giving children the message that they should be driven by money or material rewards will not develop their intrinsic motivation. It will not help them look within and discover what they want as they grow up. Reading, or anything else we spend a significant amount of time on in our lives, should not be a mere habit, but something we truly enjoy.
In the end, reading for the sake of reading it’s not a big deal. Meaningful reading is the art of making sense of what we read and making that new information broaden our perspective on life. As Francis Bacon said, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” It’s not enough to teach a habit, you have to ignite a passion. And that doesn’t come by paying.
References:
Ulber, J. et. Al. (2016) Extrinsic Rewards Diminish Costly Sharing in 3-Year-Olds. Child Development; 87(4): 1192–1203.
Lepper, M. et. Al. (1973) Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: a test of the «overjustification» hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; 28(1): 129-137.
