Reward or Punish - Punish or Reward?

In my opinion, this is one of the most difficult basic questions of parenting: when dealing with prospective behavior of your child, which is more effective: promising to reward for good behavior or threatening to punish for bad behavior?

I’ve got the system down for dealing with immediate past behavior: smacking your brother on the head - punish. Helping your brother reach a toy - reward. Spitting and then screaming "I DON’T WANT TO" at your mother when she asks you to go potty - punish. Going potty when asked - reward. Repeatedly kicking the car when your mother won’t sing the ABCs for a 40th time on the way home from work - punish. Entertaining your brother in the car during a long trip - reward.

In my house, we don’t really use the word punishment. I prefer the word "consequences." My daughter (and to some extent, my son) understands the concept of consequences for actions. If you throw a toy, you immediately lose that toy (it goes on top of the refrigerator until the next day - we have a lot of begging at the fridge in my house because the dog’s treats are also up there.) If you hit, kick, spit, bite, or push another living thing in the house, you go to time out (sit on the step, we call it.) If you scream, you go outside and stand by yourself on the back deck until you are done screaming. (As an aside, this has been one of the most effective punishments in my house for my daughter, a/k/a The Screamer. She doesn’t realize I can still see her from inside the house and almost immediately stops screaming when she thinks no one can see or hear her. I highly recommend it for age-appropriate punishment.)

I often talk about making choices with my kids - if you choose a certain behavior, you must deal with the consequences of your choice. I believe this is a good lesson for life in general. If you choose not to do well in school, there are consequences. If you choose to leave your job and not get another one, there are consequences. If you choose to spend your money on frivolous things, there are consequences. If you choose bad men, there are consequences. Anyway, I digress . . . .

The reward v. punishment for prospective behavior issue has come up recently because my daughter has made the choice to be a complete sassy-brat during naptime at day care. She has always been hard to get to sleep at day care, probably because of the other people in the room. At home, she has no problems going to sleep - not once has she gotten out of her bed before being told to get up. But school is different. Her teachers tell me she is often the last child asleep, but she always eventually goes to sleep.

A couple of weeks ago, however, she refused to take a nap and turned into Princess Bratty-Pants during naptime. I actually don’t mind if she doesn’t nap during the day, she just goes to bed earlier in the evening. And I would be fine if she simply rested quietly on her cot at school and allowed the other children to nap. But, not my Princess Bratty-Pants. If she’s not sleeping, she makes it near impossible for other children to sleep. She does gymnastics on her cot. She knocks things off nearby shelves. She sings Baby Bumblebee and ABCs and Five Little Ducks at the top of her lungs. She talks non-stop. She screams at her teachers "I DON"T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU!"

Lovely.

All this behavior from a girl who is mostly well-behaved at all other times. Her teachers were not amused the first day she did this and stopped me in the hallway before I got to her room. I also was not amused and, before giving her a hug when I picked her, took her into the hallway to have a serious discussion about her behavior. Her hello smile quickly faded when she knew I knew what she had done.

"What happened during naptime today?" Smile fades and lower lip comes out.

"Did you take a nap?" tiny little "no."

"Did you use your mean words with Ms. Brenda?" tinier little "yes" and attempts to hug me.

"That makes me very sad. It makes Ms. Brenda very sad." attempts to change the subject to the new song she learned.

"No. What you did during naptime is not OK." Now, she’s planting little kisses on my hands and forearms.

"Now, there are consequences for your behavior. You will lose dessert tonight after dinner. And you must say you are sorry to Ms. Brenda."

After she went to bed, I pondered what direction to take to stop this behavior in the future. As I saw it, I had two options. The first was to tell her she would be rewarded when she did sleep. The second was to tell her she would be punished when she didn’t sleep. In general, I believe that rewarding good behavior is ultimately more effective. So, we worked out a treat system - if she takes a nap, she gets a small treat on the way home (I happened to have mini-tootsie rolls available). And that worked . . . for about two and a half weeks.

And then there was yesterday.

At naptime, her behavior was much worse and the teachers were not happy at all. This time, however, my daughter showed absolutely no remorse for her actions. When I said that I was very sad she had not taken a nap and used her mean words with Ms. Brenda, she replied, "I DON’T WANT TO TAKE A NAP!!!!!" and burst into tears and screaming and threw herself on the floor. (Exhibit A in support of the case for napping.) All attempts to discuss the issue were pointless, as she had clearly fallen off the ledge of the no-nap tantrum zone. She wailed her way out of the day care, into the car, and all the way home.

Once she was calmed down at home, we had the punishment talk. As a consequence for her actions, she lost her after-dinner dessert, her playtime before bed, and the storytime before bed. This realization caused her to wail again, but when she had calmed down I explained that the consequences of not taking a nap meant she was extra tired at night and had to go to sleep right after dinner. She was not happy, but after about 30 seconds of whining in her bed, she fell asleep at 6 pm.

We will see what happened today at day care. Hopefully, she took a nap and we can go back to rewarding. It has occurred to me while writing this post that the question can be answered without using "or," that the two options are not mutually exclusive. It may be that rewarding and punishing is the appropriate response to this situation. Well, that just shows me that the next time I have a problem, I should just write out the issue and it will resolve itself. Of course, resolving my daughter’s behavior may be much more difficult.