The problem with Rewarding Children

Some treatment facilities for children and youth use B. F. Skinners' behavior-modfication as a treatment.

I'm opposed to Skinnerism. Think it is awful and counterproductive to helping children with behavior problems.

I am more along the lines of other ideas, including:

Carl Rogers - Humansitic approach
Csíkszentmihályi and Seligman - Positive psychology

and various social psychologists. I enjoy books by Deci and Flaste and Daniel Pink's new book on motivation, Drive.

One of my favorite authors is Alfie Kohn. I'd like to share three links to Alfie Kohn's web-site that has interesting articles that I beleive all people working with children should read.

Here they are:
risk of rewards
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/pdf/The%20Risks%20of%20Rewards.pdf

case against golden stars
http://www.alfiekohn.org/articles.htm#null

b.f. skinner:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/articles.htm#null



Here are some of the books by Alfie Kohn:

No Contest: The Case Against Competition (Houghton Mifflin, 1986/1992)
You Know What They Say...: The Truth About Popular Beliefs (HarperCollins, 1990)
The Brighter Side of Human Nature: Altruism and Empathy in Everyday Life (Basic Books, 1990)
Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes (Houghton Mifflin, 1993/1999)
Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1996/2006)
What To Look For In A Classroom... And Other Essays (Jossey-Bass, 1998)
The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools (Heinemann, 2000)
What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated? And More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies (Beacon Press, 2004)
Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason (Atria Books, 2005)
The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing (Da Capo Books, 2006)