Unconditional Approach to Helping

I Read the book, “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes" by Social Psychologist Alfie Kohn during graduate school at Indiana University.

Here is am Amazon link for the book:




(Note, Recreational Therapists are often considered to be Applied Social Psychologists).

Believe this is a book that all Recreational Therapists should be required to read.

Kohn says that “Positive Rewards” and “Negative punishments” are just two sides of the same coin -- and the coin doesn't buy very much.”

Watch this video. Kohn points out that two studies show that rewarding children for good behavior makes them less generous.

In fact, why would a child share, be generous, or "do the behavior" when no adults are there to give them a reward for it. Hmm... that is something to think about.





Kohn’s biggest argument is that we should move away from the B. F. Skinner’s behavior model and move more towards a humanistic approach that includes unconditional care and education on reasoning. Believe this approach would be best myself.

Studies show that externally motivating a child destroys her internal motivation and creativity, which is the basis for Overjustification Theory.

Recently read Daniel Pink’s [author shown on Oprah] new (2010) book, “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.” Pink’s motivation theory argues that the Behaviorism model is Motivation 2.0. There is a newer, more effective motivation model called Motivation 3.0. Pink points out multiple scientific research studies that repeatedly show that both reward and punishment systems are not effective for lasting, long-term change.

Here is a video by Daniel Pink at the 2009 TED conference. He presents an amazing study on how rewards DO NOT work. This video is mind-shocking. Rewards do the opposite. They are counterproductive and research has shown this for over 40 years. Watch the full video here:



wow - did Pink say that rewards can actually cause harm? Yes, he did.

Here is an Amazon link for Pink's NEW book:




Finished reading Richard Wiseman's new (2009) book, "59 Seconds." In this book, he points out how positive compliments and praise does not work with children.

If you a tell a child she is smart, she'll avoid challenging tasks because she may fail at them and she'll los her self-identify of "being smart." However, if she picks an easier activity that she already knows, she's likely to do it right and be told she's good at doing it. In the long run positive praise can be un-effective. Wiseman says, instead, praise the child on her effort.

Here is a video for Wiseman talking about his new book:



Here is a link for Wiseman's new book:




IN SUMMARY, I Danny P., beleive that people working with children should move away from what B.F. Skinner's behavior modificiaion (b-mod) becuase it is counter-productive in the long run. Beleive we should move more towards an "Unconditional Approach to Helping Children.

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)

No more coloring contests

Judges of coloring contests are like dictators.

A dictatorship is a government fully controlled by one single individual.

Dictators have the power to make choices without the consent of the people.


Child began crying at an undisclosed school. Child was upset because he didn’t “win” a coloring contest. The boy had put a lot of time and effort into his picture. He felt that he should have won. Not sure what the winner of the contest had won. It was something the boy had wanted to win.


Contest rules: Each child was given five different coloring sheets. The child could submit one of her or his favorite sheets for the contest. The judge had to pick one out of 12 entries for the winner. Submitted entries included colored: dogs, cats, heart designs, angels, and various others.


Here are my concerns:

1.) Who says the judge of the contest has the ultimate opinion on what is good in art. It is only an opinion. What the judge feels is “good” may be a lot different from what I feel is “good.” It’s like music. I enjoy country music and would prefer it over many other types of good. Naturally, I’d pick a country song over a heavy metal song any day if 12 songs were submitted. Does that mean the other songs aren’t winners? Not quite. Believe they’re winners for going out and creating something.

In order to win a prize, a child could conform to the judge's one opinion of what is good. If a judge loves cats and hates dogs, then the child could learn, color a picture of a cat -- despite your own interest.

[CONTESTs Need A Warning Label]

Daniel Pink in his 2010 book, Drive, said, “that if you promise a preschooler a certificate for drawing a picture, that child will likely draw a picture for you – and then lose further interest in drawing…. We’re bribing students into compliance instead of challenging them into engagement.”

2.) Art should be done for the internal rewards. Color because it is something fun to do. Paint, create music, scrapbook, or do anything creative for the pure internal joy. It shouldn’t be done for something external. An artist who produces something heartfelt with passion and meaning will create something that is real. A person who creates something just to win a prize or to get money may produce something that is superficial and fake. Take a short cut to get to the award.

Here is one of my favorite books by Alfie Kohn: No Contest: The Case Against Competition. Basically, Kohn argues that competition destroys self-esteem and character.

Comments:

My friend Sarah replied. Here is what she had to say:

The children of employees were the contestants in the coloring contest, and the residents judged their work. I couldn't believe how critical they were of the art work, even though they knew that children had colored the pictures, and that they were all under the age of 10. A big one was if they "colored outside the lines". How sad that we live in a world where "coloring outside the lines" is an actual concept! Like you stated, what may look like a mess to one person may be beautiful art to the other. Why have we created this idea that everything has to be the appropriate color and be inside the lines? Sad.