Page 85 - The Intentional Parent

Turning Intention Into Action
There are a few things to remember about rewarding a behavior that could help you use reward as an effective leadership tool.
First, and most importantly, it is tough to make reward work if the reward is too far off into the future. The parent who promises a trip to Disneyworld for an excellent report card, might not be incentivizing a child in the most effective way because the reward might be weeks or months into the future. Try to make your reward come close in time to the performance of the behavior. Of course, you can always combine short and long term rewards so that your child is rewarded for smaller goals (like good test and quiz grades) leading up to the bigger goal (getting a good report card grade).
Second, make your contingencies very clear. Here are some examples of contingencies that are not so clear. The contingencies (goals) are in italics.
“You can [do, have, earn] this if you are good.” “You can [do, have, earn] this if you behave.”
These goals are far too general and global. When goals are stated in such unclear terms, kids often assume that by doing nothing, they should be rewarded.
Good family leaders promote specific behaviors. Also, it is best to promote behaviors that are good building blocks to other behavior. For instance, if you want to encourage a child to be neat, you can start as young as you like with even toddlers wiping a cloth across a table (even imitating you while you do it). As kids
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 85