All parents love their children and want to give them all the comforts and happiness they could possibly want. However, gifting or bribing children for demonstrating good behavior has been under the scanner since time immemorial. Parents have expressed both concern and confusion over the right way to do it. We must understand that children are very impressionable. Their young minds are very raw and ready to learn. What the parents do or say makes a very powerful mark on them because of their young age. Let us answer the question in both the aspects.
Yes
If bribery in the adult world is bad, how can it be right in case of children? According to some experts, bribery is when you make offers to children to stop bad behaviour. While a reward is, simply put, an encouraging word or applause which will motivate and elicit good behavior in the future from children, on their own. For example, simply giving a child a chocolate bar in a restaurant to keep him quiet is bribery. However, buying him a piece of candy after leaving the restaurant for being quiet inside is a way to celebrate the good behavior. It will definitely make the child special and will encourage him or her to do more of the same in the future as well
Apart from that, there are certain behaviors and actions that are to be simply expected from children. They perform those without any kind of reward or punishment. Rewards should be used only in cases where the child is recovering from past issues with behavior or when the child demonstrates extra thoughtfulness. Rewards may be good for some time, but over a period they don’t help develop skills such as autonomy or critical decision making skills about what is good or bad.
No
Buying candy, gifting them money or toys, all go to make children happy. Then parents may wonder why might it be bad if children are given in order to reward children for demonstrating good behavior. After all, a little motivation never hurts. However, the point most parents may miss out on is that sometimes bribes and rewards for good behavior or actions may send out unsaid messages such as good behavior should not come naturally, or that they need to be constantly rewarded for exhibiting good behavior. Children may also begin to believe that the action they have been rewarded for may not even be such an important activity since you have to pay them to do it. A bribe can be pretty effective in achieving short term effects such as calming tantrums and getting a child to go to bed or to do homework. But over time, it may build up their appetite for more bribe. It could become the only way you might be able to get them to do anything constructive.
Also, bribing children defeats the objective of good parenting by failing to drive home values such as respect for elders and taking responsibilities. In homes where both parents work, the parents may look for quick fixes to not feel guilty about not being able to spend enough time with their children. These parents may be more inclined to give gifts to their children than others. Such children may begin to feel over time that they don’t need to do anything to get anything in life.
