Reward, Punishment and Sanction in Children’s Education

Learning means that children form permanent behaviors as a result of experiences.

Undoubtedly, the most important role in the development of these behaviors falls on parents. The most well-known method that parents apply to give children a desired behavior is reward and punishment. This method, which has been coming for years, has negative consequences in the long term. For this reason, the method that should be used in child education should be sanctions.

Reward: It is any kind of material and spiritual gain given to the child as a result of his positive behavior. In recent days, it is known that the reward method causes many disadvantages in child development.

They become addicted! A child who gets used to receiving rewards all the time becomes addicted to the reward and feels bad when he does not get any winnings. He may turn to inappropriate behavior just in order to win a reward.
They focus on the prize! One of the most important achievements that should be given to children should be “why they should do or not do” a behavior. However, a child who gets used to receiving rewards all the time as a result of his behavior will not be able to comprehend this situation. This is because the child focuses on reward, not positive behavior.
The reward covers up the reasons for the appearance of behaviors. In order to get a reward, the child cannot exhibit the negative behavior he wants to do. But this situation prevents us from both seeing the behavior and understanding the underlying reasons for it. Therefore, the reward causes the behavior that needs to be corrected to go unnoticed, leading to greater behavioral problems in the future.

Punishment: All kinds of negative attitudes and behaviors applied in order to prevent the child from doing an incorrect behavior.  Punishment, which is a method that families often resort to, negatively affects the social and emotional development of children. So how?

It leads to aggressive behavior! It is the best way to put yourself in his place and think about it at this stage. A child who has been punished for a negative behavior will show aggressive behavior this time to escape the punishment. For this reason, it will be the most correct way to try to understand him by empathizing.
It makes you feel guilty! between the ages of 2 and 5, the child needs to know himself Decently. During this process, incorrect sentences or behaviors formed by parents may cause different thoughts in children. The child cannot comprehend the situation, cannot make sense of it.
Not only the one who is punished, but also the one who is punished is negatively affected. Punishing a behavior that your child does, and as a result, seeing positive results, even if for a short period of time, will reinforce your punishment behavior. This will negatively affect the parent-child relationship, as well as increase your aggression.

How should we behave?

The most correct answer to this is to apply ”sanctions” to children.

The most critical point in applying sanctions is to offer the child the opportunity to choose.  In this way, the responsibility for his own behavior is left to the child. Let’s explain it through an example. Children may find it difficult to study regularly. There may be many reasons for this, such as being affected by the stimulants around. In this case, parents should observe well for what reason the child has difficulty doing lessons. If he is missing his studies because he wants to watch a little more TV, then the child should be given two options. Either he will go to his room to do his home work, or he will be deprived of the next day’s TV time. After this conversation, the parents step aside and do not make any intervention. The decision is left to the child. But when the child wants to watch TV the next day, parents should remind him of the choice he made and oppose any behavior the child does (crying, anger, etc.) he should not take a step back, he should stand resolute. The important point here is to observe the situation that causes the behavior problem and offer options accordingly.

MOD College

PDR Unit