Bribing

There is many a parent who goes for bribing a child to do what they want him to do because the child may initially be very adamantly refusing to oblige or just going into a tantrum as a gesture of defiance, much to the parent’s discomfort especially if out in the public domain at the time.

Bribing a child invariably works because the parent is giving in to the child’s demands, much to the child’s satisfaction. Is this a wise move? Many will say that it is the only way to get the child to ‘behave’ himself, and by this is really meant that this is the easiest way that they have found to be successful in bringing the child up with the least hassle. There is little doubt that a child, if facing a reward for doing a specific job, will usually be glad to do it. Because bringing up a child is the most difficult of all life’s tasks, the parent, from the other side of the fence, will be glad to ease that burden of difficulty by bribing. Does it do the child any good?

The benefit of bribes for the child is more money, more time watching TV, more sweets, being allowed to undertake some previously banned fun activities, to name but just a few. At that stage of the child’s life the child feels good. He has managed to control his parent into doing what he, the child, wants, by bartering to his advantage.

The child has a right to be brought up in a manner that is consistent with training him for his future period of adult life where he should be able to integrate with other people hopefully with reasonable ease, and where he will feel able to help someone in need without thinking of benefitting himself, but thinking only of the other person. If the child is always insistent upon a reward when young, and the parent is party to it, then it may be very difficult, when he is an adult, for him to think about assisting anyone without wanting some tangible reward, such as a bribe, then there is a great risk that he will not be able to absorb the fact that assisting someone, and not relying on a reward, can be very rewarding in itself.

A child has the right not to be put in a position where in the future he wants a reward for an activity that is required of him. He has the right to expect to be brought up such that he gets satisfaction from doing the task asked of him, without the need for a consideration of any material advantage from it. He has that right, but it can be very difficult for a parent to consider that that should be the aim when such a course as ‘no bribing’ needs more effort on his part.

Tied child

I was in the supermarket today, shopping of course (what else?), when I saw a shopper with a child strapped to her wrist with a tie about 1 metre long. It was secured to the child such that he had no chance of escaping, and as I approached he was sitting on the floor, causing a rumpus, saying that he didn’t want to go any further. His Mum dragged him to his feet and said if he didn’t behave himself he wouldn’t get any sweets. This didn’t seem to make any difference to the lad as I passed by though I did get the impression that he might be showing some small signs of succumbing.

This suggested that the person, who I am going to assume was his parent, was unable to deal with the lad in any other way than physically restraining him. This could have serious implications on the development of the child in not allowing him to stretch the boundaries of acceptable behaviour at an early age. The parent is effectively saying that she can’t cope with him. This is very sad when one considers that the child was born because the parent wanted a baby. I am again assuming that the child was wanted, especially when there are easily available ways of avoiding pregnancy, and if it does happen unexpectedly there are ways of negating the pregnancy as soon as thought possible to be pregnant. If a person continues with the pregnancy, then I think it reasonable to consider that the child is wanted. This may change later on, but in the first instance the baby is wanted!

Therefore, if we can safely assume that the baby is wanted, if planned or not, then it is surely reasonable to consider that the parent would want the child to reach the outside world in a prepared state for adulthood. Again I am thinking that that parent is capable of and is thinking of the future, though it has to be accepted that this may not be a reasonable line of thinking. One of the prerequisites of this is to be able to understand what acceptable behaviour is. In order to understand such a concept a child needs to know what will happen if the behaviour exhibited is not acceptable. There are a number of ways to try to get them to understand. One is by smacking, another is by reasoning, and yet another is by bribing. We’ll look at these separately at a following date, very soon.

Let's go back to this situation of a parent actually tying the child to her. A child needs to be able to develop numerous skills and understandings whilst growing up, and one is obedience because in the worst scenario he could be heading towards a very serious situation where he could be terminally badly injured if he continues to pursue his current course, and that is not something a parent would want to happen. The parent needs to know that the child will respond to their verbal instruction for his own safety, without querying it. Absolute obedience at that instance should be expected. It has to be admitted that such an instruction would also be accompanied by a voice projection that the child would hopefully understand almost without the accompanying words if only because of its horror characteristics, but if the child is brought up in an environment where such voice projection is normal, then the warning could so easily be treated as being just normal and therefore ignored, much to the possible detriment of the child. We’ll touch on the parent child communication scene relationship at a later date.

Supermarkets can be fun places for children if restrained in an acceptable manner. The main criteria is that the parent needs to keep track of where the child is, which can be extremely difficult if allowed to roam, and if going too far afield to know that the child will return if told to do so. One advantage that the parent has is that if brought up in a loving environment the child won’t want to put himself in a situation where he feels lost, and insecure, and if he approaches that point he will try and find his parent to put his mind at rest. If he suddenly sees his parent at long range he is likely to head for them straight away to avoid the ‘lost’ feeling, although just seeing them may be sufficient to allay his fears. Of course, if the child is used to doing what he likes all the time, encouraged or not by his parent, then the ‘lost’ feeling is unlikely to develop and the child may not care if the parent is there or not, and that can be a real problem.

The child has a right to know that the parent cares enough for his safety to avoid him getting unintentionally ‘lost’ or to unknowingly getting into dangerous situations, and for this right to be exercised effectively the child needs to accept discipline so that the parent then knows that the child can be warned in advance of any dangers, and that the child will take heed of the warning. The child has that right.