Parenting and Behavioral Finance

My kids will do anything for a donut.  I was trying to get one of them to finish his homework, and the situation had been devolving into something between demanding, cajoling and begging, when it occurred to me I could try dangling a donut incentive. The savvy child in question made a counteroffer with his preferred terms, a deal was struck, and the room fell silent apart from the sounds of pencil writing. 

There are parents who object to this sort of thing, claiming that all external motivation, like rewards, punishment, or praise lead children down the path to eternal unhappiness because they will never do anything for any good, authentic, internal reason, but only for empty external rewards.  But that's silly.  I don't have to offer donuts to compel my kids to be kind and caring, or to draw piles of wonderful pictures, or to ask endless questions about how and why things in their universe function, but like all humans, when it comes to things we don't want to do, there really has to be an incentive. 

The incentive doesn't necessarily have to be material (or edible).  It can be a feeling of accomplishment that comes from completing a task, or the sense of satisfaction at seeing the results of your labor.  I'm endlessly gratified by the appearance of tomatoes on the vine I plant and tend each year, and it motivates me to replant the next year.  I also feel very satisfied by the sense of calm I experience after practicing Yoga.  Do I do Yoga because I will get a donut afterwards?  No, I am motivated by knowing I feel great afterwards.  Of course, if you want to make me go to a 5 year old's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, I might need an external motivator.

These days I'm actually thinking a lot more about DIS-incentives.  More specifically, how do I avoid having a child who never realizes his potential because he lacks motivation.  What will motivate my children to achieve anything?  I think of all those people whose grown kids are living at home and not getting jobs, and I'm pretty sure giving them all donuts won't solve this problem.  Clearly, constant ease and comfort is not a great motivator to make changes.  Why ever leave mom's couch if she does your laundry and cooks fabulous meals for you, right?  Why would you want to change that? Especially if you haven't experienced the pleasure that might come from doing those other things you don't want to do.

Some parents won't contribute to the funding of their child's education because they believe the child will be more likely to work hard and do well if he himself is taking the financial risk and bearing the future financial responsibility for the debt.  But that relies on a motivation which is too abstract.  An 18 year old doesn't begin to know what it feels like to be 35, with a family to support while still paying off college debt, so he can't really be motivated by the desire to avoid an unknowable pain.  And where do you stop with this thinking?  Should I stop feeding my 7 year old in order to motivate him to become independent and self actualized?  If we stop cleaning the house does it incentivize our kids to start cleaning, or does it merely familiarize them with living in filth?  Rather than saving for college, should we just focus on making our kids miserable so they'll want to move out and make something of themselves?

I know that getting an education and a job and a life will bring my kids more fulfillment than the alternative.  I also know now that flossing more would have had a really good payoff, but these conclusions are based on experience rather than a mysterious intrinsic motivation.

So what should a parent do?  Here are the choices:

1) Bribery:  "Go to college and I'll buy you a car"

2) Dis-incentivize inaction (I know, that's a double negative): "If you don't go to college I'm taking that car away."

3) Do nothing, and wait for the kid to discover an internal motivation: "Would you like another donut, honey?"

4) A little bit of love/a little bit of hate:  "I'm going to make you do this thing you don't want to do so you can have a small taste of the potential payoff. Then I hope to bask in the glory of hearing you say 'I'm glad my mom wouldn't let me quit taking karate lessons because I've now experienced the authentic, internal satisfaction of having achieved the level of black belt, and also all my friends are scared of me'."

Now that I have solved a major crisis of our times, I believe I deserve a donut.  But first I need to go tell my 3 year old to start looking for a job.