Best Practice

Diary of a Parent: Rewards? Or bribery?

Using rewards (or bribery) is seemingly a necessary part of raising and educating a child, but do we rely on this approach too much? Our parent diarist reflects on the impact on her own child

Our town has a parkrun, and on alternate Saturdays either my husband or I head down to the event while the other stays at home with our daughter (for the uninitiated, parkrun is a weekly event organised in more than 900 locations in this country and abroad offering a free, timed five kilometre run).

Recently, because she is sporty and a not-too-shabby a runner herself, we suggested she joins one of us and attempts it at a slow and steady pace.

“Will I get a medal?” she asked. No, but you get a time and your name goes on a list of participants. “But I got a medal when I did the children’s race before the half-marathon that mummy ran.” Yes, but that was different. “Why was it?”

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