In this article I would like to discuss one reason why rewards don't work when changing a child's behavior.
One major reason why rewards don't work is because parents are operating under the assumption that the parent is a "mind readers".
In other words, parents have been tricked to believe that they can actually figure out what motivates a child's behavior.
Truth be told, it is extremely difficult (virtually impossible) to figure out what actually motivates your child to do something (or not do something), at any given point in time.
There are a variety of reasons that can motivate a child, and these reasons are usually about the particular child.
So for parents to believe that watching television (for an example) is the best reward for their child.
Or the parents uses the fact that their children want to play with friends on the weekends to bribe the child to have his room clean is just "wishful" thinking on the part of parents.
The truth is that rewards simply to not work! At the end of the day, the "rewards" we focus on really is actually a lot of guesswork to figure out what will motivate their child.
"Guess work" is something that I personally do not like to do when I am giving a direction to a child.
I make sure that I use things that I already know a child is going to do as leverage.
Using leverage is a much more effective tool then attempting to reward or bribe a child/teen to do something.