Leadership Principles: Reward and Punishment Are Not Durable

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When I talk with parents about rewards and punishment, I usually start by saying that they absolutely can “work.” If the goal is to change a behavior right now, they can "work" really well.

A kid doesn’t do his math homework, so his parents take away his phone. He does the homework. Problem solved, right?

Sort of.

The question I think is more important is: What are we actually trying to accomplish?

If the goal is to get tonight’s homework done, taking away the phone might do exactly that. But that’s not really the larger goal of parenting. We’re trying to raise kids who eventually become healthy, functioning adults - people who can make decisions, solve problems, and manage themselves when we’re not standing there telling them what to do.

That’s where rewards and punishment have their limits. They may work in the moment, but they don’t necessarily lead to lasting change.

Why Punishment Works... Until It Doesn’t

Driving is a good example.

You’re driving down the road and notice a police car. What do you do? You check your speed. Maybe slow down a little or even stomp on the brakes. And for the next few miles, you’re probably a model driver.

Then eventually you go back to driving the way you normally drive.

The threat of getting a ticket changed your behavior while the threat was there. Once it was gone, so was the change.

Kids aren’t all that different.

If a child doesn’t do their homework, their parents take their phone away. So they do it, at least when their parents are watching. But they might also learn that the easiest way to keep their phone is to make sure their parents don’t find out when they haven’t done their homework.

That’s how families can end up in a cat-and-mouse game. Parents are checking grades, assignments, phones, and screen time. Kids are figuring out what their parents know, what they don’t know, and how to stay one step ahead.

Everyone is working really hard, but they’re not necessarily working together.

Letting the World Do Some of the Teaching

One of the hardest things about parenting is allowing kids to experience some of the natural consequences of their choices.

As adults, we can usually see what’s coming. If you don’t do the homework, your grade is going to drop. If you stay up until two in the morning, you’re going to feel terrible tomorrow.

Of course we want to prevent those things. But sometimes the outcome we’re trying so hard to prevent is exactly the feedback a kid needs.

I once worked with several parents of younger adolescents who could not get their kids to shower. They had tried everything:

reminders, arguments, rewards, and consequences. One parent had even resorted to putting on a bathing suit and trying to drag their child into the shower.

Showering had become a daily battle.

After discussing it in Parenting Group, the parents went out on a limb and stopped fighting about it.

For a while, the kids didn’t shower.

And then, one by one, they realized they didn’t particularly want to be the smelly, unkempt kid.

Once the battle with their parents was gone, they had room to experience the natural consequences and make a different choice.

More importantly, the motivation for the behavior change belonged to them.

When the Punishment Becomes the Problem

Punishment gives kids something else to focus on besides the actual problem.

If I'm a child staying up all night on my phone and mom is constantly checking on me, taking my phone, and arguing with me about it, pretty soon I might be much more focused on how unreasonable I feel my mom is than on the fact that I'm exhausted every morning.

Now the problem, from the child's point of view, is Mom.

What the child is not thinking is, "Maybe staying up until two in the morning on my phone isn’t working very well for me."

There’s a lot of value in giving kids enough room to look at their own behavior and eventually think, Yeah, I probably could have handled that differently.

Sometimes, in our effort to make kids regret a choice, we actually get in the way of them reaching that conclusion on their own.

This Doesn’t Mean Doing Nothing.

This is usually the point where parents wonder, So I’m just supposed to let them do whatever they want?

No.

Parents still need to provide structure, set limits, and step in when something isn’t working.

Let’s say the family rule is that phones go on the kitchen counter at 9:00. At 10:30, you discover your teenager under the covers texting.

You could say, “That’s it. You’re grounded for a week.”

Or you could start with, "I noticed you still have your phone. I thought our plan was to put it on the counter at nine. What happened?"

Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe your teenager just didn’t want to follow the rule.

Either way, now you have something to talk about.

And if it becomes clear that having the phone at night just isn’t going well, you can still take the phone. The difference is that you’re not taking it to make your child miserable enough that they’ll never do it again. You’re taking it because, right now, having access to it isn’t working.

You might say, "It seems like the phone is creating some problems right now. I want you to be able to have it and use it responsibly, so let’s hold onto it for now and figure out what needs to change."

Ideally, at some point your teenager comes back and says, "Can we talk about the phone?"

Now you’re working on the problem together.

Control and Authority Aren’t the Same Thing

I think there’s an important difference between control and authority.

Control is something I can take. I’m the parent. I have more power in the situation, so I can create a consequence big enough that my child does what I want.

Authority is something a child grants me.

Kids give us authority over time when they experience us as trustworthy, helpful, and worth listening to. That doesn’t mean they always agree with us. It means the relationship has enough credibility that our influence doesn’t depend entirely on what we can take away.

That kind of influence lasts a lot longer.

I’d much rather have a teenager come to me and say, "I’m really struggling in math and I don’t know what to do." than spend four years getting better and better at catching missing assignments.

Because someday the issue won’t be math homework. It’ll be friendships, relationships, work, money, or something I can’t anticipate now.

I want to be someone they’re willing to come to then, too.

Connection Shouldn’t Be the Reward

Rewards and punishments aren’t always phones, money, or grounding. Sometimes we accidentally use our attention and affection that way too.

Kids need to know the relationship is still there even when their behavior isn’t okay.

I can be disappointed. I can disagree. I can set a limit. I can step in when something isn’t safe. And I can do all of that without taking away my care and connection.

That gives kids a safe place to make mistakes, deal with the consequences, and figure things out. Even when something goes badly, they know they still have somewhere to come back to.

What Are We Trying to Build?

I don’t think giving your kid ice cream for a good report card is going to ruin them. And I don’t think a parent who grounds a teenager has failed.

I’m interested in what becomes our main way of influencing our kids.

Rewards and punishment are tempting because they can get quick results. Relationships take longer. Letting kids learn from their own experiences takes longer. And when a family has been stuck in the same patterns for years, changing those patterns can feel a little like turning the Titanic.

One place parents can start is by paying more attention to the part they actually control: themselves.

Am I asking questions, or giving lectures? Am I trying to understand what’s going on, or am I mostly trying to get compliance? Are most of my conversations with my child about grades, chores, phones, and behavior? Does my child mostly experience me as someone who monitors them, or as someone they can come to when things aren’t going well?

None of this means being passive. Parents have an important leadership role.

But leadership and control aren’t the same thing.

Ultimately, I don’t just want a child who behaves when I’m standing there enforcing the rules. I want to help raise someone who can make good decisions, learn from mistakes, ask for help, and eventually manage life without a parent standing nearby.

So instead of only asking, How do I get my child to do this? I encourage parents to ask a bigger question:

What am I trying to build here?

If the goal is a healthy, independent adult—and a relationship that still matters when that child is grown—we need something more durable than rewards and punishment.

We need influence.

And influence comes from relationship.