Prizes, Praises, Gifts, and Inherent Rewards

Today my daughter was a bit tired with her school work and was having trouble staying focused and motivated. She asked me if I would please start giving her prizes ("like maybe stickers or something") for doing a good job with her assignments.

"Hmm. I'll have to think about that, Katherine," I told her.

I understand that staying focused on penmanship and spelling seat work can be very difficult, especially when you're only five years old, and I understand that, at any age, it helps to reward and motivate ourselves along the way as we take small steps toward a larger goal. At the same time, I really don't want to give the message that my children's behavior earns them petty prizes. I don't want Katherine to do "a good job" in order to get some unrelated trinket; I want her to see that working hard is it's own reward and has inherent benefits.

Although well-intentioned, the instructors Katherine has interacted with in community classes over the years have perpetuated this idea in her mind that she should perform in order to receive evaluative praise ("good job!") and prizes such as hand stamps and stickers ("because you did such a good job today!"). The fact that, at the tender age of five, Katherine already associates her performance with behavioristic evaluations and prizes saddens me, even if it does not surprise me. I slip into this kind of evaluation and behaviorism, too, even though I loathe it in principle.

I run out of attention and energy and find myself blurting out assessments such as "Nice work, Katherine!" when what I really mean is "I am happy for you! I'm glad you accomplished what you were trying to do!" or "Thank you for doing what I asked you to do. I really like it when you obey right away/help me out/are kind to your brother/work diligently at your school work/etc."

Although we all mean well when we say "Good job!" or "Nice work!", at the end of the day, we're giving an evaluation, and, even though it's positive, it's still an assessment, a judgement, a "you statement" at the core. We are communicating the message that our children need us to tell them whether or not their performance measures up. And we are, in the same way, habituating them to distrust their own ability to assess their performance and to rely instead on other people for their self-worth and self-image. We are talking over their own intuitive knowledge and drowning out the still, small voice of God within them, as if they could not hear him except through us.

Of course God does call parents to communicate his truth to their children, but I am not talking here about passing on the history of salvation, the doctrines of the creeds, moral principals, or other timeless truths. I also do not mean to imply that we should withhold our warmth, love, acceptance, or affection from our children. I am calling attention to the times when we evaluate our children's performance instead of teaching them to listen to God's Spirit in their hearts and to act out of awareness of and love for God and others.

When we use "I statements," instead of evaluations, however, we communicate information to our children that they don't already have within them, information that can help them become more compassionate and relational and can equip them to make loving choices. We share our feelings, our values, and our preferences: "I am so happy to see you and your brother working together as a team." "It's important to me to have a tidy home." "I like it when you help me set the table." We express our gratitude: "Thank you so much for helping me with the laundry! I really appreciate it!"

While I empathized with Katherine's desire and told her that I do love to give her fun things like stickers, I made a distinction between gifts and rewards. I told her that I give her things like stickers or treats for fun and just because I love her; she doesn't have to do anything to get those kind of things from me because they are gifts. Then I asked her why we work hard to learn our spelling and penmanship, even when we feel tired or bored. We talked about how awesome it will be when she can pick up any book in the library and read it all by herself, when she can write letters to friends and write down whatever she wants to say all by herself. Reading and writing are the inherent rewards of learning spelling words and penmanship. We talked about how it takes a lot of hard work over a lot of days and weeks to get there, but how worth it it all will be. Then I thanked her for working hard and told her I love her.

So, today's most important homeschool lesson turned out to be less about why we don't spell "was" as "wuz," and more about why we keep at our work even when it's difficult: We do it for the long-term, inherent rewards. We get fun stuff, too, but not because of our performance. And most importantly, we are loved all the time and that, thank God, has nothing to do with anything we do.

For more insight into how evaluative praise effects children, see Po Bronson's 2007 article in New York Magazine, "How Not to Talk to Your Kids: the Inverse Power of Praise."

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When LDS Missionaries Read the New Testament Like Children

Keeping it Kinetic

I've discovered an essential key to keeping our homeschooling efforts from languishing in static boredom and ineffectiveness. Without it, Katherine would tire and lose focus and motivation. Without it, Jude would go ballistic sabotaging all our seat work. And it's as simple as "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake."

After morning prayers, before we begin any other subjects or seat work, we sing one or two songs with movement to get energized, focused, and ready to go. We sing and move to another song or two after each 15 to 30 minutes of seat-work. This allows me to "feed the meter" on Jude's attention and active-toddler needs and also allows Katherine to get out her wiggles and mix things up. If I skip the music and movement, getting Katherine to engage in seat-work (a.k.a. penmanship, spelling, and reading) feels like pulling teeth. With the kinetic breaks, she is a whole lot more cooperative.

And, well, music and movement time is just plan fun, not to mention educational in its own right! Some of the songs also really get the heart pumping for a healthy mini-workout.

Some of our favorite songs with movement so far are the following:

• I'm a Little Tea Pot
• Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake, Baker's Man
• Head and Shoulders
• Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (We actually jump on the bed for this one, which makes it a favorite of favorites.)
• Open and Shut Them
• Ring-a-Ring-a-Rosie
• Father Abraham
• I'm in the Lord's Army
• See How I'm Jumping
• If You're Happy and You Know It
• Praise Ye the Lord, Alleluia (We crouch down and then pop up like a Jack-in-the-box for one or other of the refrains.)

And sometimes we just play a fast song on the computer-stereo and dance like crazy people around the apartment. A kinetic round of Simon Says also works.

What are some other good movement and music songs? Which ones do you like to sing with your little people? Do share.

How Education Paves the Road to Faith

The Bible tells us that what is required to enter the Kingdom of God is the simple faith of a child. So why should Christians pursue an academic education?

Because such an education is, in an important way, a means for us to come to have the simple faith of a child, says Jim Kushiner, the executive director of the Fellowship of St. James, publisher of Touchstone and Salvo magazines.

In the last five to ten minutes of his interview from last November on Ancient Faith Radio's "In the World" podcast, Kushiner explains his dynamic view of a Christian education. Because the culture has perceptibly and imperceptibly pervaded our habits of thinking, feeling, and acting, we need a thorough education to rid ourselves of false beliefs and come to knowledge of the truth.

An integrated education in philosophy, theology, the humanities, and the sciences, "gives people the tools to reclaim the Christian mind," to "detoxify and cleanse the mind," to "see the world through the eyes of Christ" rather than be "conformed to the world's mind." An education also allows us to "harvest the fruit" of the riches of the Christian tradition, the Fathers, the liturgy, and the hymnography of the Church. And because the world is created good, it is worthy of study and leads to greater knowledge of the Creator. Studying the glories of creation properly leads to a deep sense of wonder, "the workshop of worship."

This dynamic pairing of wonder and piety, prayer and scholarship, love and knowledge, this is the goal I seek as I educate my children (and continue to re-educate myself in the process).

Penmanship Lifesavers

Remembering to pull these bad boys out of my homeschool supply kit saved our penmanship lesson attempts in our first week of Kindergarten instruction.

The Pencil Grip Crossover is THE BEST pencil grip out there, as far as I can tell. Until I got ours out for my daughter, she was unable to keep her three writing fingers in the correct position and kept pinching and crossing her top two fingers—thumb and pointer—above the pen rather than keeping them on the sides of the pen.

I had thought that the triangle-shaped pen we were using might provide sufficient guidance and support on its own, but I was mistaken, at least for little four-year-old hands. The Pencil Grip Crossover has a special wall and cover that makes it impossible to cross or pinch the top two fingers. Older kids starting penmanship later might not need it, but I'm loving how these grips give my daughter the ability to let her fingers keep better pace with her aspirations.

Using Pens for Penmanship: Why Pencils Are Evil

Okay, pencils are not evil. But they are not the best choice for children to use when writing for school work, as Andrew Pudewa (Institute for Excellence in Writing) deftly argues in his article, "Convert . . . to Pens!"

I am so glad I read his article before beginning penmanship with Katherine. While he applies his argument mostly to the use of pens for writing composition, his points about avoiding erasing, increasing visibility, and ergonomic concerns apply at least equally well to introductory penmanship lessons. Read for yourself and be converted!

Susan Wise Bauer on the Campatibility between Classical Education and Charlotte Mason Approaches

I like how Susan finds compatibility between the two approaches. I'm not sure all Classical education proponents are as balanced as she is, however. Just as there are different interpretations and contemporary applications of Charlotte Mason's ideas, so are there different interpretations and applications of Classical education.

And why is a short essay by Dorothy Sayers THE foundation for contemporary classical educators? I myself think we would all be better off if we went straight to Jacques Maritain for our philosophy of education. There would be no need to quarrel over the different emphases between Mason and Sayers schools of thought.

Certainly there will always be a multiplicity of applications, but that is all good when rooted in a unified vision grounded in solid principles.