Quotes from Alfie Kohn

Instead, you would probably hear, "No rewards and punishments?? Then how will we get our kids to do what they're told, follow the rules, and take their place in a society where certain things will be expected of them whether they like it or not?" Indeed, there is evidence that greater concern about social

We complain loudly about such things as the sagging productivity of our workplaces, the crisis of our schools, and the warped values of our children. But the very strategy we use to solve those problems—dangling rewards like incentive plans and grades and candy bars in front of people—is partly responsible for the fix we're in. We are a society of loyal Skinnerians, unable to think our way out of the box we have reinforced ourselves into.

In my view, there are two fundamentally different ways one can respond to a child who does something wrong. One is to impose a punitive consequence. Another is to see the situation as a "teachable moment," an opportunity to educate or to solve a problem together. The response here is not "You've misbehaved; now here's what I'm going to do to you" but "Something has gone wrong; what can we do about it?

a grade can be regarded only as an inadequate report of an inaccurate judgment by a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of material.

What matters most is the reason for our decisions, and the extent to which we're willing to provide guidance, to support children's choices, to be there with them—all of which is a lot more challenging than just saying yes or no.

Every hour that teachers spend preparing kids to succeed on standardized tests, even if that investment pays off, is an hour not spent helping kids to become critical, curious, creative thinkers.)

It's more common to ignore the epidemic of punitive parenting and focus instead on the occasional example of permissiveness—sometimes even to the point of pronouncing an entire generation spoiled. It's revealing, and even somewhat amusing, that similar alarms probably have been raised about every generation throughout recorded history.

Children need to be loved as they are, and for who they are. When that happens, they can accept themselves as fundamentally good people, even when they screw up or fall short. And with this basic need met, they're also freer to accept (and help) other people. Unconditional love, in short, is what children require in order to flourish.

When unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are always present, "Good job!" isn't necessary; when they're absent, "Good job!" won't help.

However we think about these [long-term] goals, we ought to think about them a lot. They ought to be our touchstone, if only to keep us from being sucked into the quicksand of daily life.

Sometimes the alternative to black and white isn't gray; it's, say, orange.

As it happens, most studies have found that unexpected rewards are much less destructive than the rewards people are told about beforehand and are deliberately trying to obtain.

Obviously, things work best when parents and teachers are helping kids to become good people—and, better yet, when they're actively supporting one another's efforts.

Historians have shown that "parents in the Middle Ages worried about their kids no less than we worry about ours today," and by the nineteenth century there is evidence of bars being placed on windows to protect toddlers from falling out as well as "leading strings so that young children wouldn't wander off during walks.

four accounts of how praise may impede performance: it signals low ability, makes people feel pressured, invites a low-risk strategy to avoid failure, and reduces interest in the task itself.

Rewards usually improve performance only at extremely simple—indeed, mindless—tasks, and even then they improve only quantitative performance.

As it happens, most studies have found that unexpected rewards are much less destructive than the rewards people are told about beforehand and are deliberately trying to obtain. But

Not only is that all we can do; it's what we have to keep doing, no matter how many of those meals end up in the garbage can.

Are we encouraging him to make his own judgments about what constitutes a good performance (or a desirable action) ? Are we contributing to, or at least preserving, his ability to choose what kind of person to be? Or are we attempting to manipulate his behavior by getting him to think about whether he has met our criteria? The

A person is not an originating agent; he is a locus, a point at which many genetic and environmental conditions come together in a joint effect.

We accept without question that children have to memorize the state capitals even though they could look up that information whenever they need it. Like any other tool for facilitating the completion of a questionable task, rewards offer a "how" answer to what is really a "why" question.

Since many—too many—of our children's values and attitudes are formed by the mass media, every parent ought to offer an informal multiyear course in media literacy.

We may not be able to say, "Don't watch," but we can watch with them and show them how to view critically, how to recognize propaganda tricks used to sell them stuff they don't need, how to identify hidden values and defuse attempts to manipulate them.

Parents become more controlling when time is short, just as they do when they're in public. The combination of the two conditions is a killer.