When I teach kids, I will sometimes challenge them to accomplish something or allow them to compete in some way. Inevitably, one of them will ask “What do we get?”. Parents, schools, even extra-curricular activities give awards for anything and everything. Some even reward children for doing the bare minimum of what used to be considered common good behavior.
While this is not an article on entitlement, too many rewards can create children who expect to be rewarded for everything they do. It can create laziness, because why bother to do your best if you are rewarded for any minimal effort at all. It can create pride and destroy realistic expectations of what one can achieve with one’s current skills and knowledge. They can even create an attitude that doing what is right or expected will only be done when the reward is present – remove the reward and the behavior disappears.
In short, too many rewards cause more problems than they solve. Yet, rewards persist in our society. There are actually some good things that can come from using limited rewards. In fact, whether you realize it or not, the Bible addresses the subject of rewards – especially in the New Testament. What can the Bible teach Christian parents about using rewards in healthy ways?
“Just because you are right, does not mean I am wrong. You just haven’t seen life from my side.” Anon. “Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.” Deepak Chopra. That’s just a tiny sample of the “wisdom” I found on my social media today.
When you read through secular research on young people and decision making, one thing is mentioned repeatedly. Young people have a tough time making consistently good choices. The causes behind it are many and vary some from child to child. What is problematic for Christian parents is that these bad choices can have not just long term, but eternal consequences.
Lies are often like potato chips. It’s hard to tell just one. Children often think telling “one little lie” will keep them from getting in trouble and receiving consequences. What they don’t realize is that it is very difficult to cover up something that happened with just one lie. Often, the first lie leads to many others being told to back up the original deception.
If you have a young child, you are probably in or about to enter the dinosaur phase. It’s a lot of fun for kids to learn about those often giant and unique animals. Unfortunately, some atheists have tried to use dinosaurs to convince people Christians hate science and are basically uneducated rubes. Your child may even have a teacher or professor at some point who will actually say “Christians are idiots, because they don’t believe in science.” I know I did.