Evaluating the Role of Rewards & Punishments in Parenting | Dr. Becky Kennedy & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | - What about rewarding kids?
00:00:05.000 | And here, rather than start off by asking,
00:00:08.880 | you know, what are the best ways
00:00:09.720 | to reward kids in healthy ways?
00:00:11.140 | I will ask that in a moment.
00:00:12.880 | How can we evaluate the notion of rewards or incentives
00:00:19.020 | through this lens of sturdiness, boundaries, and empathy?
00:00:25.880 | - Yeah.
00:00:27.080 | Because, you know, I could imagine, you know,
00:00:30.760 | a reward that's outsized in comparison to what a kid did.
00:00:34.320 | You know, okay, great, you know,
00:00:35.360 | you took your plate to the kitchen sink after dinner.
00:00:39.320 | You know, you get $10,000, obviously out of scale,
00:00:42.200 | extreme example, but just by way of example.
00:00:44.920 | You know, screw up their reward mechanisms for life,
00:00:50.040 | if you ask me, everything I know about reward
00:00:52.440 | and neuroplasticity says that that would occur.
00:00:54.960 | But this idea that, you know, you can incentivize kids.
00:00:57.720 | If you turn off the TV now,
00:01:00.440 | then you definitely can watch tomorrow night.
00:01:02.880 | Whereas if you don't, you can't.
00:01:05.400 | So you're sort of merging reward and potential punishment.
00:01:08.560 | You know, how do we bound rewards?
00:01:13.440 | And how do we take into account
00:01:16.640 | that when we start adding rewards to scenarios
00:01:19.040 | that we're mixing and matching life experience for them?
00:01:23.160 | You know, okay, so now doing what I'm told,
00:01:25.520 | do I always expect a reward?
00:01:27.860 | If the reward doesn't come next time,
00:01:30.880 | we know based on reward prediction error,
00:01:32.600 | we tend to be worse off emotionally
00:01:34.800 | than had we never received a reward in the first place.
00:01:36.880 | Again, pretty vast parameter space,
00:01:38.920 | but what are your thoughts on best ways to reward kids
00:01:42.000 | for standard good behavior versus achievement,
00:01:46.480 | versus elimination of bad behavior?
00:01:49.760 | - Yeah. - Maybe.
00:01:50.600 | So three categories.
00:01:51.720 | - I think you're asking a much bigger question,
00:01:54.840 | or I'm gonna, I think you are,
00:01:56.640 | which is like, why do parents think we need to reward kids?
00:02:01.640 | I think that's, why do we think we need to punish kids?
00:02:04.440 | And this is actually where everything I work on started from
00:02:07.200 | because the way I was trained to work with parents,
00:02:09.640 | I went to, you know,
00:02:10.600 | the best gold standard evidence-based program.
00:02:13.200 | And it was all about timeouts and punishments
00:02:15.560 | and rewards and stickers and ignoring and praise.
00:02:18.320 | And honestly, during the training,
00:02:21.960 | for the years after I kind of practiced this way,
00:02:24.560 | I feel like that, you know this better than I am,
00:02:26.600 | so I shouldn't even say this,
00:02:27.520 | but like that left part of my brain,
00:02:28.920 | like logic and linearity.
00:02:30.560 | I was just like, this is amazing.
00:02:31.800 | Oh my goodness, we're gonna get more of the good behavior
00:02:33.760 | and we're gonna not get the bad behavior.
00:02:35.880 | And I'd start teaching this to parents in my private practice
00:02:39.600 | and there was this little thing in me,
00:02:42.560 | I don't even know, I was like, I don't know about this.
00:02:45.440 | I don't know.
00:02:46.280 | And it got louder and louder to the point that in a session,
00:02:49.200 | I literally said to a parent in front of me,
00:02:53.880 | I was just like telling them how to do a timeout.
00:02:55.800 | I said, I'm sorry,
00:02:56.640 | I don't believe anything I've been telling you.
00:02:58.600 | That's literally what I said.
00:02:59.680 | 'Cause I just, it was so loud
00:03:01.080 | and it was obviously super awkward,
00:03:03.880 | but it led me to, I feel like from this first principles way
00:03:07.560 | be like, there are a million assumptions that we have
00:03:10.240 | about raising kids and I think about relationships.
00:03:12.560 | And if I just strip them back, what do I be left with?
00:03:14.680 | And what would it be a new building from there?
00:03:16.800 | And rewards and like punishments to me are these assumptions
00:03:20.520 | that we have somehow converted from like
00:03:23.440 | the fiction shelf of the library in my mind
00:03:26.040 | to like the nonfiction shelf as like truths.
00:03:28.120 | And I kind of rail against all of them.
00:03:31.080 | So I think the question,
00:03:34.440 | if that's okay to go in that direction to me is like,
00:03:36.200 | why do we think we need to reward kids?
00:03:38.200 | And is there actually a better system,
00:03:41.080 | both short-term and long-term?
00:03:42.960 | I'm incredibly long-term greedy in my parenting approach.
00:03:45.720 | 'Cause at the end of the day,
00:03:47.400 | 18 and up is where things really matter.
00:03:49.800 | Not really matter, I mean, they all matter,
00:03:51.240 | but I'd rather, I wanna help my kids
00:03:53.360 | become sturdy, resilient adults.
00:03:55.560 | But I'm short-term greedy too 'cause I'm a realist.
00:03:57.200 | Like I just can't deal with like
00:03:58.520 | all of these difficult moments.
00:04:00.240 | You get both for sure without rewards and punishments.
00:04:03.040 | So I don't know, what might someone tell me
00:04:05.560 | they give a reward for?
00:04:06.800 | Do you wanna use the like clearing the table or example?
00:04:10.680 | Let's start that there.
00:04:12.840 | It kind of goes back to like
00:04:14.800 | believing kids are inherently good inside.
00:04:17.040 | I really think it goes back to that.
00:04:18.320 | If you really believe kids are inherently good inside,
00:04:20.280 | which by the way, when I strip back every assumption,
00:04:22.240 | the only thing I was left was that.
00:04:24.080 | Literally the only thing.
00:04:26.440 | And then I started to think, okay,
00:04:28.040 | so if they're good inside,
00:04:28.960 | why do they do so many annoying things like all the time?
00:04:32.680 | But that gave me a gap.
00:04:34.680 | And I feel like that is very exciting to have a gap.
00:04:38.440 | Like why do people who are good inside
00:04:39.920 | do such bad things, right?
00:04:41.360 | Adults or kids.
00:04:43.080 | And to me, right, kids are born with all the feelings
00:04:46.000 | and none of the skills to manage those feelings.
00:04:48.840 | Like period.
00:04:49.680 | And we've often thought, therefore, when feelings,
00:04:53.360 | feelings without skills come out in behaviors.
00:04:55.800 | I think that's what bad behaviors are.
00:04:57.680 | Feelings or urges or something without a skill
00:04:59.920 | to manage them or without access to the skill,
00:05:02.400 | maybe in that moment, either way.
00:05:04.320 | And then we end up punishing behavior,
00:05:07.880 | but the behavior was just a sign of the lack of skill.
00:05:12.880 | So I can't imagine anyone thinking
00:05:17.080 | I could teach my kid to swim
00:05:18.480 | by punishing them for not swimming.
00:05:20.520 | Like, I think someone would say that was crazy.
00:05:22.840 | And, but that's kind of how we raise kids.
00:05:26.360 | And then we think rewarding them is gonna be effective,
00:05:29.360 | but it actually leads over and over to what you said.
00:05:31.360 | I've seen these parents over and over my private practice.
00:05:33.320 | My 14 year old literally won't pick up their clothes
00:05:36.360 | from the floor unless I give them $5.
00:05:38.160 | Like, how did I get here?
00:05:39.080 | And I'm like, yeah, that's a problem,
00:05:41.660 | but I saw how they got there.
00:05:43.240 | So let's take clearing, you know, their plate.
00:05:47.240 | Like, I know this is gonna sound cheesy,
00:05:48.760 | but kids do have something in them
00:05:50.420 | where they wanna feel like a purposeful,
00:05:52.000 | meaningful part of society.
00:05:53.800 | They do.
00:05:54.640 | Impact drives adults and it drives kids.
00:05:57.160 | It's not the same type of rewarding as playing Fortnite.
00:06:00.480 | It's a totally different system.
00:06:02.360 | But I think the question is like,
00:06:03.460 | why do we think we have to bribe kids
00:06:05.160 | or, you know, kind of trick them into doing things
00:06:08.960 | that are kind of like basic parts of human life?
00:06:11.440 | And so if we take that,
00:06:13.280 | and my kid chronically isn't clearing their plate,
00:06:16.000 | I could say to them, look,
00:06:17.400 | every time you clear a plate, I'm gonna give you a sticker.
00:06:20.600 | After five stickers, you're gonna get,
00:06:22.240 | I don't know, whatever it is.
00:06:23.680 | To me, like a much more just effective way
00:06:26.920 | is I'd say to my kid, hey, I know you know,
00:06:29.480 | like clearing a plate is just one way
00:06:31.240 | of being part of this family and taking care of stuff.
00:06:33.080 | I know you know that, we're on the same team.
00:06:34.960 | I say that phrase, we're on the same team, right?
00:06:36.560 | We are.
00:06:38.120 | Something's getting in your way of remembering.
00:06:40.040 | I'm gonna assume, I like the most generous interpretation.
00:06:43.440 | That to me allows you to separate someone's bad behavior
00:06:46.640 | from their good identity.
00:06:48.120 | Then I'm gonna say, what would help you remember?
00:06:49.680 | We literally did this with my son
00:06:50.760 | who always had his towel on the floor.
00:06:52.640 | And I was just like, I bet he just doesn't remember.
00:06:54.640 | He literally doesn't see it.
00:06:55.720 | And we talked about it and he's like,
00:06:57.440 | we talked about him putting a Post-it, literally,
00:06:59.720 | something simple like a Post-it on my door
00:07:01.960 | that just says, pick up my towel.
00:07:03.280 | He wrote it in his own handwriting, right?
00:07:04.920 | Trying to facilitate him like solving his own problems.
00:07:07.720 | And now he has a much higher rate of picking up his towel.
00:07:11.160 | Like, I guess I could have said,
00:07:12.400 | every time you pick up your towel, you'll, I don't know,
00:07:14.600 | get a dollar or whatever it is.
00:07:16.760 | But again, it makes me think,
00:07:18.000 | I'm not building the generalizable skill that way.
00:07:22.320 | I'm just kind of offering something at the end,
00:07:24.920 | which sets me on this kind of awful cycle
00:07:28.760 | that I think kind of misses the point.
00:07:30.360 | I love the idea that kids want purpose.
00:07:34.040 | - And am I correct in wondering
00:07:37.400 | if that goes back to this, am I real component
00:07:39.920 | of the, am I real, am I safe?
00:07:41.560 | - Yes.
00:07:42.400 | - Like one way that we know we are real
00:07:43.840 | is our ability to impart change on the world around us.
00:07:47.800 | I don't want to get too abstract here,
00:07:49.160 | but as a neuroscientist,
00:07:50.880 | I've often sat back and reflected
00:07:52.080 | like all the emotions we feel,
00:07:54.240 | like no one sees that or knows that.
00:07:56.440 | Unless we say something, we write something,
00:07:58.880 | we sing something, we shout something,
00:08:00.600 | all the forms of expression,
00:08:01.920 | just like none of our dreams,
00:08:04.600 | our creative insights or wishes exist except inside us,
00:08:09.600 | unless we transmute them into something in the real world.
00:08:12.360 | So there does seem to be something
00:08:13.400 | about having this nervous system
00:08:15.080 | from a time we're really young,
00:08:16.080 | like it's seeing our effect on the world
00:08:18.840 | that really makes us real and on others.
00:08:21.960 | And I love the idea that, well,
00:08:24.480 | and I must say, I absolutely believe in my heart
00:08:27.120 | and I just feel it as a feeling
00:08:29.080 | that kids are inherently good inside.
00:08:31.400 | Like, I just, I can't imagine any other version of that,
00:08:34.400 | but does that mean that there are people out there
00:08:36.400 | who believe that kids are inherently bad
00:08:38.440 | or at least not good?
00:08:40.520 | I mean, like, how could that be?
00:08:43.120 | But then again, maybe I'm just naive.
00:08:46.040 | - I don't know if anyone consciously believes that,
00:08:47.840 | but when I go back to that system
00:08:49.040 | I was first trained in, rewards and punishments,
00:08:52.760 | like it feels like a system of behavioral control.
00:08:56.640 | And to me, like I've always thought about control
00:08:59.720 | and trust as opposites.
00:09:01.680 | So I only control what I don't trust.
00:09:04.600 | So nobody said to me in that program,
00:09:06.560 | by the way, Becky, everything you're learning here,
00:09:08.240 | we believe kids are bad inside.
00:09:09.680 | And so we do this thing,
00:09:11.520 | but well, if I don't trust my kid
00:09:15.560 | and if I don't trust they inherently have the things
00:09:17.400 | in them to do good, by the way,
00:09:18.880 | that's not gonna happen naturally.
00:09:20.200 | That's why we have a big job as a parent to coach our kids,
00:09:22.960 | to bring that out, to set boundaries when they can't do it
00:09:25.640 | and so many other things.
00:09:26.800 | But I don't believe anyone would say,
00:09:29.160 | yeah, it's 'cause they're bad inside.
00:09:30.360 | But there is a nature where you're constantly interacting
00:09:33.480 | with your kid from that other system,
00:09:36.040 | looking at them like, I don't trust you.
00:09:39.000 | I don't trust you.
00:09:39.840 | And when you do bad things,
00:09:41.400 | I cannot hold on to the fact that you have a good identity.
00:09:45.000 | That's why I'm giving you a punishment.
00:09:47.080 | That's why I'm sending you away to your room.
00:09:48.960 | And so if I'm reflecting back to you constantly,
00:09:52.240 | that you are just your latest behavior,
00:09:54.120 | that I don't trust you,
00:09:55.400 | that I kind of have to bribe you
00:09:57.200 | to do very basic human things.
00:09:59.920 | Well, our kids form their identity
00:10:03.080 | from our reflection of them.
00:10:05.720 | And so then this is what really compelled all of this.
00:10:07.920 | I'm like, we're raising generation after generation of kid,
00:10:10.880 | kind of saying to them,
00:10:11.760 | like, you're kind of a bad, untrustworthy kid.
00:10:14.760 | And then we wonder why we have such high rates
00:10:16.680 | of like massive mental health problems.
00:10:18.120 | Well, like, there's some linearity there.
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