Many Parents Admit They Bribe Their Kids

Kirsten Whipple enjoys a board game with her son Chase, 8, at their home in Northbrook, Ill., on Sunday, April 15, 2007. Kirsten and her husband, Clay are among the many parents who use rewards -- or "bribes" -- to get their sons to behave or for good grades, but they try not to overuse them, having noticed that their sons have begun to expect them. (AP Photo/Stacie Freudenberg) (Stacie Freudenberg - AP)

CHICAGO -- Call it a reward, or just "bribery." Whichever it is, many parents today readily admit to buying off their children, who get goodies for anything from behaving in a restaurant to sleeping all night in their own beds. Often, the rewards are for behaviors their own parents would have simply expected, just because they said so.

The new dynamic _ sometimes seen as a backlash to that strictness _ has some parenting experts wondering if today's parents have gone too soft.

"It's definitely more our generation," Kirsten Whipple, a 35-year-old mom in Northbrook, Ill., says with a quiet laugh. "I'm sure our parents would be appalled if they knew how much we bribe our children."

She can see why they might be _ but she and her husband try not to overuse rewards and have found they work best for smaller things. For instance, they might offer their boys, ages 5 and 8, a special dessert or a chance to rent a video game if they listen to their baby sitter. A good report card might earn a dinner out to celebrate.

Whipple has noticed a downside though _ what she calls a "sense of entitlement."

"Often times, it leads to good behavior with a question attached: 'What are you going to give me?'" she says.

That's part of what worries parenting experts.

"I think that reward systems have a time and a place and work really well to help develop capacities _ if we need them to go above and beyond," says Marcy Safyer, director of the Adelphi University Institute for Parenting.

She remembers how, as a child, her own parents promised her an ice cream if she could sit quietly through religious services.

"But what often gets lost for people is being able to figure out how to communicate to their kids that doing the thing is rewarding enough," Safyer says.

Feeling rested in the morning, for instance, could be seen as the reward for not getting up at night.

"Instead, parents are paying their kids to get good grades; they pay their kids to go to sleep, pay their kids to be toilet trained," Safyer says, meaning payment as a material reward.