Do you have a reluctant reader at home? Perhaps you need to up your bribery technique and do as this dad did, cash for reading! Dad’s $140 down but his son hasn’t stopped reading – WINNING at parenting, right?
Turns out dad, David Woodland, divided the internet when he revealed he was paying his eldest son $1 for every book he read. That’s a pretty sweet rate if you ask me. And it worked both ways, just to be clear. Dad thought it was a worthy investment and his son is said to revelling in robbing dad by getting paid to simply read.
On the internet, EVERYONE has an opinion
As always, for every cheerleader on the internet, there is a Karen who wants to bring down the small win. Plenty of people came out on Twitter questioning David’s parenting hack, pondering if it was the right thing to do.
While many believed it was a perfectly acceptable way to form new habits and MAYBE even a love for reading, there was the other side of the coin too. Those who believed that once the payment stopped, so too would the reading. I mean, shouldn’t kids just develop / be born with a love for the written word? Well no, that’s not always the case. #obvs
And the Twitter tweets didn’t disappoint…
In an interview, David says:
“Some think that if you reward some tasks, those tasks become chores that a kid will never be able to enjoy. It’s a fair take. In the instance of my son, I don’t worry about his pleasure of reading. He is bright and his vocabulary is exploding.”
“He sometimes shocks me with how smart and insightful he is. He has even mentioned we don’t have to pay him anymore, but we do anyway because it’s just a dollar. He doesn’t get an allowance, so outside of chores, this is possibly the only other way he can earn money on his own as an 8-year-old. He likes to save his money and is proud of the pile of money he has accumulated.”
David has the last word tweet
Fair play, I say. Do what works is my parenting motto. Hands up if you’re not new to dishing out the bribes to you kids?
We offer pocket money for chores to get done and teach responsibility, don’t we? So is offering money for reading or good grades any different? Heck, I even paid my own child $1 for every night he stayed in his own bed. It was the best monthly sleep subscription I ever had!
Tell us, what do you exchange hard-earned dollars for with your kids?
