Bribery for good behaviour shows distrust and is discouraging, says Tony Humphries

The system of rewarding children for good behaviour is as blocking of their maturity as the system of punishment. A similar lack of respect is demonstrated when adults reward each other for favours or for good deeds.

In a home, school or workplace of mutual respect among equals a job is done because it needs doing, and the satisfaction comes from the harmony of two or more people doing a job together.

Father gave Michael, aged 10, £5 to get some messages in the local shop. When he returned his father thanked him and asked him for the change. "Why do you want the change?" Michael sulkily asked.

"Why, Michael, because I need it." Angrily, the boy deposited the change on the table. "I did you a favour, didn't I," he said under his breath. Puzzled, his father looked at him. "Yes, you did a favour."

It is not good practice that children be paid to do chores. They live in the house, are provided with many comforts, eat the food, are clothed and share in many other benefits. If they are equals they now claim to be they are obliged to share the toil.

When children are tangibly rewarded for chores they assume that they need not do anything unless there is something in it for them. No opportunities to develop a sense of responsibility are provided under these circumstances. The emphasis has been placed on "what's in it for me?"

Children need to be part of the whole aspect of family life. Such responsibility needs to start as early as possible, at the point when a child can do things for himself and others.

Responsibilities need to increase with age. Children also have a share in the spending money, usually in the form of an allowance, which needs to increase as the child gets older. This is their share of the family income and they need to be allowed to spend it in any way they like.

It is not wise to have any connection at all between chores and allowances. Children are requested to do chores because they contribute to the family welfare. They are given allowances because they share the benefits.

Mother and father were going out for the evening and leaving their two small children with a babysitter.

As soon as they began to go out of the house, the children started to cry.

"Be good now and we'll bring you back a toy each." "What kind," the two children asked. "Oh I don't know - something," their mother answered hastily as she got out the front door.

Both parents are attempting to gain co-operation by promising material gains. Children do not need bribes to be good. They actually want to be good. Good behaviour on the part of children springs from their drive to belong to the family and to the home, to contribute usefully and to co-operate.

When parents, teachers and other adults bribe a child for good behaviour, they are in effect showing him that they do not trust him, which is a form of discouragement.

Parents face a serious challenge if their children refuse to co-operate without an answer to the question "What's in it for me?" Unless the child views the reward as adequate, why would he bother to co-operate?

An attitude of materialism is now developed since such children assume that the world owes them everything. If nothing is automatically forthcoming he or she will "show them".

The end result of using material rewards to gain children's co-operation is: "If they have not rewarded me, I shall punish them with difficult behaviour - sulk, rage, disrupt."

It is vital to understand that the child is responding to how his parents typically relate to him - he is conforming to their materialistic ways.

Furthermore, he does not feel seen and trusted for himself, but only for what he does. Demanding the reward gains him some recognition.

Satisfaction comes from a sense of contribution and participation - a sense frequently denied to those children who are daily exposed to the parental (or classroom) system of rewarding them with material things.

Efforts to gain co-operation through rewards effectively deny children the basic satisfaction of living.

Certainly, show verbal appreciation of children's specific efforts to participate in family and classroom life, but it is best that tangible rewards are not tied to their responsibilities but at times given spontaneously with no strings attached.

Dr Tony Humphreys is a consultant clinical psychologist and author of The Family, Love It and Leave It