Money Mania by Bob Swarup

Author:Bob Swarup
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

Of Sons and Gold Stars

I have a three-year-old son, Maanas. A few months ago, in an effort to incentivize good habits and following the advice on numerous online parenting forums, I bought a reward chart. The idea is simple: We agree on a series of simple tasks like tidying up his room, going to the toilet, saying please and thank you all day long, finishing all his food, and so on. These are all noted on the reward chart, and every time he does one of these, he gets a gold star. Once he has collected enough gold stars, he gets a treat.

Initially, we had a deal whereby if he collected a total of ten stars in a week, he earned a choice of social outings, such as going to the zoo or to see dino bones. But our interaction soon became more complicated. Having quantified the impact of following social norms, this new medium soon began to ripen with potential.

Maanas and I began to debate what merited a gold star and what did not. Having a set number of gold stars to earn rewards meant that inevitably there were weeks when he did not achieve the required number of stars and was left disappointed. That created tensions between us and, over time, began to lessen the incentive created by the stars to “behave,” as the rewards were occasional.

We evolved the reward system, therefore, to a new level. Whatever stars Maanas collected over the week could now be accumulated and exchanged for different rewards. It’s good for teaching delayed gratification and promotes independence, I am assured. Three stars got him an hour of TV, five stars got him a chocolate or lollipop, ten stars earned him a trip to the British Museum, and so on. These were arbitrary rewards but, I hoped, ones that led him to realize that there were advantages to sustaining good behavior. Bad behavior inevitably had its own consequences through the lack of treats and, if terrible enough, sanctions such as the dreaded naughty corner.2

We have now created a currency that encapsulates within it the to-ing and fro-ing, the cajoling and scolding, the promise of reward and the threat of punishment found in human interactions. Within this limited universe, I can already see evidence of other complications and emergent phenomena that remind me of the monetary dilemmas we face in the grander theaters of society and economy.

Sometimes we may have a family trip already planned, such as the vacation we took to New York a few weeks ago. The trip had been long in the making, though Maanas never knew that. In an effort to get him to be super good, I told him that if he collected thirty stars, we would go on a plane, he would get a chocolate and a lollipop, and we’d all enjoy a reeeaally long vacation.

A few days to go and we were still a distant twenty stars away from the finish line. That created a quandary. I had no

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