This post is from our guest blogger, Christopher Hillery, a certified youth fitness trainer and the owner of Transformer Fitness. He will be posting monthly articles about healthy kids and activities for parents and children to do together. For more information on Christopher’s personal training programs, check out his website at: http://www.transformerfitness.com
Is Using Food as a Reward for Good Behavior a Good Idea?
The other day at a department store I accidentally overheard a conversation between a mother and her son who looked about two years old. Ok fine, I was eavesdropping when I heard the mother say, “That’s not how a nice boy acts when he wants candy bar.” I admit that the child’s actions required some form of discipline since he was throwing books off the nearby bookshelf with little regard for the other store patrons, but holding a food-based reward over his head can potentially start a chain reaction that can effect the rest of her son’s life.
Using food as a part of a reward or disciplinary system can have damaging effects on your child’s psyche. By rewarding or disciplining your child with food, they form an emotional attachment it. Think about all the times you have said, “I accomplished (insert goal here) this week so I’m going to consume a whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s as a reward for a job well done.” I won’t lie I do the same thing on occasion. Once I became aware of my actions, I thought about how I could help my clients (most of whom are mothers and fathers) change the emotional relationship they had with food so they could educate their children on how to reward themselves without the use of food.
Start a reward system that promotes more active benefits like taking them to the park to play, miniature golfing or to a water park. All of these activities will form emotional bonds between your child, an active lifestyle and most of all you. If activities or “movement experiences” become the basis for rewarding good behavior, your child will form emotional bonds with exercise and activity rather than with food. Both food and activity rewards create motivation for good behavior but the food based reward only lasts as long as it takes the child to eat it. Once the food is gone, so is the motivation to be well behaved. Whatever activity you or your child chooses as reward will be more of a positive impact, meaning the positive feelings the child gets from the prolonged activity will make a much more effective and lasting impression. That positive impression will lead to more positive behaviors in your child since they are now motivated by an experience that lasts longer than a few bites of a Butterfinger.
Here are some additional tips that will help you create a healthier reward system:
1) Remember that the purpose of food is to give our bodies the necessary fuel to get through each day. I am NOT discounting the importance of food tasting good and being enjoyable. I am saying that food should be looked at as a physical necessity rather than an emotional one. Your child doesn’t deserve food because they behaved at the grocery store. They need food to grow up healthy and that fact should be instilled in them at all times.
2) Schedule meals and snack times at the same time everyday. By doing this, you are getting your child on a guess-free eating schedule. They know each day that lunch is at noon regardless of how they behave. This helps your child view food as a daily requirement rather than benefit that accompanies good or bad behavior/feelings.
3) Talk to you child about the importance of eating healthy and being active. This may seem like a no-brainer but most parents avoid talking to their children about living healthy lifestyles. Make the discussion fun and easy to understand so your child retains the information more effectively. For more information on how to talk to your child about health and nutrition, check out http://www.fitnessforyouth.umich.edu/.
4) Recognize and address your own emotional ties to food and make changes to your behavior. Children often adhere to the “monkey see, monkey do” philosophy and may adopt behaviors of yours. If they see or hear that you are rewarding yourself with chocolate cake for a job well done, then they may start expecting similar rewards for their accomplishments.
I hope this article has provided you with some helpful tips on how to create your own activity based reward system for your child. My gut told me I should have shared this pearl of wisdom with the mother of the book hurling child, but I kept my mouth shut as I tried to avoid a hardback copy of the latest Elmo book 
Christopher Hillery has been a Certified Personal Trainer for 9 years and is the owner of Transformer Fitness in Phoenix, Arizona. He was once an overweight child and knows first- hand how the effects of being overweight can be damaging. It is his goal to help overweight children and adults develop lasting healthy habits and a positive body image. Chris can design a full workout program for parents and children which can include a nutrition program, along with equipment to use at home. He can be reached via email at: christopher_hillery@yahoo.com
