Polly Bath: You want to put a kid in an incentive program. The word is “It’s good for the buy in.” Which means once I get them bought in, I got to get him off that plan. If I continue with that plan, then I got to keep up. You give ‘em 20 bucks for an A, you got to give him a Porsche by the time they get to high school.

They want something more because that tangible reward is an external control. Which means that I’m not controlling my behavior, you are. The problem is if we continue to sustain an external reward program, then we continue to be in control of your behavior you’re not in control of your behavior.

If you want to use an external reward program for a buy in, that’s great, but what skills am I going to teach you so that we don’t have to use that anymore? And we need to start teaching those skills right away.