Don’t Make Kids Earn What In Fact They Need!
Date: April 15th, 2026
Do you expect difficult kids to earn/deserve lunch with the teacher? Or do you allow them to go ahead and experience the benefits of it?
Ask Polly Bath: Teach Kids the Difference Between Equity and Equality
Date: December 10th, 2025
Polly answers the question: “I have a student who saw another kid getting rewards for their behavior chart so now he’s mimicking the behaviors and asking for his own chart and rewards. How do I address this?”
Ask Polly Bath: Using Rewards in Hopes of Good Behavior?
Date: October 1st, 2025
Polly answers the question: “Should students who misbehave frequently get rewarded to be good?”
Curriculum, School Store, & Behavior
Date: July 23rd, 2025
Here’s how one teacher I met connected intrinsic rewards with curriculum, school values, the school store, and behavior. Brilliant!
Ask Polly Bath: Rewards as Motivation?
Date: December 15th, 2024
Polly answers the question: “I’m under a lot of pressure to use rewards in my second grade class to get kids to behave, but I saw a video of you on social media saying that can be a bad idea. But what can I do instead?”
Ask Polly Bath: Rewarded for Bad Behavior?
Date: June 16th, 2024
Polly answers the question: “One of my students was yelling, kicking chairs, and tearing down our bulletin boards so I had him escorted to the office. But when I walked by the office a while later I saw the child eating cookies! I’ll be honest, I WASN’T happy!! Why is this ok?”
When a Reward System Breaks Down
Date: September 20th, 2023
When it comes to a reward system, don’t over-reward and don’t have a kid on one if they’re able to manipulate the system.
Ask Polly: Motivating Students
Date: November 19th, 2022
Polly answers the question: “My 6th graders are completely apathetic in class. How can I motivate them?”
Screen Time as a Behavior Reward?
Date: July 3rd, 2022
‘Screen time’ as a reward does not teach social skills. Which means you could be making social skills worse by using screen time as a reward.
Do Your Behavior Rewards FAIL?
Date: August 29th, 2021
As a behavior expert who consults all over the country, I can tell you, systems that OVER-REWARD behaviors do not get the results they hoped for! Here’s why…
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