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A few years ago, my college age daughter had to break the news to her roommate when she saw the offending quote glued into her scriptures. She tried to break it gently:
“The Church has come out with a statement about that quote. Would you like to see it?”
Then she showed her roommate the statement. (And, yes, she did indeed carry a copy of that as well as President Kimball’s talk on the soul kiss around with her.) The roommate was somewhat disappointed, but accepting.
A statement has been circulated that asserts in part that the youth of the Church today “were generals in the war in heaven … and (someone will) ask you, ‘Which of the prophet’s time did you live in?’ and when you say, ‘Gordon B. Hinckley’ a hush will fall,… and all in attendance will bow at your presence.”
A notice from the Office of the First Presidency reads:
“This is a false statement. It is not Church doctrine. At various times, this statement has been attributed erroneously to President Thomas S. Monson, President Henry B. Eyring, President Boyd K. Packer, and others. None of these Brethren made this statement.”
The notice about the statement, which was sent to General Authorities, Area Seventies, stake, mission, district and temple presidents, and bishops and branch presidents, instructed that priesthood leaders “should see that it is not used in Church talks, classes, bulletins or newsletters.” Also, the notice instructed them to “correct anyone who attempts to perpetuate its use.” [0. Official Statement From The Church, LDS Newsroom]
Sadly, I grew up hearing that quote, and I may have had one tucked away in my scriptures if I weren’t so scatterbrained as to continually lose the handouts so plentifully given to me during my time in the youth program. Perhaps the perpetuation of this story and others very similar to it have led us to where we now find ourselves; perhaps it is the culture of our decaying yet decadent society–more than likely, it is a little bit of both. But, we do seem to have a problem on our hands.
The problem is that the rising generation is a generation of children (ages 7-30+) who feel that they are entitled to the “blessings” of heaven and earth, and who fully expect to be immediately and posthumously rewarded for what they view as “greatness”, but what used to be considered mediocrity. This was nowhere more apparent than a few weeks ago when he was a substitute teacher for the 7 year old class at church.
Sunday Candy
My husband was telling his Primary class that he had a pop quiz for them. He was using his “excited teacher voice.” They were nonplussed.
There was an awkward silence, and then one of the “great kids” spoke up and said:
“Okay, so what do we get if we answer the questions?”
My husband was a bit confused at first, so he kind of looked at the boy and said, “What do you mean?”
“You know, like candy or something. What do we get if we answer the questions?”
My husband responded, “You get the satisfaction of participating.”
“Whatever,” another one of the “good kids” responded. Some refused to answer, others participated half-heartedly. Later on, when the class was almost through, one of the kids spoke up:
“So, seriously–what do we get at the end of class for being good?”
The other kids chimed in, wanting to know what their reward was for sitting through class and being relatively non-disruptive. My husband took that opportunity to try and teach them that he was not there to give them candy for being good. The children sat in disbelief as it finally dawned on them that he really didn’t have anything.
My Primary aged children come home every week hopped up on candy. My 13 year old daughter comes home with elaborate treats made to go along with the lesson–stars made out of rice crispy treats, rope tied in pretty knots made out of licorice, homemade donuts, etcetera. My son gets Starbursts for bringing his scriptures to class (something his teacher mentioned over the pulpit in his talk today in sacrament meeting).
I have noticed that Sunday seems to be incomplete without candy. I wondered where this notion came from, and did a little research on it. Candy makers realized, after successfully campaigning in the 1920′s to get Americans to buy candy on holidays, that they could get Americans to buy candy every day.
In 1928, the National Confectioner’s Association sponsored a co-operative advertising campaign with the slogan “Sweeten the Day with Candy!” Ads in major magazines like the Saturday Evening Post encouraged Americans to enjoy candy every day. And as part of this campaign, ads included the reminder: “Take Home Candy for Sunday.” Promotions along these lines, with the same slogan, had appeared locally beginning in the early 1920s; the NCA was attempting to make the Sunday Candy idea a national tradition.
I believe they succeeded. I also discovered that Mormons aren’t the only ones using candy as a reward for “being good.” In Edmonton, Canada:
Kathleen Crowe says her nine-year-old daughter Angeline was playing in MacEwan park last week when she was approached by a couple from the Victory Christian Center who gave her candy and a Bible verse. Angeline was also promised more candy if she memorized the verse.
Other churches are bribing children to come on the bus to Sunday School with candy, one family chose a church at least partially based on the “coffee hour” spread after services, and there are many other churches offering candy just like we do–for good behavior, singing, bringing their scriptures, etcetera.
What’s so wrong about that, you may ask? (Although I doubt it. Most people know inherently that there is something wrong–even if they can’t quite put their finger on it.)
What’s wrong is that we are telling our youth they are great, amazing, stellar, phenomenal, fantastic human beings, but we are treating them like animals.
Rewarding children with candy for acceptable, normal behavior is known as “behavior modification,” a technique most often employed in training animals. We are telling the kids they are “exceptional” and “fantastic,” but our actions say something–and definitely teach something–entirely different. Our youth are not animals, and they do have a capacity to be the most incredible force for good the world has ever seen, but we are not helping them get there. They catch on to the game we are playing, and they learn to have no respect, a sense of entitlement, and, in the process, their fledgling testimonies are damaged.
Studies On The Effects of Rewards and Praise
All growing up and into my adulthood, I have heard that self-esteem is key to children’s success. The answer to all these studies showing the importance of self-esteem led to the “everyone gets a sticker” syndrome, or in the case of church, “everyone gets a Starburst” syndrome. I found this extremely interesting:
From 1970 to 2000, there were over 15,000 scholarly articles written on self-esteem and its relationship to everything—from sex to career advancement. But results were often contradictory or inconclusive. So in 2003 the Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem was polluted with flawed science….After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement. It didn’t even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.) At the time, Baumeister was quoted as saying that his findings were “the biggest disappointment of my career.”
So, that was wrong. Which I am relieved about, because it was too hard for me to be consistent in praising my kids for every single thing they do. Because of some blessed experience, I learned long ago not to base any kind of self-worth on my children’s performance, so I didn’t have the motivation that Baumeister believes is behind the continued overpraising of American children:
Baumeister has come to believe the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements: It’s so strong that “when they praise their kids, it’s not that far from praising themselves.”
They also found this, which I also found interesting:
According to Meyer’s findings, by the age of 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well—it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. And teens, Meyer found, discounted praise to such an extent that they believed it’s a teacher’s criticism—not praise at all—that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude. [1. The Power and Peril of Inverse Praise: How Not To Talk To Your Kids, Po Bronson, 11 Feb 2007, NY Magazine)]
Oh, how I have seen this with the youth program! So many youth smile and joke around with the leaders, and then turn around and trash talk them. The leaders are completely oblivious. They also seem really cool, and the youth seem to really “relate” to them, but those children have zero respect for them. Zero anything. They don’t trust them and they realize that all the praise is just the adult’s way of telling them they are stupid.
Scholars from Reed College found this alarming information:
The scholars found consistent correlations between a liberal use of praise and students’ “shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher, and inflected speech such that answers have the intonation of questions.”
Dweck’s research on overpraised kids strongly suggests that image maintenance becomes their primary concern—they are more competitive and more interested in tearing others down.[2. Po Bronson, 2007.]
This sounds like our youth in ark culture today. There is also scientific evidence that excessive praise can lead to altering the brains pre-frontal cortex, and create a “praise junkie.” If you couple that praise with food, you could create a monster.
In a classroom where students can make choices about learning and have tasks of worth to explore [that should be a perfect description of a classroom teaching the restored gospel of Jesus the Christ!], the need for punishments or rewards declines sharply. Both rewards and punishments, says Punished by Rewards author Alfie Kohn, are ways of manipulating behavior that destroy the potential for real learning. [3. Punished By Rewards, Ron Brandt, Educational Leadership]
Now, I realize that science can only take us so far (and is often wrong), but there is something to this. I have seen it happening over the course of at least two decades. Praise is not working with our youth. Our youth get praised weekly, often over the pulpit–and here is the leadership looking at the sea of youth in our ward, who are wearing clothes with their cleavage falling out, boys who won’t get up out of a chair for an aged lady, kids who go to dances and dress, dance, and display themselves as immoral–the leadership is saying, “These guys are fantastic!!!” At least let’s be honest. These guys are not fantastic. In fact, they are awful–because they have the potential to be fantastic, and they are happy with being trashy and mediocre. Maybe it’s because we spend too much time on praise and rewards.
When the rewards involve candy, we start to really ruin everything.
Research on child eating habits has shown that foods used as “rewards” become more desirable to children than if they had not been used as rewards. So, when candy is used as a reward, children come to like it more and want it more than they would otherwise.
When we reward children with candy, we are teaching them to eat junky stuff that is not in the Word of Wisdom as a reward for “being good.” What kind of flawed thinking is that? We are teaching them that food is not used for nourishment and joy, but for pleasure and acceptance. We are not teaching them anything beyond punishment and reward, and while most kids will do what you want them to do to get the treat, and it might look as if they are becoming more mature, they have not moved one step further towards becoming more responsible. Also, things can get pricey:
A major problem of bribing people with rewards is that the cost inevitably increases. Although a candy bar may prompt a five-year old to behave appropriately, it will cost you more to persuade a fifteen-year-old.
Notice also that this approach promotes a mentality of, “What’s in it for me?” which lacks any sense of moral development or social responsibility. The reward becomes the motivator, instead of the expected standard of behavior.[4. About Discipline]
So, on top of treating the Primary classes and youth classes we teach pretty much like circus animals, on top of that, we are teaching them to associate food with something other than nourishment, and teaching them that just doing the bare minimum (ie, you are breathing and sitting on a chair! YEA!!!! Good Job!!! Here’s some sugar!), and getting a reward leads to the “What’s-In-It-For-Me?” syndrome that President Faust so eloquently and lovingly condemned in his masterful address, “What’s In It For Me?“:
So, What Do We Do?
One teacher confided in me that she was afraid to quit giving out candy. She didn’t know what the kids would do, or if they would even keep coming to class. Another leader confided that we’d better allow the Singles Ward to meet at 2 or 3 pm, because otherwise, they wouldn’t come because it would be too early for them. Still other people working with youth seem terrified of the idea of having a Youth Conference that does not include an amazing trip to somewhere amazing, a $5000+ budget, and a semi-celebrity (especially in Utah, there are semi-celebrity Mormons everywhere, presumably to speak at youth conferences and give concerts at youth events). The Single Adults have to have a cruise as an activity?!?!? Well, that’s what I learned from all that research on bribery rewards….you can reward a 7 year old with a bag of Skittles, but the price goes higher as they get older.
So, what can be done? Well, first, let’s consider who should be doing the rewarding in a spiritual setting….
Wait…you’re close.
Yes. The Spirit. Heavenly Father. He is the one who gives us our rewards. We can safely shut up and get out of the way so that the Spirit can speak and the children can hear. What a novel concept.
When we are so busy using our “excited voice” and promising “pizza parties at the end of the year!!!!!!” and other things, we are drowning out the sweet, still voice of the Spirit. When we are focused on righteousness, He is our reward. Not a piece of junk.
I came into a Senior Primary in Provo that was out of control. They were offered all kinds of incentives to bring their scriptures, sing, be quiet, pay attention, not lean their chairs back, sit still, not holler in the middle of a lesson, etcetera. They got candy, candy bars, toys, visual aids, etcetera. I was the chorister. Having no desire to shop at a regular store for candy, and having even less of a desire to use cartoon visual aids, I decided to treat them as young MEN and young WOMEN.
A miracle happened.
They sang. And sang. In between singing, I would talk about the meaning of the songs, the troubled world they live in, their testimonies, did they have one? I talked about singing a testimony. Could they do that? I talked about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (my friend was in it! So, I was “in the know”), and how they behaved and what their mission was. Could our Senior Primary do that?
Yes. They could. By the time we were ready for the presentation, my beautiful kids had learned how Jesus Christ was, there had been testimonies shared–for the first time–in singing time. Children would raise their hand when they felt the spirit and share there testimonies! The pianist often turned to me and said, “I never want this to end. I don’t even want to go home.” The teachers sang with testimony. We were divided with boys on one side and girls on the other. There was no fighting or carrying on or loudness. They sat and stood on command. They sang in parts. And they sang with conviction. I got letters from the children telling me they had learned that the gospel was true because of singing time.
They sang beautifully. It was a holy experience.
Why? Because I am so fabulous? NOPE. It was precisely because I didn’t reward them. I let God reward them. I pointed out the Spirit and explained to them those feelings were God telling them they were doing the right thing. Compared to that, some junky piece of sugar that was fleeting and gone and gave them a headache was not even desirable anymore.
I spoke what God told me to speak, not what I thought would be great to say. I listened. I got out of the way and let the Spirit teach.
That can and should happen all the time. But, it doesn’t. Because as adults, we are afraid of “losing” them. If we lose them because we don’t have candy and cruises, we never had them anyway.
God’s Rewards and Blessings
When we reward children at church with fancy prizes, cool and lavish dances, parties, and expensive outings, we are teaching them falsely. They come to think that if these are the things they get from leaders when they are righteous, God better give them stuff that’s even more AMAZING!!! God gives us amazing gifts, but not the way they have been raised to believe.
For example, many youth, having had presents and money and things heaped on them for any normal behavior, come to think that if they are good they will be blessed with lots of money (This is a HUGE problem with adults in Mormon Ark Culture). This is not true.
God’s version of amazing often involves not having money when we are righteous. Or not having money so we can stay righteous. Often, having money as a so-called blessing would be more rightly called a “stewardship.” God’s blessings like that are really more responsibility, stewardship, and accountability. If you have been blessed with money, how did you consecrate it? That will be his question. It’s really more of an assignment than a blessing, in my mind. And for many raised in this culture, it is simply a curse. How are they going to react when they get the blessing of no money?
Some other examples of God’s rewards being different than our society might like:
- I am so thankful we are blessed with good health because we keep the Word of Wisdom.
Fine that is good, but someone else could be blessed with something totally different:
- The Lord has blessed me with this cancer for so many reasons, and I am so thankful to Him. Having always kept the Word of Wisdom, I was surprised when I found out, but I have been given to know it is a way the Lord wants to bless my life.
The Lord’s rewards don’t always seem like rewards because He actually knows what our soul longs for. Our soul, as an eternal being in embryo, is not nearly as temporally minded as our minds are. So, He rewards us according to His will and pleasure, and it’s not always the way we thought.
- I am so blessed that my prayers were answered and my daughter is safe. She was miraculously healed from a tragic accident. The Lord has rewarded me greatly.
Could also be the antithesis to this reward:
- I am so thankful that my daughter was able to pass on through the veil after her accident. Even though we prayed for her to be alright, we received the miracle that she was allowed to go Home. While it does not seem like much of a blessing, I know it is. I have been given to know that I have been blessed with this kind of miracle.
Because when we are righteous, the reward isn’t always a pinata, or a trip to Maui. Sometimes it’s not so fun. Kids growing up with these false reward systems will be ill-prepared to face any real life trial or tribulation. They will be horribly ungrateful to God if the reward is in the form of something, that to mortal eyes, seems like a punishment.
They will be confused and they will falter. It will be nigh on impossible for them to get through life. Let’s not continue in the process of raising nincompoops who could have been the finest warriors God has ever had. Let’s do something about it!
Recommended Reading:
Why I’m Going To Quit Saying “Good Job!” (or at least try)
Are We Raising A Generation of Nincompoops?
I am interested in doing a follow-up article doing a more in-depth look at rewards and how Heavenly Father has used them, and perhaps how that can apply to us…would anyone be interested, or is it just me? :) Let me know.