REWARDS VS BRIBERY | What to do during POTTY TRAINING to encourage your child's success (NO bribes!) - Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant and Potty Training Coach

REWARDS VS BRIBERY | What to do during POTTY TRAINING to encourage your child’s success (NO bribes!)

Difference between rewards and bribery, specifically when it comes to potty training. Let’s break down the difference together.

REWARDS VS BRIBERY | What to do during POTTY TRAINING to encourage your child’s success (NO bribes!)

Here are some examples:

Reward; great job going potty, here’s a sticker!

Bribery; would be if you poop on the potty, I’ll give you a marshmallow.

Reward; let’s build your sticker chart so you can pick a prize from your prize box!

Bribery; Do you want this candy? If you want it, you need to poop in the potty.

Your child goes to the bathroom, they know that when they go to the bathroom, they’re going to get a sticker and when they feel their sticker chart, they get to pick a prize.

Rewards are more of a celebration of success. Rewards are structured and calm, and the child is in control. Your child knows what to expect.

Where bribery is the complete opposite. Bribery is more hostile. It’s chaotic and stressful when you just want your kid to push that poop out, “let’s go push it out, here’s the marshmallow, let’s go, come on!” Your child is not going to feel proud of their accomplishment in that way.

Another way to think of it is that the reward is the outcome of a choice that your child made on their own, and you can use this in any behavior. Right now we’re talking about teaching your kids to use the toilet, but it can also be used teaching your kids to clean up their room once they do something, then they get a reward for it. Where with bribery, you’re really just making them do something.

Hopefully the difference here between rewards and bribery makes total sense to you. You can learn more about this in my potty training course, the POTTY PARTY.