Your child is staring at an unfinished homework sheet. You have asked twice. Nothing happens. Finally, you say, “Finish it and you can play on your tablet.”
Suddenly, the pencil starts moving.
It looks like motivation. But your child has not suddenly become interested in learning. They have simply decided that homework is the price they must pay for the tablet.
That is the reward trap: we gain compliance today while quietly weakening the curiosity children will need tomorrow.
We also send an implicit message that homework is not valuable in itself. It is merely a means of obtaining something more desirable. As a result, the child may begin to see homework as even less appealing than before.
When motivation becomes a transaction
In a classic experiment, psychologists Mark Lepper, David Greene and Richard Nisbett observed preschool children who already enjoyed drawing.[1] Some were promised a certificate for drawing; others were not. When the researchers later returned and no reward was available, the children who had expected a prize spent less time drawing.
The reward had changed the question in the child’s mind.
Before the experiment, the question was, “What can I create?”
Afterwards, it became, “What will I get?”
Psychologist Edward Deci discovered a similar pattern in a pioneering experiment with university students.[2] He gave them an engaging puzzle and paid some of them to solve it. When the payment was later removed, the previously rewarded students spent less of their free time exploring the puzzle. The reward had made the activity feel like work.
The message children gradually absorb is simple: “If I need to be rewarded for doing this, it probably is not worth doing for its own sake.”
Rewards pull attention towards the outcome. Curiosity pulls attention deeper into the experience.
Over time, rewards can create a generation that asks, “What will I get?” before asking, “What might I discover?”
Replace control with curiosity
When children resist, parents naturally ask, “How can I make them do it?” But this question turns the child into a problem to be managed.
A more powerful question is: “What is preventing my child from engaging?”
A child may avoid homework because it is too difficult, too easy, confusing, repetitive or disconnected from anything meaningful. A reward does not uncover the reason. It simply attempts to push the child past it.
Instead of saying, “Finish this and you can have screen time,” try asking:
“What part feels difficult?”
“What are you wondering about?”
“What would make this more interesting?”
These questions communicate something rewards cannot: “I want to understand you. I want to help you. Your curiosity matters more than simply completing the task.”
A reward can make a child act. Curiosity helps children learn to motivate themselves.
That is the real goal. We are not raising children who behave only when someone is watching. We are raising young people who can think, choose, explore and take responsibility even when no prize is waiting.
Author Bio:
Dr. Özgür Bolat is an eminent scholar and associate professor who has made significant contributions in education. Having earned his master’s degree from Harvard as a Fulbright Scholar, he then completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge and was a visiting researcher at MIT Sloan. His book, The Reward Trap: Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids, is a bestseller that has sold over 400,000 copies in Türkiye and will be released in the UK this September.
[1] Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28(1), 129–137.
[2] Deci, E. L. (1971). Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 18(1), 105–115.
