Should children receive financial rewards for good behaviour?

Written by Vincent Cable MP and published in The Informer on Fri 22nd Jul 2005

The government this week launched a proposal to give children financial rewards for good behaviour. Their reward would be a credit to be used swimming or sports lessons or visits to the cinema.

My first reaction was negative. Surely, children don't have to be bribed to behave unselfishly and responsibly? Why is the government getting involved in parenting? Is personal discipline so degraded that desperate measures of this kind have to be used? Many parents with stable families and children with a sense of right and wrong will feel undermined.

On more reflection, the proposal seems less foolish. After all most of us were brought up with incentives schemes like pocket money, badges at cubs and scouts, stars on school books and praise from parents or teachers. Perhaps it is better to be rewarded for volunteering to do good deeds with a swimming lesson than a bag of sweets.

Part of the government's reasoning is that most of the messages we send to young people are negative. The war on 'hoodies' is an example. To be sure, there is antisocial behaviour and vandalism and they have to be met with the sanctions of the criminal law.

But it is important to separate out the offenders from those whose only offence is to be young. One of the problems with the new curfew powers - which collapsed after last week's test case in Richmond - and dispersal orders is that they do not distinguish the good from the bad.

It is easy to see how the government scheme could be abused or ridiculed. But, with some children seemingly out of control, any ideas for encouraging good behaviour which work have to be taken seriously.