“ Just because some children were more effective than others at distracting themselves from [the marshmallow in the famous Marshmallow Test] doesn't mean this capacity was for the impressive results fo… Alfie Kohn
“ Students get the message bout what adults want. When 4th graders in a variety of classroomswere asked what their teachers most wanted them to do, they didn't say, Ask thoughtful questions or Make resp… Alfie Kohn
“ Are we encouraging him to make his own judgments about what constitutes a good performance (or a desirable action) ? Are we contributing to, or at least preserving, his ability to choose what kind of… Alfie Kohn
“ How well you do things should be incidental, not integral, to the way you regard yourself. Alfie Kohn
“ Do we really want to condemn as excessive the use of safety helmets, car seats, playgrounds designed so kids will be less likely to crack their skulls, childproof medicine bottles, and baby gates at t… Alfie Kohn
“ The most significant factor in an individual’s ability to remain in good health may be a sense of control over the events of life, one psychologist has remarked. Alfie Kohn
“ In the workplace, there is no getting around the fact that the basic purpose of merit pay is manipulative. Alfie Kohn
“ Hence a report from Harvard’s own Committee on Raising the Standard: Grades A and B are sometimes given too readily—Grade A for work of not very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocri… Alfie Kohn
“ The question is not whether more flies can be caught with honey than with vinegar, but why the flies are being caught in either case—and how this feels to the fly. Alfie Kohn
“ The research is clear: getting children to focus on their performance can interfere with their ability to remember things about the challenging tasks they just worked on.67 Alfie Kohn
“ Instead, you would probably hear, No rewards and punishments?? Then how will we get our kids to do what they’re told, follow the rules, and take their place in a society where certain things will be e… Alfie Kohn
“ As it happens, most studies have found that unexpected rewards are much less destructive than the rewards people are told about beforehand and are deliberately trying to obtain. But Alfie Kohn
“ We’re told that parents push their children too hard to excel (by ghostwriting their homework and hiring tutors, and demanding that they triumph over their peers), but also that parents try to protect… Alfie Kohn
“ Many of us have watched people become uneasy, if not positively furious, when they believe some offense—including one committed by a child—has not been punished severely enough. Later in this book I w… Alfie Kohn
“ By contrast, training and goal-setting programs had a far greater impact on productivity than did anything involving payment.32 Alfie Kohn
“ The use of rewards for reading, writing, drawing, acting responsibly and generously, and so on is cause for concern, not only because these things could be intrinsically motivating but because we want… Alfie Kohn
“ Some who support more coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being… Alfie Kohn
“ How we feel about our kids isn’t as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them. Alfie Kohn
“ But, as with punishments, they can never help someone to develop a commitment to a task or an action, a reason to keep doing it when there’s no longer a payoff. Alfie Kohn
“ Historians have shown that parents in the Middle Ages worried about their kids no less than we worry about ours today, and by the nineteenth century there is evidence of bars being placed on windows t… Alfie Kohn
