Show Notes
What if the rewards you’re using to motivate your teen are actually making them less motivated?
In this episode of Power Your Parenting: Moms with Teens, I talk with Dr. Özgür Bolat, author of The Reward Trap: Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids, about the surprising downside of using rewards to motivate our kids. Dr. Bolat is a distinguished education scientist, researcher, associate professor, and internationally recognized expert in education and parenting. He earned his master’s degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education and his PhD from the University of Cambridge and spent a year as a visiting PhD student at MIT Sloan. His research and personal experience led him to explore how achievement, praise, and rewards can create a dependence on external validation—and what parents can do differently.
Dr. Bolat explains that while rewards may get teens to do what we want in the short term, compliance is not the same as motivation. When we say, “Get an A and I’ll give you money,” or “Finish your homework and you can have more screen time,” teens may become focused on the payoff rather than learning, mastery, or personal responsibility. Over time, rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation and even affect creativity, self-esteem, and connection. Instead of immediately trying to control behavior, Dr. Bolat encourages parents to get curious about what’s underneath it. Why isn’t your teen studying? Why have they stopped caring about school? What are they struggling with? His PEACE model helps parents move away from simply fixing the behavior and toward understanding and solving the deeper problem together.
3 Takeaways for Moms
1. Compliance is not the same as motivation.Rewards may get your teen to do something today, but they don't necessarily build the internal motivation to keep doing it. Ask yourself: Am I trying to get immediate compliance, or am I helping my teen develop ownership?
2. Look underneath the behavior.Instead of asking, “How do I get my teen to study?” get curious: “Why is my teen struggling to study?” Resistance may be pointing to discouragement, disconnection, fear of failure, lack of meaning, or another deeper issue.
3. Help your teen find a cause, not just a goal.Grades and college acceptance may not be motivating enough. Talk with your teen about the bigger picture: What kind of life do you want? What are you good at? What matters to you? How do you want to contribute? Meaning, growth, values, and connection can become powerful internal motivators.
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