Sticks and… carrots

Looking back at my own upbringing and at Asian parenting in general, I found that there’s one big tool that has been missing. The carrots.

Asian upbringing focuses the majority of their attention on sticks (literally), which generates fear but only serves as a preventive measure to stop kids from doing something that could potentially hurt themselves. It was never meant as a mean to achieve something higher than whatever standard a parent set. The reason being that, when the punishment by a 3rd party is taken away, the reinforcement dies. (as if, you are going to whip yourself)

Carrots, on the other hands, serves to increase the intensity of any good act and can be artificially reinforced by the self through exchanging money. Looking back, there were certain instances of carrots in my life, but they were few and far in between and only after reaching a long term goal. What I find lacking, is the immediate gratification that is necessary to train the mind to release the “happy” chemicals.

So this is what I am going to do and have been doing. I’ve been dipping in little evils here and there that are considered luxuries as a reward for myself, nothing big for weekly goals. After a year of reinforcement, I will begin flipping a coin to decided whether a reward is granted whenever a good deed is completed. This serves to intensify the chemical release as well as elongating the duration.