Taking Delight Vs Cute-ifying

According to Webster, "taking delight" means "to enjoy very much". Here I would like to introduce a new term that I have coined -- "cute-ify" to mean "to turn something that exists without any intent into a cute thing and get entertained by it". In the context of parenting, many a time I have noticed "taking delight" slipping into "cute-ification". I would like to compare and contrast the two processes here in this article.

When "taking delight" in what a child is doing:

- the adult is either a non-judgmental observer or a participant in the process

- the child is allowed to just "be" and not made self-conscious

When "cute-ification" occurs:

- the adult is being judgmental

- it is quite likely that the child (if old enough) gets self-conscious

To illustrate these two responses I would like to present some examples:

Five year old Ruby shows me the rangoli that she had made. Her caregiver immediately says “Did you see that? How cute! She loves making rangoli. She is very talented.” Overwhelmed with anxiety, the caregiver took over the space and I was not allowed to respond. I could see in the face of the child, subtle ways in which she was becoming self-conscious.

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10 month old Satva just learned to stand up on his own. The other day he crawled to the nearby window, held on to the wall, stood up and lifted the curtain up. This let in light and he was delighted by the experience. Fascinated by this experience, he repeated it over and over again. The mom was observing this and taking delight in the process in which her baby was excited about. She just let him be.

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Four year old Anu invented a repetitive game in which she and her friend would pass a coin and call out each other’s name while doing so. A simple game that could go on forever! There was absolute delight on Anu’s face, until an overseeing adult said, “Look! How cute! How well she is playing!” The delight on Anu’s face was gone. She got self-conscious. She twitched her mouth and started baby-talk.

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Two year old Ishan liked doing everything on his own and refused to take help. He was potty trained. Once when he said that he needed to go to the toilet, the mom rushed to the toilet with him, opened the toilet door, turned on the light and helped him get setup for the job. Ishan tightened up, pulled up his pants, turned off the light, got out of the toilet and closed the door behind him. He said “BABY!” and redid the whole process, this time on his own, without any help -- opened the toilet door, turned on the light and went on to pee. The mom was overjoyed by what her child had demonstrated. She understood the cues and followed them right on from the next time onwards. She didn’t trivialize the child’s attempt to assert himself, nor was she condescending.

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I find babies, toddlers and young children serious about what they are doing. They are trying to figure things out, making sense of the world and people around them. There is absolute, sheer, unsurmounted joy in being there with a young child as he is figuring things out. I have repeatedly observed that the experience gets diminished when the child’s behaviour is “cute-ified”. I have also noticed that if there’s unrest within ourselves, if there’s anxiety, we tend to “cute-ify” and move on rather than participate in a wholesome manner.

Now, what does becoming self-conscious do? When we become self-conscious, we are aware of the response that our behaviour will elicit from others. We understand that we can modify/manipulate our behaviour to elicit the response that we are looking for. Thus our authenticity can get compromised. This is a common game that people play. Little children don’t by default play this adult game. But they can learn to play this game after they have been “cute-ified” enough.

-- Hema

Savour

 If you have access to some 10 or 20 or 30 years old group photos (school, college, wedding, party), please take a look at them; compare and contrast them to some recent ones. If you don't have access to such photos, try to think of a group of people that you know -- friends, co-workers and extended family members. Age group doesn’t matter. I request you to pause here to find some pictures before reading further. It is a crucial step in this exercise.

Now, it is very likely that you would agree that over-weight/obesity is on the rise. We don’t need to know the exact numbers to acknowledge that. But, if you are a person interested in numbers, all you need to do is to go to any public space or a social event and check it out for yourself. I did exactly that. I stood at some busy cross-roads in Chennai, clocked myself and observed the people on bicycles and motorbikes. I counted the number of people who were NOT visibly overweight (Group-A). My friend counted the number of people who were visibly overweight(Group-B). 

If the number of people in Group-A was 'n',

the number of people in Group-B was at least four times 'n'(4n).

Some caveats here:

- Obviously, we are likely to have missed some people due to the nature of the traffic at that time. Thus, #(Group-A) + #(Group-B) was not equal to the total number of people on bicycles and motorbikes. So, we can’t do a percentage calculation here. 

- We couldn’t count people in cars and three-wheel autos.

- Data collected from pockets of Chennai doesn’t *accurately* represent all of Chennai, or other other cities or rural areas.

Having said that, this data still shows us the *trends*. I am deeply pained by this trend. Being over-weight or obese significantly puts one at risk for various diseases. I have been observing various contributing factors at play here, for more than 20 years. This post is an earnest attempt to present my observations and understanding that ensued from those.

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I have chosen to omit exceptions for brevity and have focused on the patterns that are quite common.

A baby is born. The new parents are excited and figuring out ways to feed the baby (breastfeed, bottle-feed). As they are going through this challenging phase they get advice from doctors, books, family and friends. Most of them develop this understanding that the baby would cry when he is hungry. They also get to know that once the baby is nursed, he stopped crying. They begin to understand other hunger cues. Now, as the baby grows into a toddler the parental anxiety around food grows too. The caregiver distracts this mobile little person in a million ways just so food can be shoved into his mouth. 

Sure enough, the distractions work, at least in the short-term. Once a set of options expire, the caregivers quickly come up with new ones. The technology used can be different (from pointing at the moon or a nearby animal to using a mobile phone), but the theme is the same -- distraction.

What do distractions do? My thoughts are:

1. They *disconnect* the baby from her *self*.

The beautiful process of feeling hungry and smelling, touching the food and taking that one’s own mouth:

- activates the digestive system

- helps the baby understand the connection between her hunger, hands, mouth and the good feeling that results when the food reaches her tummy. 

- develops a good tactile sense.

- empowers the baby (although the baby wouldn’t know that)

- integrates the baby into the meal routines and rituals.

2. Distractions are basically manipulations to get what we want to happen. Once the baby starts seeing through this (which is likely to happen eventually), they start losing trust on the care giver. 

3. Food is for survival. All living beings are interested in surviving. Children simply can’t starve themselves to death. That goes against Evolution. Left alone to their devices little children, who have a healthy relationship with food, will seek food only when they are hungry. In my limited experience I have seen that, if this healthy relationship is allowed to exist, the chances of developing eating disorders (anxiety around food, over-eating, binge eating, anorexia) -- is quite small. Distractions don't let a healthy relationship develop between the baby and her food.

The baby is now a toddler and he is sent to a day-care, pre-school or kindergarten. There is a routine enforced by the place that he is going to. He is asked to eat when it is time to eat, whether or not he is hungry. The disconnect between his self and what he does starts here (if not earlier). He is also asked by adults and care-givers to “finish” what is on his plate, even if his body is not for it.

Occasionally the toddler falls sick and rejects food. This is body's natural response to sickness. In simple terms, the body tries to heal itself when we get sick; digestion is too cumbersome during sickness. But the adults around her are worried and anxious for her. They insist that she should eat or drink. The toddler eventually yields to parental pressure, thus widening the disconnect.

To understand this disconnect deeply and assist with healing, we need to start looking at our own relationship with food. 

-- Hema

Walking, Talking And Learning

One fine day, a crawling baby decides to try to stand up. He holds on to something nearby (furniture, railing or an adult) and tries to get up. Not an easy task. Soon he is on the floor again since he let go of the support and his legs are not used to carrying his weight in that fashion. In a little while he tries again. Several attempts and a few days later his falls are not awkward. Soon he develops the stamina needed to stand a bit longer. Now he lets go of his hand and tries to take a step. He falls. He gets up and repeats what he has mastered so far and tries to take it a bit farther. He falls again. These failures don’t deter him. There is no fear. Babies put in a lot of their energy into this process of learning  to walk. This process demands changes at various levels -- physical strength, motor control, cognitive abilities.

This immensely hard learning process is something that all healthy babies go through and they emerge out of it as walking toddlers. Yet, we didn’t teach them how to go about it.

Now onto talking. Toddlers learn to talk the language(s) spoken at home. They don’t learn abc’s. They start off with sounds like “ma”, “da”, “pa”. They put sounds together and experiment with various combinations. They try to repeat the words they hear. They don’t ever get tired of repetition. They absolutely love repetition. They constantly play with the sounds and words they know. There is no fear. They put words together to make sentences that are not grammatically correct. Nevertheless they convey what is needed to be conveyed. 

In our family, I spoke in Tamil to our babies and Dev spoke in Hindi. When our toddlers started talking, they used Tamil words while talking to me and Hindi words while talking to Dev. I know many children who have been bi or tri-lingual since their toddler years. Toddlers go from not being understood (by strangers) to speaking grammatically correct sentences in multiple languages in a year or so. Thankfully there are no formal practices to teach a toddler his/her mother tongue.

Learning to walk and talk demonstrate humans’ ability to learn complex skills on our own. Both these skills are learned out of necessity -- since the people around them walk and talk, these little toddlers also naturally want to be like others. They emulate the behavior they see around them. They internalize their learnings. They learn all their wakeful hours. They are self-confident, in a humble way without knowing that they are so. They never doubt their ability to learn to walk or talk. They don't give up. The toddlers learn both these skills at their own pace. They take the first step only when they feel they are ready to.

Now we take these highly skilled, self-confident learners and subject them to meaningless, mundane, out-of-context, irrelevant learnings drafted by seemingly-caring adults. We start with abc’s. This makes very little sense to English speaking kids since they can already speak fluently and they don’t see a need to learn the alphabet. To non-english speaking kids, this is utter nonsense, but they are forced to learn these foreign abc’s. If they didn't get shaken by the abc's , there is always the 123's. I have heard many young children say that they are not good at English or Math or Science. And yet, these children were once the confident toddlers who mastered walking and talking, all by themselves!

Can we trust little children's learning process?

-- Hema

A Decade Into Homeschooling

I wrote this piece recently for the Teachers Plus magazine.: 

"Our home is the best place on earth. I LOVE being at home. Why can't I be at home most of the times and go to school rarely?" This came from my child when he was 7 years old. Although I didn't want to ponder over his question then, it haunted me. A year later I decided to take a deep look at his question and address his unhappiness in going to school. That led to a cascade of events leading to where we are now. We are thankful for the support we received from fellow homeschoolers and the insights from authors like John Holt, Alfie Kohn and Gabor Mate.

Fast forwarding ten years. My husband Dev and I live on our farm near Tiruttani/Chittoor with our kids Abhi(17) and Aparna(14). Aparna never went to school. Abhi has been home since he was eight. The decision to homeschool liberated us. We realized that could live literally anywhere we wanted to. We were not limited by the necessity to continue a way of life, just for the sake of conformance. The decision to homeschool dramatically brought down the everyday stress level at home. As a direct consequence the quality of our life got better. This enabled us to pause and question our priorities in life. This in turn enabled Dev to quit his corporate job; soon after that we moved back  to India (from the US).  

For the past seven years we have been living in rural South India. Looking back, the challenges presented by this period have inevitably resulted in learning new skills. It is important to mention here that we didn't embark on this path with this agenda in mind. Here I would like to present a few snap-shots from our homeschooling experiences.

Since we have snakes in our area, it was highly imperative to be able to identify them correctly and swiftly. This need fueled by their interest, the kids got adept at identifying, catching and rescuing (non-venomous) snakes. During this feverish phase they made toys, tools and games that would help them with snake identification and snake catching. Life was all about and only about snakes. We even cared for a Checkered Keelback at home for three weeks to observe it in close quarters. In our neighbourhood they are now known as the local snake catchers. 

Similarly, the lack of restaurants and a strong desire to enjoy baked goods got Aparna interested in baking. She now bakes wholesome bread, cake and pizza. She experiments with local/seasonal fruit and vegetable in her recipes. 

Two years ago Abhi wanted to eat the fruit of our palm trees. But people that climb palm trees are not easy to find anymore, even in villages. Thus his desire drove him to learn to climb palm and coconut trees. This process lasted for about two years - to acquire enough physical strength and skills, to get over his fear of heights, to collect and use the tools needed for the harvest. This summer both Abhi and Aparna were able to climb and harvest palm fruit and tender coconuts. Abhi wanted to document this process and that became a valuable film-making experience that involved script writing, editing and post-production software work. His work is available on his youtube channel "dancing dodonaea studios".

For several months, after moving in to our new house at the farm, we were looking for a carpenter to build a chest of drawers for our farm tools. We could find absolutely no one to work on such an unconventional project. As Dev started designing the storage space, Aparna got interested in building it. She already had basic wood working skills since she had built some furniture. These skills were developed and honed for many years -- starting from working on cardboard projects (miniature models), moving on to simple utility (wood) projects with no joinery and then taking up joinery work. She is currently into relief carving (carving done on a flat panel of wood). All these were born out of interest and/or necessity. 

We have always been a multi-lingual family - my native tongue is Tamil, Dev's is Hindi. We live in a place where Telugu is spoken by half the population. Although they speak all these languages, the kids never focused on the writing aspect of Indian languages. Out of the blue Abhi recently realized the need to be fluent in the Tamil script. As he was watching a Permaculture documentary in English, he had an urge to make it available for the non-English speaking, local Tamil farmers. So he started writing the subtitles for that documentary in Tamil, of course with Google translator on his side. In just a few weeks he became a Tamil literate! 

Dev and I consider the education of our children as a piece in the jig-saw puzzle of our life - no more or less important than the other pieces. After moving to India, we bought a piece of land and got into farming without any prior experience. It has taken us all these 7+ to learn about the local ecology, soil and organic methods to a reasonable extent to be able to grow some food. Similarly every aspect (off-grid, composting toilet, adobe bricks, traditional tiled roof, natural finishes) of our house construction took us long to research, learn and execute. As a consequence of this, we as a family now have many construction related skills - masonry (brick and stone), carpentry, plumbing, laying tiled floor and grouting, mud plastering and finishing. It is important to emphasize here that all these started from humble beginnings. 

One common thread that I have observed in all these learning journeys is the sustained interest that is needed to learn any skill deeply. Sustained interest can come ONLY from within. It can't be force-fed. Sustained interest, I have seen, comes out of a burning desire or an absolute need of the hour or the pleasure we derive by doing something (like music). Sustaining an interest is possible only if we enjoy the process, not if we wait impatiently for the end-product. Working with hands and working on our own helps us understand this. 

During all these years of being with children, I have observed that they go through periods of no activity -- when they are not visibly engaged in anything. These periods of non-activity, I think, are as crucial as their growth spurts. During these periods they question life around them, assimilate something they came across recently, heal themselves, dive deep into themselves etc. I have learned to cherish these periods and not disturb them while they are there.

To us homeschooling has been about:

-- mindful parenting, to the extent possible

-- growing organic food and working together as a family

-- being close to nature, getting in tune with its cycles and taking care of other life forms (plants, trees, animals)

-- allowing everyone to take up things that interests them deeply and nurturing the development of those skills

-- maintaining an environment where mistakes are considered a part of the process

-- building resilience that the kids need to survive during difficult times in this era of climate change

-- having enough time to ponder over questions that come up and to develop an understanding about one's own self

-- trusting our ability to solve problems (technical, medical, emotional) and not resort to professional help right away

-- personal care -- cooking, washing clothes, cleaning, making clothes, hair cutting 

-- management and self-regulation of one's time

In our lives, saying "no" to mainstream has ended up as saying "yes" to various other possibilities, which have made life more fun. There certainly have been difficult and challenging times since we changed the course of our lives. But then, there were similar phases earlier too! In a certain sense, we have chosen the current set of challenges and that wasn't the case before.

-- Hema

Helplessness -- actively taught and learned

Here in this post I plan to address a key issue with modern day parenting in affluent families, whereby the kids are actively taught to be helpless.

First I will cite some scenarios from our village:

Cheenu, a four year old boy, accompanied his dad who was a labourer working on our house foundation. Any middle or upper class parent would find the construction site to be full of hazards for a child of his age -- foundation trenches, big stone piles, people hand-carrying big stones etc. Obviously, Cheenu's dad didn't think so; neither could he afford to. His family situation was such that Cheenu had to be brought to work if he is off from school. Though it was a hot day (38 deg C),  Cheenu was as cheerful in this site as you would find a small child playing in a park. After sticking with his dad initially, he started mimicking what the other adults were doing -- which was to hand-carry stones. He took his job seriously. He carried stones that were big for him and wouldn't pick up anything that was not challenging. I was feeling sorry for this child and tried offering him smaller stones. He simply ignored me and continued working. I understood much later the condescending nature of my behaviour towards Cheenu and his work. And since Cheenu was not conditioned yet, his response towards me was authentic even if it would be considered rude or impolite.

Shephards' kids (less than ten years of age) carry a sharp billhook, climb a tree, lop branches and haul them home to feed their cattle. This is part of their daily routine. They learn to use this sharp tool, manuver their way up the tree with the tool tucked into their pants on the rear side. Girls learn to cook on wood-burning stoves from the age of eight or so. It is not considered particularly dangerous. It is not uncommon to find little girls cook a meal for the entire family. These kids also go to school. Young kids are indispensable contributors in such families. 

Now, I will compare and contrast the above situations with "normal" middle or upper class families.

Barring a few exceptions, these children are overprotected. They typically don't get involved in household chores and hardly get a chance to use the fire or tools. They are assisted by the adults almost always and they are not expected to take on responsibilities.

Here are some excerpts from some of our interactions with affluent visitors from the city:

- This family came with their eight year old boy. I suggested to my kids to take their new friend to get milk from our milk lady. The walk was hardly hundred meters. They had to cross a not-so-busy village road.  The mom immediately intervened saying, "Oh, my son shouldn't go. He doesn't know how to walk on roads. He will hurt himself in the traffic." Having observed this eight year old for a day, I didn't think that the mom's statement was true.  Nevertheless we dropped the idea.

- This child was seven years old. I had made some boiled eggs for lunch. At the table, he was watching my kids eat their egg and was waiting for one of his parents to show up and peel one for him. When Abhi suggested that he can try to do it himself, he was quite surprised. Apparently this suggestion was never made before at his home! With a bit of help, he happily peeled the egg and ate it.

- This time it was a ten year old girl. Knowing that pomegranate was one of her favourites,  I offered one to her. With a perplexed look she said, "but I have never peeled a pomegranate before. can you please peel it for me?"  We helped her with the process and noticed that she was happy to do things for herself.

Now, my musings about this:
Time and again I have seen that small kids have a strong desire to participate in the adult world by doing what the adults are doing. Although they initially resist the conditioning to give up independence, they eventually do become helpless. Kids that are expected to be helpless are likely to grow up into adults with the same attitude. We once had a twenty-five year old visitor who couldn't wash his plate or glass since he didn't know how to use a scrubber!

In hunter-gatherer societies, kids get involved in real life. They start using knives and other tools from a very young age.  There are many examples of this in the book "The Continuum Concept" by Jean Liedloff. Evolutionarily speaking, it must have been very important for little children to learn life skills and become useful and independent. If not, he or she would be a burden on the migrating tribe.

Repeatedly I see evidences to conclude that children meet the expectations, whatever they may be, of the adults around them. Here is another post I wrote earlier on this topic.

-- Hema

Meeting Expectations

Very often I see parents who talk about their kids, in their presence, quite oblivious of what impact such talk might have on them. I address this aspect of parental behavior here in this post. The idea of this exercise is to look at such talk from the perspective of a child who is listening to her parents' remarks about her. To a lot of parents the contents of this post would be obvious, so this is clearly not directed towards them.

Incident 1: A dad came in with his five year old wanting to discuss homeschooling. He said things like "my son is just five, but knows the English alphabet already", "He is a fast learner", "His learning is just amazing"r, "He is very naughty.  He will take up all your time, you have to constantly monitor him".
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Incident 2: The parents of these two little girls were interested in talking about farming and global issues. When we got around to talking, the girls found their way to the piano that was in the living room. I was going to tell the little ones to make sure they played it softly to allow us to talk, but the mom pre-empted me with a smile and helpless voice, saying "Oh! once they start playing they won't stop and also it would be so loud that we can't talk".
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Incident 3: This mom came with her three year old who gets to see her dad only during the weekends. During one of the conversations the mom, with the child right next to her, said to me "She really misses her dad. She often wishes her dad could be there to play with her".
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Incident 4: When a city-dwelling family with an eight year old boy was visiting us, I suggested to my kids to take their new friend to get milk from our milk lady. The walk was hardly 100 meters. They had to cross a not-so-busy village road.  The mom immediately intervened saying, "Oh, my son shouldn't go. He doesn't know how to walk on roads. He will hurt himself in the traffic." Having observed this eight year old for a day, I didn't think that the mom's statement was true. Nevertheless we dropped the idea.
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Incident 5: A three year old that visited us was having a very good time playing here. When it was time for him and family to leave, the mom said (right where the child was playing), in an exasperated manner "now comes the difficult part. He wouldn't quit playing and won't get ready to leave" .


Observant parents know that children are tuned in to their parents' conversations whenever they are in earshot. This happens regardless of whether the kids are seemingly engrossed in other activities. Now I want to revisit each of the above examples and look at them from the concerned child's perspective. Although we don't of course know what the child is actually thinking, it is still worth looking at about what the child might be thinking.

Incident 1: This five year old may now think, "My dad thinks I am very smart. I got to be smart. I learned the English alphabet so quickly". Now if, in future, this child wants to learn something and he can't learn it quickly then he may have a contradiction in his mind, since his dad had already declared him to be a fast learner. Would he, at that point, decide to pursue his learning and modify his identity from being a "fast learner" to a being "slow learner" and continue his learning? Or would he give up learning that particular skill that is challenging his given identity as a "fast learner"?  Regarding his "naughtiness", the child senses the implicit giving up of parental authority in his dad's voice and has no reason to modify his (mis)behavior.
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Incident 2: When the little girls heard their mom say "once they start they won't stop and also it would be so loud that we can't talk", at least I wasn't surprised that they followed through meeting the mom's expectation.
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Incident 3: It is possible that the child missed her dad. But often when little kids are having fun, they tend to to live in the present moment. They are not thinking about other things. Was it instead the mom who missed her husband? When I brought this up later with the mom, she admitted that she missed her husband during the week and possibly projected that feeling on to the child. So now,  was the child carrying a feeling that wasn't necessarily a felt experience for her?
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Incident 4: If this is something the eight year old hears often, at least some part of him would have to deal with his non-existent inability to walk on the roads.
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Incident 5: Again here, from the child's perspective, the mom has verbally given up her parental authority. Would the child then feel the need to comply to the mom's request?

Once we start paying close attention, there are countless examples like these. The potential danger in these cases is that the kids' identities are created by the adults around them. Can we let the children form their self-identities on their own, based on their own experiences over an extended period of time?

-- Hema

"The Risks Of Rewards"

My parents didn’t believe in rewards and punishments. Their parenting style didn’t include both these “techniques”. They treated achievers and non-achievers (in academics) alike. My dad’s focus was on making sure his children were happy at the end of the day. At home, there was transparency in all matters. Our parents trusted us (three daughters), and we (unknowingly) never misused that trust. Our neighbours’ practices were exactly the opposite. This was back in the 70’s and 80’s, when growing up in Trichy in South India.

Thirty years later, I had my children when we were living in California. Any trip to the neighbourhood park or the playschool or a grocery store or a birthday party was an assault on my understanding about parenting. Every few seconds I got to hear some parent or the other saying “good job” and I cringed every time I heard that.  They were good-jobbing every move of the child. I noticed that good-jobbed kids were not entirely free and they were constantly checking what their parents’ reaction to their behaviour was.  My initial response to this was “THIS IS NOT RIGHT”.

But then, I was in a foreign land and I couldn’t clearly articulate what was wrong. Soon after Abhi had started kindergarten, he became defiant. After a long period of confusion and conflict, I succumbed to the techniques of good-job, 1-2-3, star charts, time-outs etc. Like with any other band-aid solutions, the effect of these techniques was temporary. Dev was urging me to take a deeper look at the issues at hand. Fortunately, around this time, I chanced upon Alfie Kohn’s “Unconditional Parenting” at a friend’s place. She was then into “The Magic of 1-2-3”. She gifted me Kohn’s book since she found no use for it.

I fervently read the book, cover to cover. Dev and I watched some of Kohn's speeches on youtube. His critical outlook appealed to me right away. It helped me reconnect with the parenting style that I was once used to.  All of a sudden, things just dawned on me. Basically, rewards and punishments are two sides of the same coin. Both are behaviour-manipulating tools. And it didn’t feel right to manipulate the behaviour of kids to suit our purpose. Also, the joy of learning or doing something is taken away by praising the learner/doer who ends up learning/doing things JUST to win rewards from us. It was painful to acknowledge the mistakes I had made and the damage I had inflicted on my kids. But it had to be done before it was too late.

Since I had received unconditional parenting myself, I found it natural to latch on to it and be the giver this time. There have certainly been hiccups. But, I have stayed on this track which has helped us cultivate and enjoy a beautiful, trusting, joyous relationship.

There are many speeches oh Kohn on youtube. These are some of his insightful articles:

http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/five-reasons-stop-saying-good-job/

http://alfiekohn.org/teaching/pdf/Punished%20by%20Rewards.pdf

http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/risks-rewards/