Mommy's Token Economy

G-d's Rewards For Being Good

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Correction: Gunflint worked as an iron miner, not as a coal miner. My apologies.

From now on, Isha Yiras Hashem is officially AI-free. I have never used AI much, but I'd like to emphasize and clarify this now. All writing, jokes, images, and sources will be humanly flawed and locally sourced, so do the kind human thing and let me know if I made a mistake.

Regarding translation, which can be requested in any language, Debbie Rubinstein says that the first draft seems to come out better with AI than it does with Google Translate. It would inconvenience her to start from scratch, but it will be human-checked before posting. While I'm at it, I'm sorry for not going back and fixing every single mistake. I really intended to. I just get distracted writing new stuff. So thanks Debbie for your patience with me, and assume all remaining errors are my fault. And thanks to Rebbetzin Fastag, without whom my writing would be an empty shell.

Welcome To Our Token Economy

As a stay at home mother, you really want to encourage good behavior and keep things running smoothly at home. I implemented a token economy for this reason.

A token is anything I declare to be a token. In my home, I have declared that small round plastic pebbles are tokens. This makes these pebbles fiat currency¹ - money which has value because I said so I am the Divinely Mandated Chair of the Family Federal Reserve.²

We put tokens into clear plastic jars, each distinguished by a Lego in that child's favorite color. Small prizes (20 tokens) come from a prize box: slappy hands, squishy balls, sticky fingers. Big prizes (100 tokens) are toys and must be discussed in advance. Of course, I cannot hand out too many tokens, or their value drops. Managing supply and demand is the job of the Divinely Mandated Chair of the Federal Family Reserve.

Thanks to

• G-d, for the Fifth Commandment that children must honor their father and mother. This applies even when they are declaring plastic chips to be valuable currency.

• The Dollar Tree, a store who used to sell bags of 50 plastic bead pebble things for a dollar.

• Amazon, an online retailer, for selling glass jars that fit exactly 100 tokens.

• Gravity, for keeping it all from flying about uncontrollably, which would make our household even more chaotic. Created by G-d.

How to Earn Tokens

• 2 tokens for getting fully dressed.

  Shoes to yarmulke if you're a boy; shoes to hair tied back if you're a girl.

• 1 token for going nicely to school without any meltdowns.

  But if you do melt down, and calm down when I try to bribe you with a token, you’ll get it anyway. I'm just a mortal human.

• 1 token for putting on your seatbelt by yourself and not complaining.

• 1 token for getting into pajamas at a reasonable time.

• 1 token for taking a bath.

• 1 token for every 10 items picked up off the floor

  Important note: cleaning tasks must be pre-approved by the Divinely Mandated Family Chairparents! This prevents kids from “cleaning” by re-creating the mess and then picking it up with dramatic flair!

Extras:

• 10 tokens for getting a haircut.

• 5 tokens for bathing immediately after a haircut.

  For some reason, this always has to be negotiated separately.

• 2 tokens for being the one to give in during a fight.

  Must be witnessed by the parent awarding the token.

• At my discretion, you can get rewarded for being insulted and not retaliating. In this case, the tokens are taken from the insulter's container rather than the family box.

  For example, if your brother calls you a fish, and you don’t respond by saying, “Actually, you’re a bigger fish,” and he doesn’t reply with, “But you go glug glug and swim in the ocean,” and then follow up with, “You’re not even a kosher fish, ‘cause you don’t have fins and scales,” you could theoretically earn a token from their economy.

  If, however, you call them a fish after earning the token, the transaction is reversed.³

• Tokens are not awarded retroactively.

  Parents do not want to work as historians of sibling conflicts.

• No Sharing Tokens.

  Each child earns and keeps their own tokens.

• Only Mommy Counts Tokens.

  To avoid confusion or disputes, tokens are officially tallied only by me.

• No Tokens for Routine Tasks.

  Basic things, like helping with the baby, throwing away your trash, or playing nicely, are expected as part of daily life and don’t earn tokens. Subject to parental discretion, with the exceptions listed above.

• No Refunds.

  Once you buy a prize, you can't return it and reclaim the tokens.

• No Exchanges.

  Tokens are tokens. They don't turn into real money.

• If a child is being persistently insulted, they can come to a parent, who may begin awarding sympathy tokens.

  Sympathy tokens are taken directly from the insulter's supply. This creates an incentive to be nice, or at least silent.

  

Mini Economists

I was pretty sure I had thought of everything, but despite my airtight rules, there were some unsuccessful attempts at tantrum-based hostile takeovers. But in the end, our token economy was successfully implemented.⁴

Also, any resemblance to tokens in cryptocurrency is purely coincidental.

Moral hazards of Bribing Children

One day, Seth⁵ came up with an even deeper concern:

“If we lose tokens for doing bad stuff... then we're just paying to do bad stuff!”

This is called a moral hazard. If the cost of hitting his brother is a token, and Seth is okay with losing 5 tokens, why not hit his brother five times?

He was making an excellent point. Perhaps I had accidentally created a system where misbehavior wasn't discouraged. It was just …. priced. That was definitely not good parenting, but I couldn't think of any easy solutions.

Me: “Do you have any ideas?”

Seth: “If we make it a real economy, it won't help. Because the problem is you're allowed to do the bad stuff now, you just pay for it.”

Stumped, I gave him a bonus token for advanced logical reasoning.

But that made me think. That's the whole problem with reward and punishment, isn't it? If G-d is going to punish us, and you accept the punishment, why shouldn't you sin?

From Token Economy to Soul Economy

As powerful as incentives are, they shape behavior. They don't shape people. And I'm trying to shape people who think for themselves, not people who perform well. Eventually, I want my children to stop doing the right thing because they'll earn a prize, and start doing the right thing just because it's right.

I don't want to raise obedient kids who call each other a fish, unless threatened with the loss of tokens. I want to raise kind ones who try to build others up and be kind and giving.

There's a saying in psychiatry, “Pills don't teach skills”. Similarly, rewards don't teach character. If you over-rely on tokens (or grades, or gold stars, or likes), you risk creating people who are always asking “What will I get out of doing this?”

That's not just a parenting problem.

Free Will and G-d's Rewards

As caregivers, our children on loan from G-d. And like G-d, we face a choice: do we want compliance or character?⁶

Imagine if G-d had created the world with a token economy, every good deed would give us a prize and every bad deed would zap us with a fine. No mystery, no struggle, just stimulus and reward.

But that's not the world He gave us.

He gave us free will. That means we're always able to do the wrong thing - but expected to choose the right one.

He let Adam choose the tree, and bring death to mankind. He let Cain choose envy and kill his brother Abel.

But He also let Abraham choose faith. This is because free will can work in both directions, good and bad.

And He lets us choose, too.

1. My husband taught me this term.

2. https://outorah.org/p/20572/ Quote from Honoring Parents, by Rabbi Dr Asher Meir

However, gratitude does not necessarily imply reverence. And our Sages gave this mitzva an immense importance which seems beyond the scope of ordinary gratitude. They tell us that the honor of parents “is compared to the honor of the Creator” (Kiddushin 30b). The reason, the gemara explains, is that the parents are HaShem’s partners in the formation of the child: “There are three partners in [the formation of] man: the Holy One blessed be He, and his father, and his mother.“

The idea of “partnership” suggests that the parents’ contribution is more than physical or biological. The human spirit, the complete human being, is also formed with the participation of the parents. Chasidic thought describes the parents’ conduct as creating a spiritual “garment” for the soul. And Rav Nachman explains that this parental influence doesn’t end when the child is formed but continues throughout life (Likutei Halakhot, Hilkhot Kibud Av vaEm).

This human partnership with HaShem in the most sublime task of all, the breathing of a soul into flesh and blood, is an awesome responsibility for the parents, and at the same time should elicit in the child awe and reverence towards the father and mother.

3. In economics, they call this an enforced redistribution penalty model.

4. Truthfully, as of writing this post, I've kind of slacked on it. Maybe this will get me back into it.

5. Not his real name.

6. Preferably both, if course, but sometimes you have to prioritize.