Bribes/Motivaton

I am not above bribes. I call it "motivation" and I "motivate" my children on a daily basis and usually it gets results. But Preston is a tricky one. He thinks about what I want done and what he gets in return and decides if it's really worth his time.

The bribes are starting to get bigger.

Preston has been dragging his feet with riding his bike without training wheels. The bike he's been riding he got for Easter when he was 3 years old. He looks pretty ridiculous riding it but he would not give it up.

So I "motivated".

On the Thursday before Easter, I presented my proposition to Preston. Just note that this was taking place on the walk home from school and there were several comments from Bryce but mostly they just involved calling Preston a baby so they weren't very useful to the negotiations.

Me: Hey Preston. You see that kid riding his bike?
Preston: Yeah.
Me: He doesn't have training wheels.
Preston: *sigh* Yeah.
Me: Don't you want to ride your bike like him?
Preston: But mom, he's older than me anyways. I'll ride it when I'm big like him. Does that sound good?
Me: How 'bout you and I make a deal.
Preston: *eyeing me suspiciously* What deal?
Me: Welllll, if you can ride your bike without training wheels before Easter I might be able to talk to the Easter bunny and get you a new bigger bike.
Preston: REALLY!!!!
Me: Yeah but you gotta be able to ride it really good without stopping. Do we have a deal?
Preston: *considering the deal and getting suggestions from Bryce* Oh alright.

Here he is the next day! No training wheels!

The cheering section.


Going along for the ride but will not even talk about taking the training wheels off.


And the Easter bunny came through with a new bike. Which he tried for all of 2 minutes and told me to tell the Easter bunny to take it back. Apparently he felt it was too big. At that point bribery was out of the question and threats of losing all bikes came to pass. He then learned how to ride his new big bike. We knew you could do it Preston! You did awesome bud! Way to go!