An Important Distinction about "Bribing" our Kids

All of us have probably heard a mother telling how she gets her kids to do chores around the house, or to exert a special effort in some direction, and she tells us that she had to "bribe" her kids to do it. She gives a little chuckle, and a guilty-feeling shrug, and her kids probably feel that they've been manipulated...well, I remember thinking that it just seemed a little odd. It happened to me recently, too, that I was at a lunch with a bunch of moms from our church, and one started talking about having to bribe her kids to do things. But now I was armed, and I told them what I had discovered, and it was one of those moments of illumination for them...and the women who heard it both ended up smiling. One said, "I'm not bribing my kids any more!" One day a good while back, it had struck me that what these moms seemed to be talking about might not be a bribe. So I looked up "bribe" and "incentive" in the dictionary. I think you'd also find it helpful if you haven't ever discovered the distinction. You'll also understand the little guilty-seeming mannerisms that people give when they talk about a bribe, even though they aren't even sure why they don't feel right about it. In my Webster's New Riverside Dictionary, these are the definitions I found:

bribe n. Something, as money, offered or given to influence a person to act dishonestly. Syns: BOODLE, PAYOFF, PAYOLA --v. bribed, bribing. To corrupt or gain influence over by means of a bribe. 

incentive n. Something inciting one to action or effort:stimulus.*

So give your children an incentive when you feel it's appropriate, and don't feel guilty doing so. But please, don't bribe them! (I didn't think you'd want to anyway.)
* Webster's New Riverside Dictionary, copyright 1984 by Houghton Mifflin Company, pp. 91, 353.