Q&A: Is it permissible to use rewards and punishments with children?
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Is it permissible to use rewards and punishments with children?
Question
I finished the trilogy a little while ago, and I’d be interested to know: setting aside the question you’ve already addressed many times about becoming non-religious, how do you educate children toward a thin theology? In your opinion, is it advisable to use rewards and punishments with small children, for example by saying that God will punish them if they don’t listen?
Answer
I don’t think so. Children don’t perform commandments at all because of the World to Come, but because their parents educate them that this is the proper way to act and that it is important. And by the time they are capable of thinking in terms of punishment in the World to Come, they’re already old enough to speak to them directly.