The Bribe

This picture may not mean anything to most people, but to me it shows Alex being more aggressive. There's a fine line between being aggressive on the field but still maintain control and be sportsmanlike and it's been tough trying to teach them that. Alex can be aggressive, but usually only during practice or when he plays against Anthony (for fun). Alex's coach has even told him to play like he was playing against Anthony, but still doesn't. Today, Patrick and I decided to "bribe" him.

Alex has two projects due next week, one on Wednesday, and one on Friday. He did not inform us of this until Thursday night, after having three early dismissal days from school for parent-teacher conferences when he basically had three "free" days to play video games. Because of this, his game privileges were suspended until he completes his projects.

At first, Patrick offered Alex $5 per goal scored (by him), but that didn't get much rise out of him. What he really wanted was video game time, so after some thought, we offered him a half-hour of game time for every goal he scored. Even though his game privileges were suspended for the weekend, he could still "earn" some game time. One of his team's key defenders was not at the game, however, and Alex became a defender instead of his usual "center midfield" position. This meant that it was very unlikely that he would be in a position to score.

Patrick and Anthony were in San Marcos for Anthony's game. Patrick and I kept each other updated with each other's game events. Alex played more aggressively today. As the photo above shows, he would push back at the other team in order to get the ball. He played well today, and even though his team lost 0-3, we thought he deserved a little reward.

I told him he could get an hour of game time to use when he needed a break from working on his projects. Tonight he used a half hour. He also worked pretty hard on his projects today. I don't know if bribing was the right thing to do, but so far, the bribe had the intended result. We'll see what happens next week.