MARCH 2012 One child's punishment should not be another child's reward

In the past few months I have noticed a trend in parenting that concerns me. I have seen it now in several different situations but it is essentially the same idea. A child is being punished for misbehavior or a bad choice and that punishment involves rewarding a sibling. In church a young boy in front of me started acting up. The mother took the fruit snacks out of his hand and gave them to his brother saying "you don't get this treat because you aren't behaving". The younger sibling got the fruit snacks and stuck his tongue out at the older boy and they proceeded to glare at each other the rest of the hour. I have heard a parent actually tell a child that if they don't behave their sibling will get their ice cream, or their balloon, or whatever. What a mistake! Do you think that sibling is intereted in helping the other child make a good choice now? I suspect he/she is much more interested in making sure the child makes the wrong choice. I mean really, he/she will get rewarded if the wrong choice is made. Those parents think they are punishing a child but they are simply rewarding one child for another childs mistakes. And what are they teaching the children? That they, the parents, play favorites. That one child is "better" than the other. That you don't have to do something good to be rewarded, you just need to make sure your sibbling does something bad. Not a good way to teach unity and love in the family! We need siblings helping each other, supporting each other, not working against each other!
Never punish one child by rewarding another. Punishment should never involve another child at all. Put the toy in the toy jail. Put the treat in the garbage. But don't award it to another child.