Does this sound familiar to you?

Every evening it’s a battle to get my son to sit down and get started on his homework. I finally decided to make a deal with him. Feivy promised me that he would do his homework as soon as he got home from school if I would buy him the sneakers that he wanted. We shook hands on it, and the very next day while he was in school I bought them for him and gave them to him as soon as he got home. Sounds good, right? But as soon as he had the sneakers, he said he was really hungry and he’d start on his homework as soon as he finished a snack. So he walks into the kitchen, takes out peanut butter, jelly, string cheese, and crackers. Twenty minutes later, literally, he is still eating. I told him I had given him the sneakers because he had agreed to do his homework right away and he said yeah he’ll do it real soon, but right now he’s thirsty. When I came back 10 minutes later to see what he was up to, I found him deeply engrossed in the fascinating fact he had found in the iced tea cap. By now, I was really annoyed. I had kept my part of the bargain and he owed me, and he wasn’t paying up. I got taken. It will be a long time before I trust him enough to make a deal with him again.

It sounds familiar to me. Parents complain to me that they wrote out a contract and their child signed it, or they made a chart and their child was all excited about it but then it “fizzled out,” or they gave their child something she wanted and she promised to behave better but she didn’t. When this happens, parents are frustrated and resentful because their child didn’t keep her word. They think that their child took advantage of them, and they are reluctant to trust her again.

There’s a different way to make a deal with your child. It’s the difference between layaway and credit.

When you make a deal to buy something on credit, you have something now and you expect something else in the future.

You have, right now, an item that you hope will live up to the expectations you have for it. If you bought a scarf, you hope it will keep you warm. If you bought a refrigerator, you hope it will keep things cold. Whether the item meets your expectations or not, you are expected to pay for it in the future when the bill arrives in the mail.

If you don’t pay for it, you end up in conflict with the person or entity with whom you made this agreement. You can try to convince them that you shouldn’t have to pay for something that didn’t meet your expectations, and they might agree, and cancel the charge. You might go to mediation and hope that some third party can help you come to an agreement. Or, you might resort to arbitration and hope to win.

Maybe you are thoroughly satisfied with the product’s performance, but when the bill comes in the mail, you aren’t able to pay it because you can’t afford to, and you didn’t realize that might happen when you agreed to the credit terms. You apologize and ask for more time or a renegotiation of the terms. The creditor, even if she agrees, might be unwilling to work with you again, fearing that you might again make an agreement you won’t be able to keep. She doesn’t trust you, you resent her for not trusting you, and you’re not going to be working together again until those bad feelings subside.

There’s another way to make a deal: the layaway plan. When you buy something on layaway, you have something now, and something else to expect in the future.

Here is how layaway works: you bring an item that you want to purchase to the cashier. You pay as much towards the price as you can afford now. The item you selected is tagged with your name and placed in storage, or “on layaway,” inside the store. You agree to pay small amounts over time until you have paid the full price, at which time the item is yours to take home. When you buy on layaway, what you have now is an agreement to pay for something. What you expect in the future is to get the item you’ve been paying for.

If you aren’t able to pay the balance over the agreed upon period of time, the item is removed from storage and placed back on the shelf, and you get your money back. You’re disappointed, but you will be allowed to put a deposit on another item because the store didn’t lose anything by giving you a chance. There is disappointment but nobody feels cheated or betrayed.

Whether you’re offering your child a chart or a contract or just a verbal agreement, structure the incentive as a layaway rather than giving it to your child up front on credit, with your child owing you something in return. If you give your child the incentive up front, you are the one who is motivated to receive payment, and your child may be unwilling or unable to pay. If you structure a layaway plan with pre-payments that your child is able to make in order to earn something, the onus and the motivation rest with the child, not you. If your child gives up on making the payments, slow down and help her figure out what happened. Has she decided the incentive isn’t worth the effort after all, or is she really unable to keep up the payments, and wishes she could?

If the incentive isn’t worth it to her, ask her what would be, and see if you can agree on something.

What if the incentive is worth it to her, she wishes she could earn it, but isn’t able to? Sit down with her and ask her what would help her. Then either adjust your expectation to put it within her reach, or help her to extend her grasp.

Rabbi Yitzchak Shmuel Ackerman is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with specialties in marriage, relationships, and parenting. He works with parents and educators, and conducts parenting seminars for shuls and organizations. He can be reached at 718-344-6575.