In this week's Bad Parent installment, Keri Fisher raises an important question: Is it bad to bribe our kids to encourage good behavior? As Keri's essay points out, everyone has an opinion on the subject. Some think that a little harmless quid pro quo -- "If you eat your vegetables, you get some ice cream" -- is no big deal. Others, like Kathy Waugh, see it as evidence of our "mercenary, gimme-gimme-gimme culture." And then there's Keri's mom, who believes that rewarding a child for doing what he should have done in the first place is akin to ceding control to the little bugger.

Personally, I take a nuanced view of the whole thing: I think the appropriateness of the "bribery" depends on the behavior sought, the reward offered and the frequency of such incentives. The examples Keri cops to -- refusing to give her autistic nephew his favorite food if he hits, promising hermit crabs to her niece if she completes her math homework and letting her son and his cousins read board books at the kitchen table -- strike me as fairly harmless. Of the three I just mentioned, the herbit crab one veers closest to dodgy territory because it involves the giving of a gift for doing something relatively minor, a possible infraction of the "gimme-gimme-gimme" code.

But if you're trying to teach an autistic child not to do something bad, I think it's perfectly reasonable to withhold french fries to drive the point home. And letting the kids read board books at the table in exchange for a peaceful meal? That's understandable. To me, the far worse parental crime is to proffer a bribe without following through. If we tell little Brady he can't watch "Spongebob" if he slams his bedroom door and he still bangs it shut, then that kid better not wind up flipping on Nickelodeon twenty minutes later. But I know a few parents who, out of exhaustion or just general lack of discipline, will allow him to do just that. And that's the point when parents start to lose their authority.

Lastly, I'd just like to point out that Keri -- who lives with her sister and her family -- lives in a home with seven children. SEVEN. Keri, if you need to resort to bribery, honey, you go ahead. If I were you, I'd be looking at bribery, blackmail, extortion and grand larceny if that's what it took.