Reinforcement in parenting

Reinforcement is a prerequisite for any learning and learning. The main rule: «What we reinforce is what we get.»

When parents approach the child, they reinforce the behavior that the child is doing at that time. If parents approach a small child when he smiles, take him in his arms when he reaches for them, talk to him when he walks with them — they raise a calm, cheerful, positive and loving child. If parents are very busy and approach the child only when he screamed or peed, they are raising someone who will increasingly cry and piss.

Smart dad’s story:

Once we were on a shuttle bus and my daughter (she was 4 months old then) woke up 40 minutes before the end of the road. She woke up hungry, but there was no way to feed her. A few minutes after waking up, Alisha began to cry.

I tried to somehow communicate with her, but at my words she began to cry even louder. Then I turned away, sitting, ignoring her. She was tired of crying, she just sighed. Silence. I turn to her, smile: «Alisha!» At my smile, she starts crying again. Then I turn away again and ignore her crying. When she stops, I turn to her again and start talking.

Then he even stopped turning away, but simply began to put his hands on the arm of the car seat so that she could not see my face behind her hands. When she cries, I slowly put my hands on the handle — and you can’t see me! Stops crying — I take away one hand, behind it the other.

After the third time, I noticed that Alisha started crying to the «hands». When I brought my hands to the arm of the car seat, she would look from one hand to the other and cry with them alternately. The wife said that her daughter’s crying has changed: she seems to be asking for «hands» so that they open her face.

After a while, Alisha stopped crying and began to communicate with us and the world around her 🙂

In this way, I learned to quickly calm my crying daughter — she probably realized that crying does not work with me.

With her mother, Alisha let me cry more than with me. Probably, my mother’s «heart was breaking», and mother, in response to crying, began to beg her daughter: «Well, don’t cry, please …» with begging intonations. When the wife changed tactics and intonations, her daughter began to cry much less for her.

Of course, our grandmother received the crying prize. She began to groan, lament, and now we have such a picture: my daughter practically does not cry for me, for my mother — quite a bit, for my grandmother — for a long time and compassionately.

Ps Another 4 months passed and we, following the same tactics, noticed that about 1 time in 7-10-14 days the daughter decides to test our resistance to crying. And if we stick to the setting: we talk to her when she does not scream, but expresses her demands more quietly and calmly, then for the next 10-14 she communicates with us in calm and not loud ways 🙂

Most often, reinforcement occurs unconsciously.

We are talking about raising children here, and so: it is very useful to read the article “Unconscious reinforcement in keeping and raising dogs” — very curious! Snippet from there:

Our elderly Newfoundlander, Chalzee, lived with our relative for some time. A fairly healthy dog, despite the most sophisticated and well-organized care, began to get seriously ill — it got to the point that she stopped getting up. Having moved into our own house, we took the dog to us, thereby isolating him from sympathy for his ailments. We did not make any difference between cheerful and cheerful (despite a decent age) German Shepherds and a «dying» invalid. Three days later, Chalzee got tired of lying and moaning, she began to slowly get up and resent why she was not given legal yogurt, quail eggs and validol, and two weeks later she hunted mice in the fields and forgot to think about her sores. The dog’s illness was, in fact, shaped by a touching display of concern for her well-being! And your dog and your children never get sick from the desire to receive more attention and sympathy?

What we support is what we get

Mom, leaving for work, asked her teenage son to tidy up the room. Left alone, the son watched TV for a long time, then played on the computer, but did not fulfill his mother’s request. You can say that he just got distracted and forgot, you can see other motives behind this — both the desire to defend his territory (“My room, I do what I want in it”), and opposition to parental influence (“I am already an adult, I myself I know what to do). One way or another, mom came and, looking tiredly at the untouched mess, cleaned everything herself … How will this affect future situations? Most likely, this will reinforce the son’s attitude: “Oh, you can do nothing, she will clean up herself.” You can consider another option, when the mother came and started to swear (option — offended, angry and now she does not talk to him). What kind of reinforcement, and reinforcement of what will such a reaction of the mother be? Unfortunately, this is difficult to predict. For some child, this will work, the other will be strengthened in the other: “I can have fun playing on my mother’s nerves,” in any case, the level of scandal in the family rises.

More successful options: when you see a mess in the room in the evening, call your son, tearing him away from any business, and calmly ask him to clean the room again. If the request sounds calm, direct and strong, the son will quickly restore order, after which he can be praised and thanked. This is a positive reinforcement that he fulfilled his mother’s request. As an option, you can add an honest and open conversation with your son about what caused the sabotage during the day and what to do to prevent it from happening again. The conversation should be constructive, while the very fact of such a conversation is a negative reinforcement of not responding to the request of the mother.

Watch the Format: The Invisible Enemy on the Path to Habit Formation

As a general rule, a habit is formed through positively reinforcing repetitions, and usually 20 to 40 days is enough time to develop a good habit. However, it is not uncommon for parents to remind their children daily of the need to brush their teeth and do exercises in the morning, children reluctantly do this every time, but good habits are not developed — for years! What is the reason? The reason is precisely that children do every time — reluctantly. Let’s decipher: they don’t just go to brush their teeth, but do it with a disgruntled face and internal (or even external) grumbling. They do exercises emphatically lazily and displeasedly … What kind of skill do they actually reproduce and strengthen every day? They daily strengthen the habit of dissatisfaction with brushing their teeth and morning exercises, they reinforce the reluctance to do this daily, day after day they form the habit of not wanting to do it. What is the conclusion? Follow the format: how children go to brush their teeth and how they do exercises. How? Cheerfully and with pleasure! This is exactly what you need to follow!

Money for good behavior

Giving your child money for good behavior is right? Is it a reinforcer of good behavior, or is it a reinforcer of the belief that good behavior is stupid for free? See →