Tag Archives: reinforcement

“Sit DOWN!” Batting practice for your kid

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Imagine a child who just “can’t sit down,” is “always running around” and rarely sits when asked.  The usual routine is to point the powerful parent finger at the seat (or at the kid) and say more firmly, “SIT DOWN” as if he  did not hear you the first time because you were not loud enough. 

Sometimes, when things go really wrong, one of two things happen: 1) we give up and say something ridiculous like, “OK, then you can’t watch your Buzz Lightyear goes to the North Pole episode” or something even more ridiculous like, “TIME OUT!!” or 2) we get so emphatic with our words that the kid sadly slumps into the seat and pouts.  Neither is good.

This is a lesson not simply in teaching kids to sit down, but to do other things they are not likely to do. 

Many times we try to teach these behaviors when they naturally occur: sitting at church, staying in bed at nighttime, using a “quiet voice” at the library, saying nice words when at Grandma’s doorstep.  You get the point?  Think about it…do we teach baseball players to hit only when the bases are loaded and there are two outs?  This is obviously not the optimal time to teach hitting. 

So what does “batting practice” look like for your kid?

Back to sitting still.  There have been multiple times when we have introduced the “sitting game” to families and teachers.  The game is simple: sit for some period of time and you get praised and you get to get up.   Pull a chair over in front of you and introduce the “game” to  the kid.

O.K. Let’s start…Sit down!”

Count quietly for several seconds (maybe have a timer that beeps, but don’t show them the timer), and when the time is up say, “Times up! You did it! Go play!”  Let her play for a minute (I would actually do less than 30 seconds or so).  Play with her…make this really fun.Extend the time, make up new “rules.”  Remember: it is a game!

Repeat.  Change it up…do some increments shorter and some longer.  Make sure success happens.  Don’t interact with them during the sitting time…the game is to sit!

The objective here is to teach a behavior at a time when the focus can be on rewarding the behavior, making it fun and creating some momentum.  Next time when real sitting happens, the kid will have had a lot of practice behind them with a lot of positive experiences.

This can be used for so many other behaviors.  Maybe its not sitting in your house.  Maybe it is “quiet voices,” “telling the truth,” or “walking with mommy.”  Practice “STOP/GO” (kinda like red light/green light, but using the word “stop” is important) next time you are waiting outside a restaurant.  Make a point to practice when there is no pressure,

when the chances of succeeding are more than the chances to fail,

when failing doesn’t mean you have to carry them out during the sermon or run out into the parking lot because they did not listen to you saying “STOP!”

Are you a tease?

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Never thought you would get that question from me did you?  I’m not asking the question you think I’m asking. 

What I am asking is…Do you offer incentives, reinforcers, access to fun things as ways to get your child to do something you want them to do, then not follow through.  A lot of parents have this problem.  In the moment, it is so important for the child to do something that we bring out the big guns: 

“I tell you what, if you can make it through this Sunday school without insulting Sister Marguerite, we can get an ice cream cone on the way home.” 

The kid does it…what a star!  Not a peep during Sunday school and the good Sister actually wondered, “what go into your son today, he was a true gentleman.” 

Now you are rushed to get home to get the yard mowed before it rains and you put all your cash into the offering plate because you were still on a high from your son’s success…money well spent. 

“We’ll get your ice cream later, OK?” or worse yet, “we can get that ice cream later if you can help your mom for a bit with the baby.” 

Did you see what just happened?  Over time and experiences such as the one above those “teases” will stop working because your child will learn not to trust what you say.  YEP.  Why would they?  Remember, every interaction is an opportunity (good and bad) to teach your child something. 

What are you teaching here?   What is the more powerful consequence?  Making his friends laugh and cheer after calling out Sister Marguerite’s obesity problem to the class will surely outweigh the benefits of a “not really” offer for ice cream. 

Follow through, follow through, follow through.  Teach your child that when you say something, you mean it.  Teach them when you say there is ice cream, ice cream there will be (and soon).  

“Don’t point that at me! Do you want to make me take you out of this store?”

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I was recently walking down the hall with a group of younger elementary school students and their teachers.  One of the kids (the one I was there for) was a bit “wiggly” in line and was not following the directions to “keep your hands at your side” and a “bubble in your mouth” (funny way to keep the mouth closed, which is to blow up your mouth like a balloon)—see this for why this works.

One of the teachers then went up to him and said, “do you want me to put my hand on your shoulder?” in a tone that made me think she was saying that as a threat of punishment.  Kind of like, “do you want to go to time out?” or “do you want me to call your mother?” 

The kid looked up and said, “yes.”  Whoops.  They walked down the hall together…one happy, one frustrated (I’ll let you decide who was who).

This makes me think of at least 2 things:

  1. We often ask questions that are not really questions, but threats-sometimes baseless or veiled threats.
  2. We often assume some things are punishers or things the kid wants to avoid, but sometimes they are not (it was clear the kid actually did want the teacher to put her hand on his shoulder).

Please be careful and listen out for these questions.  Don’t ask questions to which you don’t want the answer or the answer is already obvious. 

Do you really want to know if your kid wants you to count to 3?  Does it really matter what your kid’s answer is to your question, “do you want a spanking?” 

“Actually, mother, I do believe that my behavior warrants a time out and possibly a spanking…I agree with you…I just wish you would have asked me if I wanted you to count to 3 before”  

CLARIFICATION:  I have heard kids say “YES!” to this question, but in a harsher tone like, “I don’t care…take away my Wii…I don’t care.”  At this point you are in a tug-of-war and you need to drop the rope.  You should not have asked the question in the first place.  Please don’t get into this.  If you want to take away the Wii, take it.  Don’t ask for permission from your child first.  

Be careful to understand what might be punishing (something that actually reduces the occurrence of future behavior, by definition) and what might be reinforcing (increasing future occurrence of the behavior, by definition).  The student in the example above was able to gain access to a personal escort (and the attention associated with that) by jumping around in the line.  Her presence was NOT a punisher.  Sometimes your reactions (although potentially strong and intended to be punishing) can be desired by the kid. 

Ever heard of people “pushing your buttons?”  It happens, and 3 year olds are completely capable of doing it (just in case you haven’t noticed).

Let me know what you think!…”do you want me to have to ask you again?!? Huh?!?”

Too comfortable? A parent’s unending determination to maintain “comfort”

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I recently found myself in a meeting with a fairly large group of people meeting with a parent to discuss the pretty difficult behavior of a child with whom we were all concerned.  Heartbroken, the parent with face in cupped hands said, “I just want to make sure my children are comfortable…I don’t want them to be uncomfortable.”  AHHH, it makes me hurt to even tell the story.  

What happened was, along the years, the parent had done just that.  However, as the weeks and years passed, the work to keep the kids comfy had become more difficult.  It became harder and harder.  The children learned to have a paper-thin frustration tolerance and to react stronger and stronger each time something did not go their way. 

At the moment of discomfort (which came quicker and quicker and more often), their protests and anger were soothed and comforted either with nurturing and attention, access to some ridiculously simple tangible item (e.g. a pair of shoes, a piece of paper, a pencil), or escape from something or someone they did not like (e.g. a store, nearby peer or sibling, homework, etc.).  

The meeting continued as we all hovered around the problem.  Some in the room became a bit uncomfortable when one of the professionals mentioned (paraphrasing), “your child is going to experience discomfort and you don’t need to interfere with that discomfort.  It is reality.  You cannot continue to save your child from discomfort.  It is not working.” 

She was right.  Could not have been more correct. 

Then she said something that was pretty incredible: “we need to figure out why you do this. There is some reason you continue to do this.”  

Her point was right on target.  Lets look at this story from both perspectives.  The kids’ screaming, protesting and anger was functional in accessing comfort in any of the forms mentioned above.  Not good.  Let’s face it: we all live around people with similar behavior.   It’s not a pretty or a redeeming quality. 

As for the parent, the “comforting” behavior was functional in that it preserved FOR THE MOMENT AND FOR THE MOMENT ONLY peace and “happiness” amongst the children.  The opportunities to do this were only becoming more frequent.  The unfortunate side effect of this was children who were more and more difficult to keep happy.

Here is the point:

Children will experience frustration, pain, anger, sadness, disappointment: discomfort.  You can’t stop that, not should you in many cases.  You can teach them how to handle it.  You can teach them how to respond to those feelings and how to get through them. 

When these times occur, and they will (today), think for a moment about this and take the opportunity to teach your child to handle these situations effectively.  

Why grandma doesn’t leave the penny slots….

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One of the best lessons or metaphors about behavior is the slot machine.  We use this example all the time to teach lessons about strengthening behavior.  

In the world of my profession, we measure the strength of a behavior by how hard it is to get rid of it when the benefit of the behavior does not occur (e.g., how many times will you push the Coke machine button without getting the Coke).  What better example than the behavior of playing a slot machine?  People sit for hours on end on these machines, NOT winning, and in many cases LOSING.  

Lets think about why this matters to parents and behavior:

Behaviors reinforced every now and then are harder to get rid of than behaviors that are reinforced every time.  Sounds weird, right?  Well, slot machines take full advantage of this.

How many times will you continue to pull that lever without getting paid? Much longer at a machine that pays every now-and-then when compared to one that pays every time. If you got paid every time you sat at a slot machine and all of a sudden it stopped paying you, you would leave much quicker than you would if you went to Vegas today and sat down to play the slot machine that has been programmed to pay just enough to keep you there. That’s not my opinion…that’s just how behavior works.  How many times do you continue putting money into the Coke machine after it has “eaten” your money?…exactly. 

THE PARENT PART:

When talking to parents about a certain challenging behavior they are dealing with, I wonder how often the kid is getting the benefit from the behavior.  I don’t wonder if it happens every time, I’m just wondering if it is happening just enough to keep the behavior strong.  If I’m talking to the parent about the behavior that is still driving them crazy, the proof is in the pudding (slung all over the wall after the last tantrum). 

This is especially true when the “pay out” occurs after longer and more intense behaviors/ arguments/ whining.  Think about a tantrum that lasts so long you finally give up and do something to satisfy the tantrum.  That’s the equivalent of paying out after 100 lever pulls.  Whoops.

How long your child “pulls the lever” (insert problem behavior here) depends on your consistency.  Tantrums are going to happen, your kid is going to refuse to do something, he’s going to yell when you say, “quiet.”  The question is, do those behaviors work more often than they don’t?  When at first they don’t succeed, do they keep going?  Do they amp it up if that doesn’t work? 

Perfection is not likely or necessary (thank goodness).  I’m simply asking you to just pay attention to these things, be mindful of the “slot machine” effect, and have a plan.

Horse pills for your parenting health

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I hate antibiotics.  I really hate taking medication of any form, which means when I finally give up I have to take the nastiest, biggest pills for the longest time.  THREE A DAY FOR 10 DAYS?  But I feel better after the 3rd day!  I feel better and shake the extra large bottle that still contains 21 more horse pills and weigh out if I want to go through the next 7 days or just hope I have done enough to kill whatever it was that was turning my mucus a deep shade of green.

The doctor would tell you the prescription was written for 10 days for a reason.  A friend physician who doesn’t have to watch his language or bedside manner says, “Take the #$% pills you wuss.  You wanna strengthen your sickness to fight harder the next time?  Oh, AND you’ll be sick again in 2 days.  Let me know when you go to medical school.” 

GULP…20 more pills to go.

Behavior strategies are the same. 

I spoke about this a little when talking about Sticker Charts.  Think of your “medicine” having to work over time to maintain its effectiveness.  It worked immediately…cured?  NO.  It could have worked due to the novelty factor, or simply the fact you are finally paying attention to it.  Even though it worked, if you quit, you might suffer a similar fate as you would if you were to stop taking the antibiotics on the 3rd day: it would strengthen resistance against the “medication” and the “sickness” (your child’s behavior) would also be stronger. 

 A lot of families go through this.  They mention a strategy that used to work, but doesn’t anymore: “she keeps upping the ante…it takes more and more to get her to do what I want her to do.  She is manipulating this whole thing. Nothing works anymore.”  Yep.  Maybe they didn’t stick with it.  Maybe every time your kid sees a new sticker chart, a new behavior strategy, her experience is “oh, they are paying attention…I’m gonna get what I can out of this.” 

The Z-pack isn’t powerful enough…your kid now has the behavioral version of MRSA.

Treat early and maintain the treatment until you can slowly fade the strategies after the natural reinforcers have taken over and are supporting those more appropriate behaviors.  Keep working…your prescription was written for much longer than you might be willing to take it.  Gulp it down and keep it up…if its working, IT IS WORKING.