Negative Behaviors 1: Behavior Modification

When I was thinking about just not writing Jo suggested that I write 5 tips for foster parents. I might, but I am going to write about one topic, the general issue of kids doing things we don't want them to do. This one is I guess a downer. It's why so little of what I have learned about formal rewards and punishments just doesn't seem very helpful.

There is a line of thought that you can "extinguish" any behavior by ignoring (or possibly punishing) it and praising what you want. My dogs bark when someone is at the door. I am supposed to teach them first to sit/stay. Lots of rewards. Then I practice with a friend of family member. They stand outside and knock on the door. I put the dogs on a sit stay and reward them. We keep practicing. Whenever the door rings, I interrupt their barking with a sharp sound, then put them in a sit stay and reward them. Gotta remember that reward part, which is difficult when you were angry at them a second ago. Eventually they hear the door bell ring and they put themselves in a sit stay and I reward them like crazy.

I have no doubt that it would work with the dogs if I was diligent, but it is really exhausting. It is more difficult with humans because so many of the things that we do are not easily rewardable. If I want a kid to stop lying to me, rewarding them for telling the truth is not as easy as it sounds. First, it is difficult to know when they are telling the truth, that difficulty means you can almost never reward them immediately or even give some sort of "negative consequence" for lying because you just don't know when it is happening. And then there is the artificiality of rewards that older kids see through. A smile and pat on the should is more of a reward then we think it is. Saying "Good Boy" is insulting, and they probably are not going to be pleased if I toss them a grape every time they do what I want.

Anyway, all this is behavior modification, and I am really, really bad at it.

I suspect that it would work better with small children. We are watching them constantly anyway. Making a small sharp noise when they start to mishandle the cat, showing them how to pet the kitty nicely and then saying, "Oh...good. Nice kitty. Kitty likes you when you pet her gently" every time you see the toddler petting the cat correctly, is a great idea.

And it can work with older children. I've recently considered having a system by which the Brian and Andrew can earn extra privileges for doing chores without being asked. Brian could get screen time, but I can't really think of any reward for Andrew except money. I like this idea, in part because it is easy for me. I could require them to make the check marks for doing the chores.

Of course the downside is that it is not the sort of behavior that is likely to continue if the rewards stop.

When they were toddlers and I praised them for petting the kitty nicely, they also learned that the kitty would stay with them when they petted her nicely. The behavior had an intrinsic reward. If a child has any aptitude for music or academics or whatever, rewarding them for practicing until they find that they find the activity intrinsically rewarding might also work.

Given that Brian does not find a tidy kitchen intrinsically pleasing, I have a feeling that the day I stop rewarding Brian for doing the dishes without being asked, he will stop doing the dishes. And it is highly likely that whatever reward I offer will become less valuable. I used to be able to get Brian to search the house to find something I lost for a 50 cent reward. Now he wants $5 and even that only motivates a cursory search.

So, I think that a conscious system of rewards can work, but if it is going to have long term effectiveness, the behavior itself has to become something the child finds rewarding, or the rewards have to continue and probably have to change.

My husband, as many of you know, is a special education teacher. He uses explicit behavior mod techniques all the time. Every day the kids get a print out of the tasks that they are to accomplish in the room. For some of the activities are relaxing and fun. Some are work. So the kids might have to work on a math lesson with one aide, and then spend 5 minutes at the free choice art center. They carry around their little pieces of paper on clipboards and he and the aides stamp them if they completed the activity without misbehaving in any particular way. They get lots of stamps. A certain minimum number are required to go to recess (so if a kid has been horrible, he or she has to stay in for recess, but it is not that someone "took it away" just that they didn't earn it). More stamps earn them free time, or balls or jump ropes to take out to recess. If kids prefer they can save up extra stamps (ones past those that earn recess) and "spend" them on pencils or other prizes.

When he had very young children he actually rewarded them with individual pieces of sweetened cereal. When everyone was told to gather for circle time they each got handed a generic fruity loop when they sat down.

And he finds it works. When evaluators come they are always impressed that the kids are actually being rewarded so much.

And we have talked about why it works so well for him at school and so poorly for us at home. My theory is that it is partly because of the developmental age of the kids, but it is also that in his classroom there are adults whose total job is to watch the kids and give them the bleeping stamps all the time.