S/O Training vs Teaching (From Mean Mom Thread)

[beaners]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while and the talk about clicker training and ABA on the other thread reminded me of it. Is something learned through behavioralism of equal value to something learned traditionally? Do my kids seated at the table because I have plied them with raisins for good sitting lose out on something compared to my kids who are sitting because they have decided they prefer the atmosphere when everyone isn't climbing on the table? I understand the idea that deep down *everything* is behaviorism, but what about the value of the cognitive discussion? "I want to do this because of....something more elevating and enlightening than chocolate chips and raisins."

 

I think some of my feelings on this stem from why I appreciate classical education. I want my children and my family to be better for the things they have learned, better people. Good people. Is it okay if they are acting like thoughtful members of society if they learned to do it for mini marshmallows? On the other hand, are the motivations of great men and women intrinsically more valuable than high fives? (I think so, but why?) Or will practicing respect and kindness for rewards eventually lead to being able to further explore why those are good and admirable traits?

 

From a practical standpoint, some of my kids have severe and profound delays. Things that work, work. Questioning motivation is a luxury when we are talking about skills they would not have otherwise. I'm still curious about the value of training methods compared to teaching techniques as a whole.

[SKL]

I don't know, because first of all, kids are who they are pretty much regardless of parenting.

 

Secondly, they are all so different, even when raised by the same parents.  They don't all respond to the same things, not even close.

 

I do see the value in motivating a kid to do something that they themselves will come to see as a good thing.  For example, one of my kids can be snippy with adults at certain times of the day.  She doesn't even like this about herself, but she needs motivation and reminders to make an effort to improve.  When she does well, she enjoys the natural rewards of pleasant interactions.  One hopes that eventually the pleasant home environment will be her motivation, but getting her to that point has required "training."

 

My other kid, though, is virtually un-trainable.  She is a nice kid but lacks attention to detail.  She needs a thousand reminders to do the most basic thing.  I don't think any of the usual "discipline" methods are going to change that.  She is very open to doing the right thing because it's a good thing to do - if she could only remember to think of it.  In her case it might just be a matter of maturing.

 

Of course then you have the dynamic of treating different kids differently for the same behavior.  Which is of course more fair than treating them the same - but not in the kids' eyes.

[kroe1]

It is based on maturity, right? A younger child behaves according to raisins, a more mature child complexly processes the benefits of certain behaviors.

[Arcadia]

My kids refuse to be tempted by bribes even as babies. Redirection doesn't work either. It is probably genetic since it runs on both hubby and my extended family. They do understand consequences and are sometimes willing to accept those.

The best behavior modification/therapy may just not work for the child in front of me.

[Guest]

I think there is a place for behaviour modification. On the whole, though, I don't prefer "trick pony" ways of having kids behave a certain way.

 

However, there probably is more place for it in managing special needs. Some kids are naturally more altruistic and want to live in an agreeable environment. Others are more driven by ego-centric concerns. I don't think you can make a child *become* altruistic if they are not.

[PeacefulChaos]

I've never really rewarded much.  Unless you count that when the kids were little, I started the whole 'after shots you get ice cream' thing.  It wasn't based on behavior though... it was just to have something to look forward to.  I mean, let's face it, lots of little kids cry when they get shots (both my boys did, Pink didn't and still doesn't), and I wasn't going to bribe them with 'don't cry/be good and we'll go get ice cream'... it was more 'Okay, we're going to go to the doctor, and you'll probably get shots, but they don't take long, and when we're all done we'll get ice cream'.  

At the same time, though, if my 9 or 11 year old were to act uncharacteristically and decide to respond to shots the way a 2 year old would, I would possibly take the ice cream away.  Because there's really no excuse, IMO for a neurotypical tween to respond that way to something like that.  (Granted, I have no reason to think they would ever do such a thing, but who knows, right?  Kids do strange things sometimes... Astro hated his strep test so much the last time he had one (last year) that this year when he had to get tested for strep, he didn't throw a fit, but he did clamp that jaw shut so much it took a TON of cajoling to get him to open it.  Truth be told, it drove me nuts, and when we got in the car he got a pretty stern talking to.  So who knows when something weird like that could occur...)

See, I'm sitting here thinking about rewards and I think there's a difference between being prepared with a toddler (for example) and offering rewards.  Like, I guess I think about toddlers and snacks.  Toddlers snack a lot.  It's age appropriate for them to have a snack and also for them to have a bit of a harder time during prolonged sitting still or shopping, for example.  I use those because that's my closest reference lol... like, when Pink was between 1 and 2, I had choir or worship team practice at church at 9 am on Sunday mornings.  So we went to church early.  We didn't feed her breakfast before we went (we actually never did, even when it was just a bottle - I always waited and one of us gave it to her once we got there; with the boys it was the same) so she'd stand there at the front row of chairs in the sanctuary with a tupperware container of cheerios and eat and watch us on stage lol.  She usually didn't finish them, we'd put them away, and maybe she'd eat some later.  Similarly, when I was really young, I would sit in church with my grandparents (too young to remember but old enough to be able to do this lol) and my Grandma brought along one little box of raisins, and when it came to a certain point in the service, she'd let me sit and quietly eat my raisins.  This didn't make it so that I expected to always be allowed to eat a snack during service... it was just age appropriate at that time.  When Pink first went to the big warehouse dress sale with me, she was about 3, and she went with my Grandma and I.  My grandma had put in her purse a small ziploc bag with some cheerios in it (we like cheerios here lol) that she gave her when we'd been there a bit... not right when we arrived, but before she started getting distracted or bored.  

So I guess what I'm thinking of is different, maybe?  As opposed to rewarding for good behavior once undesirable behavior has started (or promising a reward for 'straightening up'), with little kids it's about reading the signals and making sure to head off any undesirable behavior before it starts... 

 

Idk.  That looks like a muddled mess lol... and probably has nothing to do with what you're talking about...

 

 

ETA: Oh, yeah, and no chore charts, either.  We have things we do in the house, and they're written down on a list so I don't forget them all lol (I HATE cleaning!), but there's no reward involved and no checklist or anything.  

[hornblower]

Just to clarify because I posted a lot on that thread - mostly because someone said behaviorism wasn't working. It does work.

 

I have never used rewards for my kids (such as marshmallows for worksheets etc)

I have never had chore charts

I don't do that.

I do apply the principles of behaviorism though every single day mixed heavily with a huge dose of relationship based parenting.

fwiw, I do that with dogs too. Roger Abrantes ( a world famous ethologist) has a new book out in which he discusses the benefits of applying ethology & relationship building to behaviorism.

[hornblower]

Would you like examples of interactions with dogs or children/partners?


 

[hornblower]

ok, so you're likely going to roll your eyes because it is obvious & because everyone does it; it's just that I think if you're really conscious of it, you can use it more to your advantage.

so - just a couple definitions reinforcer is something that when you add it, you increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. A punisher is something that when you add it increases the likelihood of a behavior NOT being repeated (it doesn't have to a big punishment; it's just something that's somehow aversive. Perhaps a frown. Perhaps having the person you're speaking with just kind of gloss over your comments and ignore them. Perhaps someone physically moving back or even just stiffening.)

 A day to day common use might be differential reinforcement of other or incompatible behavior (DRO/I). You remove consequences for one behavior (known as extinction), or possibly even add a punisher (though that is risky - a separate topic on its own but there are real risks to using a punisher so generally it's to be avoided if at all possible), while reinforcing an alternative, preferably incompatible response.

In neurotypical healthy, well-attached children, the desire to please is strong.  So things like attention, warmth, smiles, cuddles, laughter, soft eyes, tickles, hugs are all likely to be reinforcers.  The withdrawal of any of those is likely to be noticed.

So say a child is running around & shrieking in a room; an alternative, incompatible behavior which you'd want to reinforce is running around outside, or sitting and looking at a book.

Jumping on the bed? no pleased mama. Jumping on trampoline? happy mama & attention & offers of a game. Behaviorism predicts that the positively reinforced behavior is more likely to recur.

The most important thing for me (with kids & dogs) is catching them doing something right, noticing it & offering a reinforcer. 

People do this all the time with kids, smiling, interacting, etc are all behaviours which are reinforced & which are usually hugely reinforcing in themselves (which goes towards relationship building too).

some undesirable bhvrs are sometimes inadvertently reinforced - this is esp a problem with attention. A child's needs for attention, any attention - even negative yelling attention,  might be so strong that getting in trouble & being noticed is better than being ignored.

 

For a concrete one from my life now:
If my son got up on time & has already breezed through morning chores & is halfway through math before I've even had my 2nd cup of coffee he would get lots of reinforcement from me. I might give him a hug from the back walking by. I might come and sit beside him & smile and strike up a quick conversation. I might joke around with him a bit & roughhouse. I might jackpot by randomly digging out a chocolate & casually dropping it by his mousepad.

Now the fact is that he could go get that chocolate himself. He's going to get hugs every day anyway. But my offering these recognitions does matter. It signals that I'm appreciating his behavior.
 

Behaviorism is also about breaking down tasks (that's the behavior analysis part of aba) into teeny tiny components and chaining them. If you want a child who's washed and dressed at 8am, you work backwards and think of all the steps  that will be required and figure out where the faults are? Where are the trip lines that prevent the person from succeeding?

It's also setting up environments which make success possible.

It's also thinking about where is the reinforcement coming from. We all do things which are not good for us (frequently called self defeating behaviors) but bring us some reinforcement so figuring out what the reinforcement is can help us build better habits. 

Behaviors are maintained because they're being reinforced so with an undesirable bhvr, my question is 'where is the reinforcement coming from & how can that be changed?'

The reinforcements though might be from within or from the environment. So internal motivations or feelings (esp feelings of safety) might be a play and that does make things much more complicated which is why changing people's behavior & our own is difficult. But seeing at least the patterns & the framework for changing things helps.

These are all insights from behaviorism & it can get way more technical and detailed but that's the basics.

Where I think it can veer into real manipulation is withholding affection, or using essentially bribes, or being arbitrary and unpredictable. You can drive small animals crazy but changing criteria in training. If a mouse has been heavily rewarded for a bhvr and then the rewards cease, the extinction period can be extremely long and traumatic and some never recover. They just shut down.

And since I think humans are incredibly social & attachment oriented, I think it's critical to keep attachment strong.

In a nutshell, ignore the bad, reinforce the good, set up an environment to succeed, break down tasks... it's hard to come up with specifics because it's just how I think most of the time. 

I use it less and less explicitly with my kids because they're old enough to do the behavior analysis themselves and break down their goals, and figure out their own rewards.  If they're goofing off about something I might just say "yup, and what's your motivation for this? where are your rewards for this?' If it's a long goal and the rewards are far down the line (& the bhvr is not self-rewarding, like surfing the web or participating in discussion boards LOL), I encourage them to build in rewards at much smaller intervals.

My kids have grown up watching me click & treat the dogs and we do sometimes for fun click & treat each other or just yell YES, I'M REINFORCING THAT!!!! :D  & now that I think of it I taught my son to tie his shoes using TAG but generally it's just more day to day just how I see the world....

Oh - for an adult perspective, Karen Pryor recounts how she conditioned her mom to stop complaining. Her mom's weekly phone calls were a litany of complaints about her health, her friends, her life and Pryor was dreading them. So Pryor decide to differentially reinforce anything that wasn't a complaint. Complaints got ignored & not responded to. ANY comment that was not a complaint was enthusiastically received and replied to and expanded on. Over the course of several months, their conversations changed and her mom stopped listing her complaints.

Sheldon in an episode of The Big Bang Theory does a version of this by modifying Penny's behavior with chocolates.

[wendyroo]

In my world, the difference between training a child and teaching a child is if I care whether they understand the whys of the issue.  Either training or teaching could include external rewards, but I don't think either of them have to.

 

I train my babies at around 6 months not to grab my glasses.  I use gentle, consistent reinforcers and disincentives to train them out of doing it.  They, of course, have no clue why that is not an acceptable behavior, but I don't care as long as they follow the rule.

 

We do a lot of habit training with our toddlers and preschoolers, and again, I don't focus much on the whys.  In this house we sit at the table to eat.  In our family everyone tidies their own bed in the morning.  In this house we don't jump on the couch.  I often offer a brief explanation of the rule, but it is normally very simplified and I really don't care if the small child understands or accepts the rationale; I am training them to do things simply because that is the way they are done in our house and family.

 

Teaching looks different.  Peter's therapist and I are in the process of trying to teach Peter why he shouldn't say "rude" things to or about others ("You are fat.", "You are not good at soccer.", etc).  We can't train him out of every individual rude thing that might come up, and we don't want to train him to keep his mouth shut, so the only option is to teach him to discern for himself when he should not make a comment.  Since he has ASD, is incredibly self-centered, does not pick up on in-explicit modeling and does not notice any social cues, this is not a trivial task.  This will require prolonged teaching, lots of practice, and probably an external reward system at some point since he is not particularly motivated to learn and understand the nuances of this important life skill.

 

Wendy

[Guest]

Oh - for an adult perspective, Karen Pryor recounts how she conditioned her mom to stop complaining. Her mom's weekly phone calls were a litany of complaints about her health, her friends, her life and Pryor was dreading them. So Pryor decide to differentially reinforce anything that wasn't a complaint. Complaints got ignored & not responded to. ANY comment that was not a complaint was enthusiastically received and replied to and expanded on. Over the course of several months, their conversations changed and her mom stopped listing her complaints.

 

Sheldon in an episode of The Big Bang Theory does a version of this by modifying Penny's behavior with chocolates.

Wow, I badly need to try this with one of my SILs! I ordered the book, I'm so interested in understanding this better.

 

I also tried to modify myself with chocolate bites today. Every hour I worked, I gave myself a cube of chocolate. I don't know if it works on oneself? But I'm willing to try, for chocolate.

[hornblower]

Wow, I badly need to try this with one of my SILs! I ordered the book, I'm so interested in understanding this better.

 

I also tried to modify myself with chocolate bites today. Every hour I worked, I gave myself a cube of chocolate. I don't know if it works on oneself? But I'm willing to try, for chocolate.

 

It absolutely does work on yourself :) 

 

For a more technical free resource which explains all this in more detail have a look at this online book which was put up by a doctor of clinical psychology.

 

Methods for Changing Behaviors

 

One of the things he talks about that I really think is critical is finding ways to build intrinsic motivation. Not that there's anything wrong with extrinsic motivators for really tedious or painful tasks, but building intrinsic motivators is important too. 

 

GL!

 

[T'smom]

My husband just attended a conference on safety. Things like being in compliance with safety standards and getting people to follow the procedures in place. He said one of the presenters was talking about training vs, education. The presenter said "do you want your daughter to attend a sex education class or a sex training class?" I thought that was funny given the topic.