Positive Reinforcement – What Is It & How To Successfully Use It
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
If I said:
- If you exercise for 5 days this week for 40 minutes each, you can go on an island vacation.
- If you clean the bathrooms in under an hour, you can sit on the couch quietly with a cup of coffee and read your favorite book uninterrupted!
- If you work 40 hours per week, I will pay you $1,200.- If you work 40 hours per week, I will pay you $1,200.
Would you be motivated? Is the reward enough to make you work through the required task?
As adults, we generally receive something for the work we perform. In fact, we are more motivated to do hard things to “get” something than to avoid punishment. This is the same for kiddos, particularly those with unique needs! I know plenty of kids who are actually ignited into worse behavior by punishment. And I have yet to meet a child who wasn’t willing to work hard for a well-chosen positive reinforcement (the reward)!
It took a while to figure out the reinforcements that worked for each of my children. For ideas on figuring this out, see my blog post What Will Motivate your Child to Change?. Be flexible, adjust and modify as necessary. Your child’s motivations will change and so, your use of them should change.
The idea of positive reinforcement for behavior modification is really, at its most basic, Pavlov’s Theory. It is rewarding a mouse for ringing the bell so that the mouse will eventually ring the bell for no reward because it has become habit.
To use positive reinforcement successfully, you must:
Narrowly define the goal behavior. I speak specifically to this issue in the What Is Your Child's Most Difficult Behavior? Make It Your First Goal blog post.
Define your expectations for success. Do what I mean, Not What You Heard and Peanut Butter Sandwich Experiment.
Consider the difficulty of the goal when helping your child choose their reward. The motivation of the reward must match the difficulty of the goal.
Choose whether your child will earn the reward over time or immediately.
Let them fail! They cannot think that have a chance to get their reward if they are ½ way successful. You have to stand your ground and be 100% Consistent with this.
Claudia always fails within the first few tries at something. I know this is natural, but it is also a test. She is checking to see just how hard she needs to work to earn her chosen reward. If I give in, she knows she can continue to do less than Just Right and be rewarded. If I let her fail, no matter the drama, she knows she has to comply! If you knew you could be on your computer doing personal emails all day at work and still get paid, it would be pretty hard to get work done. Right?
Once you have determined What Will Motivate Your Child to Change, print out a picture of it and hang it in a place where your child will see it often! Remember, this is their motivation. This is what you want them focused on. Remind them frequently. I often fain that I have forgotten what they are earning and ask the kids so that they describe what they have to do, how many time and for what reward as a reminder to them. Generally, these reminders ignite excitement to do what it takes to earn the reward.
If your child loves something specific, gum, marshmallows, time of the ipad, a hike, shopping, ect. use that! Use the most highly motivating rewards to motivate the child’s least preferred activities and most challenging behaviors. Find smaller rewards for the smaller issues. For example, there are some behaviors that get a high five, a hug or a shoulder squeeze because that is enough to motivate the positive behavior or task.
Be Flexible but DO NOT negotiate. Your child cannot be permitted to use choosing a reward as a manipulation tactic.
· He cannot choose a reward that was not on the agreed upon list of rewards. To stave off a melt-down, you can tell him that the alternative reward could show up in their next reward list if they deal with this one well. Claudia is constantly choosing rewards when we are at Target. “Mommy, can I earn this toy?” I say, “Oo, maybe. Let’s take a picture of it so that we have it when we are picking rewards.” I take a picture of her holding it with my phone. She happily puts it back on the shelf. If she remembers, which happens about 1 out of 10 times, we use that item as her next positive reinforcement for behavior change.
· He cannot change their reward half way through (unless you have defined this as an option from the very beginning, which I do not suggest). This leads to manipulating and leads them to believe that they can “up the anti” during the process of changing their behavior. You have to remain in control.
· He cannot change the expected positive behavior. However, when dealing with kids that are really struggling, my opinion is that they will absolutely be successful if you have successfully paired the reward, the earning time (instant or earned) and the well-defined replacement behavior. If you have not, you may need some interim rewards or a bit lower expectations on the goals. Kids ultimately want to succeed, they just need to the right motivation
Next:
Work through choosing some rewards with your child or choose some yourself. Make sure you have some small rewards and some larger rewards.
Start thinking about what behavior change would be most helpful to you and your family’s daily life.
Define the goal behavior very specifically.
Now, you need to introduce the plan to your child and practice the goal behavior.Much more to come on this in later blog posts.This is where the rubber hits the road.
More:
What Will Motivate your Child to Change?
What Is Your Child's Most Difficult Behavior? Make It Your First Goal