What Behavioral Techniques for Children would you Use?

Children's Behavior: Techniques

Take a moment and think.

If you had a child, what behavioral techniques would you use? Do you know of any behavior techniques? Punishment by application, punishment by removal, problems with using punishment, and how to make punishment more effective are a few of the behavioral concepts and techniques we'll discuss. What is punishment by application? Punishment by application is when an action, like spanking or yelling is applied to the situation. Therapists discourage punishment by application because the situation is often taken out of hand, leading to abuse. Dubowitz and Bennet shared that spanking is harmless with a swat or two to the butt, but it turns into abuse when a belt or other item is used as a weapon to smack the child.

The opposite type of punishment to punishment by application is punishment by removal. Instead of introducing something into the situation like the prior punishment, this is the removal or something valued to the child. Something of value to the child might include television, cell phones, or video games. "Grounding" your child from these valuable things would be an example of punishment by removal because you are removing something they like, not allowing them to use those items or do something they enjoy for a specific period of time. As always, with anything, there are flaws to using punishment. Punishment can be either good, and effective, or bad, and not so effective. First, you ought to know the difference between reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is when you encourage something that is already known. An example of this would be encouraging and reminding your child that they must keep their grades up or they will lose their video game privileges. On the other hand, punishment is the act of weakening a response, which would be some type of bad behavior.

Punishment doesn't always solve the behavior issue though, as the child might think that once the punishment is over, it is okay to behave like that again. Problems with physical punishment has flaws because the child may become scared of the punisher, avoiding them, and instead gets the wrong message. This kind of punishment is usually not successful because the child believes that if they misbehave they will be hurt. This is wrong. A child should learn from the situation; understand that what they did was wrong. It is hard to learn right from wrong when being abused or threatened. Along with abuse, comes lying. If the child knows that he or she will be hurt and abused when they do something wrong, they may begin to lie to try and avoid punishment. And as noted before, abuse only brings fear to the child. A child should be able to learn from mistakes. They should look up to their parents, or guardian and learn from what they did wrong, not think they will get abused for messing up. Abuse creates fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety slow down learning and halt it in its tracks. Also, an abusive parent only becomes an abusive role model. Instead we should be teaching children peace, the opposite of harm. How do you instead, make punishment effective? It's simple, three easy steps.

1. Punishment should be given directly after the bad behavior. If this is not done, then the punishment will not be seen as it was related to the bad behavior.

2. Punishment should always stay consistent. For example: if a mother tells her son that if he has bad grades, he will lose his playstation privileges, then she needs to do just so. And finally, punishment should always be followed with reinforcement regarding the correct behavior.

For example instead of yelling at your child for peeing their pants, instead remind them that they are a big kid and use the potty. When they use the potty, praise them. Although there is much more to child behavior and related techniques outside of this essay, there is still valuable information and resources within. Punishment by application or removal are just a few techniques out of many ways children can be punished. Also, understanding the problems with punishment and the most ways to make punishment effective, allows the parent or guardian to help the child learn and grow most efficiently.

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