Strengthening Good Behaviors and Reducing Bad BehaviorsTo strengthen a good behavior:
- Use positive feedback.
- When your children behave, reward them by thanking them. When you see your children sharing, tell them that they should be proud of themselves.
- Use positive feedback to strengthen the opposite behavior. Examples:
- If you want to reduce the amount of arguing between two children, call attention to the time when they are not arguing.
- If your children have a negative attitude, reward anything positive.
- Use extinction to eliminate any rewards for misbehavior. Examples:
- Do not give in to your children's demands.
- Ignore your children when they try to get your attention in a negative way.
- Use punishment. Examples:
- A child who comes home late cannot go out the next day.
- A child who does not do his chores forfeits part of his allowance.
|Positive feedback feels good to give and receive.||Punishment creates unpleasant feelings, often anger.|
|Positive feedback emphasizes good behavior. It teaches children to think.||Punishment draws attention to misbehavior.|
|Positive feedback increases motivation.||Punishment can have a negative effect on motivation.|
|Positive feedback creates feelings of success.||Punishment can cause children to feel like failures.|
|Positive feedback improves a child's self-esteem.||Punishment can have a negative impact on self-esteem.|
|Positive feedback gives children self-confidence.||Punishment weakens self-confidence.|
|Positive feedback teaches children to trust their decisions.||Punishment does not teach trust. It sometimes teaches fear.|
|Positive feedback motivates children to seek goals.||Punishment may cause children to feel despair: "Why try? I always get in trouble anyway."|
|Positive feedback develops responsibility: "When I make good decisions, I feel good."||Punishment often teaches children to avoid admitting responsibility for their actions.|
|Positive feedback promotes healthy family relationships.||Punishment may alienate family members.|
|Positive feedback encourages children to talk to their parents.||Punishment discourages children from talking to their parents.|
|Positive feedback teaches children to be positive with others.||Punishment that is aggressive teaches children to be aggressive toward others.|
|Positive feedback is easy to use effectively.||Punishment is difficult to use easily.|
More on: Discipline Strategies
From How to Behave So Your Children Will, Too!. Copyright ï¿½ Sal Severe, 2000. Used by arrangement with Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.If you'd like to buy this book, click here or on the book cover. Get a 15% discount with the coupon code FENPARENT.