The relationship between behavior & the reinforcer

Let's chat about the relationship between the behavior and the reinforcer. Reinforcement is not a bad thing. Every single person’s behavior is reinforced by something. Cooking dinner every night is reinforced by my husband telling me he loves my cooking and appreciates a home cooked meal. My shopping behaviors are reinforced by the feeling I get when I wear my new top for the first time. All behavior is reinforced. The reinforcer is what we like out of the situation. It’s what makes sure that behavior happens again in the future. 

This is definitely something that I'll dive deeper into in my free parent training. Are you signed up to join us?!

There is a direct correlation between behavior and how it’s reinforced. Your child slams into the wall, the reinforcer might be sensory input and they like that fast and deep pressure.

Your child might like to dump the tub of crayons out because your reaction is immediately a gasp and frustrated look. Dumping the crayons could be reinforced by the attention they get or your reaction is entertaining to them.

My point is that there is a reason that a behavior repeats. Something makes sure it repeats again. That something is the reinforcer.

You’ve probably heard about the ABCs of behavior. The A is the antecedent, that’s what happens directly before the behavior. This could also be known as a trigger.

Then you have the B and that’s the behavior itself.

And then you have the C, the consequence that comes directly after the behavior. This consequence is what’s reinforcing the behavior or not. If your child dumped the crayons out hoping for a reaction from you but you acted like nothing happened, that behavior probably wasn’t reinforced so it probably won’t happen again in the future because your child didn’t get what they wanted from it. 

If we want to see more of a positive and appropriate behavior, we have to make sure we are positively reinforcing it. When we are positively reinforcing a behavior, we are increasing the chances that we will see that behavior again and again and again. 

In the beginning, while you’re promoting and trying to increase more positive behavior, you are going to have to intentionally set it up so your child’s behavior is reinforced. 

We have to intentionally provide opportunities that is going to reward your child for that behavior. 

These behaviors that get positively rewarded gives your child a positive result. When they get a positive result, they will repeat the behavior to get it again. 

So let’s break behavior apart into two categories. We’ll say positive behaviors and negative behaviors.

More times than not, the negative behaviors are positively reinforced more than the positive behaviors are.

This is because we, the adults, have such a strong desire to teach that the negative  behavior is not acceptable and they shouldn’t engage in that behavior again. 

So a child engages in a negative behavior, let’s say throwing a toy at his brother’s head, and what happens after? We immediately go up to that child, put our finger in their face, say “no” and let them know in some way that the behavior was bad and unacceptable. 

If that child enjoys attention and reactions from people, which most kids do, (I have yet to meet a kid that doesn’t like attention and reactions) well we just reinforced that throwing behavior with the attention they got right after. 

You might be thinking “but that’s negative attention.”

And it doesn’t matter sometimes. Bad attention is better than no attention at all. 

We naturally want to reprimand and punish the bad behavior to stop it. And it might do that, stop the behavior. But, this doesn’t always last when the child is wanting to gain attention. So it works in the short term, in the moment, but it only lasts until the child engages in the negative behavior again for attention. 

So now, you might be thinking “ok molly so are you telling me to just ignore these negative behaviors?” 

And my answer is, yes, i sort of am. Now we do want to intervene if a child is hurting themselves or others, so we might not be able to fully ignore those behaviors. I would never want a child to cause physical harm to someone and just sit there and let it happen. That’s not what i’m saying

But, if a child is not causing physical harm, yes, i want you to try to ignore the behavior and not give reinforcing attention. 

I also want you to intentionally start giving attention to positive behaviors that your child is engaging in. 

A lot of times people think that if kids are engaging in a positive behavior, they obviously know that behavior and it doesn’t need to be reinforced, but it does if we want to see more of it. 

When you pay attention to these good, positive behaviors, they increase and happen again and again. And if these positive behaviors are the only thing getting mom’s attention, you will start to see an increase in positive behaviors and decrease in the negative or challenging behaviors. 

Attention is one of the most effective rewards for children. That’s why your child is being reinforced by that negative reaction of scolding and punishment. It’s better than the no attention they get for being nice to their brother.

How do you get started on this and be really intentional about this?

We are going to have to make a plan for increasing positive behavior and implementing the plan. Remember, success doesn’t happen by accident. You will have to make an intentional effort to stop only paying attention to negative behaviors. Because when we only react to the negative, we are communicating to a child that the behavior matters and it’s the only one we respond to. 

I would highly suggest using a token board to promote and increase positive behavior with immediate reinforcement of the tokens. This is a highly effective strategy and your child is probably familiar with the concept if they are in therapies or school. 

You can use a token board to target a specific behavior or you can be really vague and reward all positive behaviors. 

You can download one for free on my website to get started. A token board is going to positively reinforce the good behaviors. They engage in a positive behavior, you will verbally praise and give them a token to put on their token board and when they get all 5 tokens, they get whatever item or activity you chose for them to work for.

Once you fill up the token board, you immediately let your child have the item they were working for and then the token board starts over. It’s an all day cycle of doing this and constantly rewarding positive behaviors until you start to see your child get the hang of it, and you start to see a decrease in the challenging behaviors. Once you start to see some success, you can back off a little bit and not use it all day long, but i would not completely get rid of it. 

If you think about it, we all work for something. You wouldn’t go to work if you didn’t get a paycheck so why would your child engage in positive behavior if they get nothing from it.

You can certainly make your own and specific to your child’s interests. I’ve seen token boards that look like a mini version of candy land or a rocket ship. You can get creative and find what’s going to hold your child’s interest or help with the motivation part of this.

I will be talking about this topic more in depth during my next free parent training. Make sure you're signed up!