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[背景音乐] 大家好，我是Alan Kazdin，是耶鲁大学的心理学和儿童精神病学教授。我也是耶鲁育儿研究中心（Yale Parenting Center）的主任。我身后的楼就是研究中心所在地。

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在过去的25年，耶鲁育儿研究中心已经在育儿方面帮助过 5000余位家长。除了专业经验外，我自己本身也是一位父亲－我有2个很棒的女儿。从我工作中与家长的接触和我自己的个人经验中，我明白了无论孩子有没有闯祸，教育孩子本身就是一件相当不容易的事情。再加上常有的压力，孩子的各种逆反行为，家长的训斥，还有最终总是免不了的大吼，简直是绝大多数家庭中十分典型的一天。这门课中，我们会讲到很多育儿方法，希望这些方法可以帮助你更好的教育孩子，减少不必要的家庭冲突。

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我们想在这门课中与大家分享耶鲁育儿研究中心在和家长沟通的这些年来所得到的经验。

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我们教给家长的方法，不仅仅是靠日常实践得出。这些经验是我们用严谨的研究方法考量过的，而其他研究者也曾研究过这些方法，我们十分确定这些方法的有用性。

1:20

本课中将提到的很多概念和方法都会是大家熟悉的，比如表扬和惩罚。但我们将着重介绍的是如何有效运用这些方法。我们会讲讲如何运用这些方法才能真正提升你教育孩子的技巧，并且降低你每天因为育儿而产生的各种无奈。我们专门为这门课录制了一些视频，这些视频中提到了很多育儿误区，并提供了教育小孩和青少年的许多实在可行的方法。如果你在教育孩子的过程中曾感到过崩溃，或者你很想学学如何改变孩子的行为，那么这门课会对你非常有帮助。 [背景音乐] 下面，我来讲讲这门课的结构。

2:09

本课第一部分，我们会讲讲ABC，也就是起源（antecedents），行为（behaviors）和结果（consequences）。举个例子，起源可以是如何要求孩子打扫房间。行为指的是他会不会打扫房间，而这个行为会导致一个结果－根据孩子的行为，你会如何表现。很多改变行为的技巧都是根据ABC这三件事情分别得出的但是，把ABC三个事情结合在一起，会得出很多教育孩子的通用方法。之后，我会谈谈家庭生活中能让教育孩子这个事情变简单些的通用方法。这些方法对开始有逆反心理的小孩，和容易惹麻烦的青少年都统统有效。我们会先学一些基本概念，在这之上，我们会谈到更多技巧。就像练武术要先从分解动作学起一样。上完这门课后，我们希望大家都能成为育儿小能手。本课最后，你会学到一系列可以根据你家庭的情况运用的独特的育儿方法。本课中，我们会要求你想一些你想让你的孩子继续保持或者减少的行为。通过这样的方法，我们希望你能更有针对性的运用我们教的技巧。你不用一开始就想改变孩子的所有行为。从你特别想让孩子改变的一件事情开始。

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我刚才提到了学这些技巧的过程，就像学武术一样，所以这门课上完之后，你会成为一名大师。同样，这也像学一门乐器，最开始都是从特别基础的东西学起。比如弹出一个音，之后练习很简单的曲子，然后根据这些，慢慢学会更多的技巧，直到最终轻松弹出各种复杂曲目。这门课的关键在于，练习，练习，练习。课程中提到的方法，都不是抽象的概念，而是非常实用的方法，告诉你做什么还有如何用这些方法切实改变孩子的行为。我在课上能交给你们的只是这整个过程的一半，另一半需要你自己反复实践，并且为了让这些方法达到最好的效果，你要学会根据自己家庭的情况加以改变。练习对于本课而言，至关重要。上这门课前，你需要已经具备哪些知识技能吗？不需要。如果你是一名家长或者监护人，那当然最好。

4:42

我们会重点介绍从学龄前儿童到青少年这个年龄段。正式开始这门课前，我鼓励大家先想好自己在教育孩子过程中最痛苦的一件事。你让孩子做家务的时候，他经常想尽一切办法逃避？习惯性迟到？跟兄弟姐妹吵架？在超市大吵大闹？不管你想改变的是什么，都请现在写下来，我们会在上这门课的过程中，逐渐让你的目标变为现实。很期待与大家共同上好这门课。

Common Challenging Behaviors

As mentioned before, this course will teach you techniques to change behavior – reduce challenging behaviors and develop positive behaviors. The list below covers routine behaviors treated at the Yale Parenting Center. Does your child exhibit the following behaviors? Keep a behavior you would like to change in mind as you go through the lessons.

Not complying with parental requests
Having a bad attitude
Speaking offensively or harshly
Breaking things
Having catastrophic tantrums
Showing disrespect
Being careless in playing with siblings
Stealing
Arguing
Lying
Hitting peers, parents, teachers, or principals
Confronting others
Bullying
Finicky eating
Playing disruptively with peers
Not sharing
Not engaging in self-care (bathing, brushing teeth, getting dressed)
Not going to bed on time
Breaking curfew
Not letting parents know where you are
Not taking medicine
Not socializing with other children

1.Special Praise

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I want to provide a disclaimer or explanation as to why you are starting the course off with praise. Well, praise is a consequence and might come later. I put praise out of order for three reasons. First, it shows a common misconception as you will see very soon. Second, it is easy to practice and start using in the home. And third, because you’ll begin to see a difference in your child after a few days, only if you use this praise properly. I also refer to praise in many of the lessons, because it is so helpful for locking in behaviors. We are building enduring habits, and praise can really help. While I advise combining techniques from each a b c section for a strong behavior change program. Start with special praise, and practice for several days to get the feel of how to apply new techniques, and to use something familiar, but in a very different way.

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We’ve been talking about various techniques to change child behavior. The techniques are a package and they have to be combined. We are breaking them down into individual techniques. In this video, we will talk about praise, that is praising one’s child. What is praise? Well, praise is very familiar. It refers to expressing approval in some way. We know this very well. It’s illustrated in everyday life as you parent by saying things such as, great, well done. This positive feedback is the praise we’re familiar with. And the effects? Well, we know those too. Praise makes us feel better. We smile. We’re pleased to hear it. And we’re just happier when there’s more praise in our life. You’re a parent, so you’re probably providing praise to your child. What could we possibly say in this video that would be new? Actually, quite a lot. And I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. For today’s purposes, consider two kinds of praise. The first kind might be called routine normal or praise in everyday life. This the one you are doing, this is the one familiar to you. Children love it. It’ll help your relationship. Continue to do that. But there is a second type of praise, and that’s what we’re focusing on now. And this praise is really useful when you want to change some behavior. When you want to develop some behavior, getting your child to do homework, be a better listener, or have your child do something this strategic, this better kind of praise will get that behavior. And same thing we’ll use it later to get rid of some behaviors as well. This praise has three special features. The first of these, we’ll talk about with young children. The first of these is the praise should be very enthusiastic or effusion. It would look like this, “That’s great!” Had some hand gestures there, some facial expression, and the tone of voice was really up. Second component, state exactly what was being praised. “Great! You’ve picked up the toys just like I asked.” The third component is something nonverbal. It could be a touch on the shoulder, high fives, rubbing the child’s hair, a hug, kiss, whatever you do that’s comfortable, so nonverbal is the third part. And there’s research on this to show that each of these components is essential to make this special praise effective to change behavior. Consider an example, you’d like your child to set the table or pick up toys. You go over the child and say, “That’s great Mildred! You picked up your toys.” Now you go touch. Had the three ingredients. “Great Mildred! You picked up your toys. I go touch.”. Let us review one more time because this is such a critical tool in your toolkit. I have mentioned that special praise has three main ingredients, but the first step comes way before you praise the behavior. And that is to select the behavior you’d like to develop. In our example, we selected picking up and putting away toys. Keep a lookout for when the child does that specific behavior, so you can praise the behavior using the three special components. Praise effusively by smiling and using an enthusiastic tone. “That was great!” State the specific behavior when you acknowledge your child, “That was great! You put the toys away just like I asked.” Then add a gentle touch. Be close to the child as you’re giving praise and give some nonverbal affection such as a hug or patting your child on the shoulder in some way. When you try this at home, focus on one or two behaviors at first so you can practice giving praise frequently and consistently. How to make praise effective. Well, there are a couple of things. One of them is, it should be right after the behavior. For example, you would never say at dinner, “Raul, that was great the way you got ready for school this morning.” No, no, no. That’s too distant. It won’t do anything. We need the praise to be right next to getting ready for school. It has to be immediately after behavior. Also, we want the praise for small increments in behavior. You may want the full hour of homework each day, and we’ll talk about ways to get that full hour, but in the beginning, you want to praise small increments. And of course, you want to praise making sure that the behavior is done. Now there are some fascinating cautions in administering praise that are worth mentioning. What is said really makes a difference. Among the things to be alert to, avoid vacuous praise. Don’t just fire out there, “Great. Wonderful. You’re doing a good job.” That’s the normal phrase. It’s fine. It’s not a way to change behavior, so keep the differences quite clear. Secondly, do not praise the person. It would not be good to say to your child, “Dave, you’re really a good boy because you did these behaviors.” No, no. That can actually make the child feel bad, so don’t connect being a good boy. Also, do not convey that your love or liking depends on the behavior, “Mommy and Daddy really love you when you do X.” No, no, no, no, don’t do that. “Mommy and Daddy really love you no matter what you do.”. And then finally on this one, do not focus on yourself. “You make Mommy and Daddy happy when you do this.” No, no, no, no, no. “Mommy and Daddy are happy no matter what you do and you’re not the basis for our happiness that way.” And perhaps the most important lesson is what’s typical in parenting. We all do this. It’s called caboosing. Think for a moment of a train with many cars and the last car is called the caboose. In praise, the caboose is adding on something that undermines everything. You might have this perfect praise, “Great! You picked up your toys the way I asked. Nicely done.” You pat. Now the caboose, “Why can’t you always be like that? How come you can’t do it like your sister always does? Why do I have to nag you every time to get that behavior?” Those cabooses undermine and take away the effects of praise. What is so special that makes this praise work? What’s the magic behind the praise? Actually none. The key to the entire approach of all that we’re talking about is having the child practice the behaviors you want. We are building habits. We need the repetition of the behavior. And what praise does, it fits into that by increasing the likelihood that the child will do the behavior again, we have more practice. Or a really good way to think about this is to consider this like developing a skill, like playing a musical instrument. In a musical instrument, we want you to practice the notes, maybe little songs, and that repeated practice. What do we know about repeated practice? It actually changes the brain. And we want that practice because in the praise or the musical instrument if we get the behavior to occur in this repeated practice, we lock in the behavior, we can forget about the special praise. Now, some important questions and concerns often emerge in talking about praise. One of them is, will I need to praise the child forever to get him to do things? Is it a case that I have to praise my daughter to get dressed for the prom, we’ll have to continue this until she gets to the prom? Not at all. This is a very short time temporary program to make permanent changes. You get the behavior and then we stop. Will I spoil the child and make him expect praise from me for everything? Not at all. This does not work like that. You praise the behavior, you get repeated practice, you build in, you drop the program, you’re back to where you were before. Question. Why do I even need to do this at all, especially since my other child is so easygoing and cooperative and angelic? All we know to answer that is that people vary greatly, different temperaments, different personality. We even know that identical twins are actually very different. We don’t know how your child needs this or why your child needs this, but we do know that with the techniques we are talking about we can readily make these changes, even though we don’t know why the two children are different. Quick review. Three ingredients effusiveness, specific statements and something nonverbal. Will praise change the child and get the behaviors you want? Not by itself. It’s a critical ingredient. We are going to build a house and changing the behaviors you want in your child, and praise is a critical tool but you would never build a house with one tool. Praise is a good tool. We’re going to have other tools in later videos. .

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2.Antecendents

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The approach we are using has three main components that all work together to develop behavior.

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One part is called antecedents and refers to what we can do before a behavior takes place to make the desired behaviors more likely to occur.

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Another part is the behaviors and refers to what you can do to get the specific behaviors you wish.

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The third part is consequences or what we do after the behavior is completed. Remember the ABCs. This lesson focuses on A, the antecedents.

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Antecedents and the role in changing behavior are less familiar than consequences. But they are critical to developing behavior.

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So what are antecedents? Well, antecedents are various things you can say and do that increase the likelihood the behavior will occur.

0:58

Actually, antecedents can make behavior more or less likely depending on the delivery. Let’s us consider an example of antecedents from everyday life that influence our behavior.

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Have you ever said to your partner the following statement in a very sweet and innocent manner? If you really loved me you would go to this family event with me.

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The, if you really love me part, along with your tone and expression are antecedents that you hope will increase the likelihood

1:32

of going to the family event. Of course, the wise partner may respond with his or her own antecedent and say, if you really loved me you would not even ask me to go to another one of those family events.

1:47

Whether that particular scenario is familiar or not, you get the idea. Antecedents, or setting events, which I will go into later, are all around us and are used routinely, but they are rarely used strategically in special ways to develop behavior, and build the habits you would like in your child. So there are three types of antecedents that can play a huge role in changing behavior.

2:15

The first type is easy, and is referred to as prompts. Prompts are direct ways to guide behavior. Typically, they take the form of instructions that ask or tell someone to do something. Usually prompts are verbal statements like please put away your toys, but prompts can be physical and visual to directly guide the behavior you want your child to do. For example, you might say to your child, please brush your teeth before bed. This is a verbal prompt, which states exactly what to do. After the verbal prompt, you could walk your child to the bathroom, maybe holding his or her hand and that would be a physical prompt. Now depending on the situation, you may want to use modeling as a visual prompt, by saying something like this. Here, let me show you how to brush your teeth. And you slowly model putting toothpaste on the brush and actually brushing, and that would be a visual prompt.

3:15

In every day child rearing, verbal prompts are used all the time in statements like go to your room, start your homework now. Prompts are probably familiar to you, so let us move on to the other two types of antecedents, that are less familiar but really interesting.

3:32

The second type of antecedents are referred as positive setting events, these are indirect antecedents that greatly increased the likelihood of a behavior. They are called setting events because they set the stage for the behavior you want. Now business and industry have grasped the power of positive setting events in many ways. Specific scents and fragrances are often introduced into hotel lobbies, and hospitals, airplanes, and homes that are for sale to influence our reaction.

4:07

In child rearing and developing behavior in children setting events usually have to do with how something is said or presented. We know that the same request may or may not lead to compliance based on how it is delivered. I’ll give you some examples of positive setting events and different ways of saying things in just a few minutes.

4:32

This brings us to the third type of antecedent event which is called negative setting events. And negative setting events are those indirect antecedents that decrease the likelihood of a behavior or increase some behavior you really don’t want. These are often subtle, like your tone of voice and how you phrase something. A harsh tone alone is enough to make your child not likely to follow your instructions.

4:59

On top of that, limiting your child’s choice with phrases like, do it because I said so, or I’m the parent and you have to do this. Those negative setting events really decrease the likelihood that the behavior that you want will occur and increase the likelihood of non-compliance. Adding pressure and threats such as you, better do this now will also not help you get the behaviors you want. Aggressive orders do not make the behavior more likely in the short or long term. Such orders are definitely not the way to build habits.

5:33

So let me summarize. I’ve mentioned prompts, positive setting events and negative setting events. What you say and how you say it can either be a positive setting event or a negative setting event. And changes in your delivery in tone, volume, body language can greatly increase or decrease the chances of getting the behavior you would like to see in your child.

6:00

Now that we have covered the definition of these terms, let us go into the specific key ingredients of helpful antecedents. You can increase the odds of compliance by using clear and specific prompts. Most prompts are too general and that makes them less effective. For example, go clean your room, that’s too general and is not as good as saying pick up all the clothes on the floor and put them in the laundry hamper. Or, pick up five pieces of clothing from the floor before you come down to dinner.

6:33

You will not need to spell out all the little details all the time, but when you’re trying to develop a new behavior, it is good idea to start up breaking it down exactly into the parts you would like to see.

6:46

When giving a prompt consider how you are making a request. How you are setting the event. What is the tone of voice or your facial expression? Whenever you can, use a gentle tone of voice. Saying to a child put on your coat is much more likely to get compliance if the tone is gentle and the facial expression matches that. In contrast, ordering your child to put on the coat pointing and frowning, is a bit more harsh, and that delivery alone will increase the likelihood that your child does not comply with your request. Remember that is a negative setting event.

7:26

Another positive setting event is to offer choices whenever possible when humans have choices they are much more likely to comply.

7:34

So maybe the behavior you want can occur now or maybe later, maybe it can be done one way or another. These are choices. For example, you could say to your child we’re going outside. Please put on your green sweater or your red coat. The choice greatly increases the likelihood that the child would put on something right away.

7:56

If you just said put on your green sweater, you may still get the behavior. Gentle requests may be enough for your child, however, if you are having any problems with compliance, by adding choice, you will increase the impact.

8:10

Another antecedent that helps increase compliance is to add the word please to your prompt. Of course, you don’t have to run around the house saying please all day. Here’s the rationale for saying please.

8:24

First, the tone of voice of the parent tends to be more gentile, when the request beings with please. And second, please implies choice even though choice is not stated. So based on what we have covered so far, saying please is essentially two antecedents for the effort of one.

8:46

Let me clarify. Please usually helps, but is not a magic word, so saying an exasperated please with your eyes rolled back would not work. Your frustration would be a negative setting event. Now not all parents are comfortable saying please to their child, and that is fine. I mentioned the use of please because it’s one positive setting event that can increase compliance. It should be in your toolbox, but of course, you can choose not to use it.

9:19

Another antecedent would be offering assistance or a little help destructive behavior.

9:25

Offering assistance increases its chances that your child will engage in the behavior you would like to see.

9:32

For example, if you’re trying to get your child to begin in homework, say, please get started on your homework, bring out your notebook and bring it to the table and I can help with your assignment.

9:44

Extending help conveys a gentle mindset that you are willing to be there and can attend to your child.

9:51

Also starting a behavior, sometimes is the most difficult part. Providing brief assistance to your child can start the activity or behavior, and we can withdraw the assistance pretty soon and praise starting the behavior without any assistance.

10:07

Another positive setting event that is actually fun for the child is using a playful challenge.

10:14

A playful challenge can help get the behavior to occur and even to occur a couple of times in a row.

10:21

Remember, the goal was antecedents including the challenge. We are trying to get repeated practice of behavior. So it becomes completely routine and automatic.

10:33

Here’s how the challenge helps to do that. When a child does a behavior you wish, you say something like this with a very mischievous smile, [LAUGH] I’ll bet you can’t do that again. I bet you can’t do that twice in a row. No child you could do that twice in a row until they’re all grown up. Again, we’re not just throwing out some random challenge. But using this for a behavior you want to develop. The more times the child actually does the behavior you want, the more habitual that becomes, and the sooner we can stop the program. So when you say, I’ll bet you cannot do that again, most children will respond yes, I can do that again. And they’ll smile, and they’ll try to persuade you to let them try.

11:16

You let them do the behavior again and remember to praise that effusively.

11:22

So let me recap the antecedents you have in your toolkit.

11:27

Let me use getting your child to go outside as our scenario. So to get that behavior to occur use a clear prompt to outline exactly what you want to be done. So get ready to go outside might imply you want your child to wear a jacket and boots, but be more specific. You could revise that to say, we are going outside. Put on your coat and your boots, and please meet me on the front door.

11:53

Notice how calm and as a matter of fact the delivery was. When you are trying to get a behavior and to develop a habit of doing that behavior try to speak to your child in a calm gentle tone, with a facial expression that matches.

12:08

Instead of projecting your voice to yell the prompt across the room get closer to the child. Even bend down to his or her level to increase the likelihood of compliance. If gentle requests are not enough, try making a choice as part of that. You could say to your child, we are going outside, put on your boots and green sweater or your red coat. It’s up to you. Saying please might not be your style, but try adding please to your request and see if your child is more likely to follow your instructions. Going back over our example you can say, please put on your coat and your boots because we’re going outside now.

12:47

Again, we want the behavior to occur so it can be praised and be locked in. And antecedent is like please, can help to get the behavior to occur. Similarly, the situation might not call for it, but try offering assistance if your child has not been complying with a particular behavior.

13:06

Again, using our example you could offer to help find the jacket in the closet or offer assistance in zipping up the jacket.

13:14

Another antecedent you could try is a playful challenge to start the behavior to get him or her to do the behavior again. For example, you could say to your child [LAUGH] I bet you can’t get your jacket and boots on in under two minutes. No child your age could ever do that. You’d have to be a superhero to get your jacket and your boots out.

13:34

All these are antecedents. Things that you can do and say before a behavior. And they’ve been shown to increase the likelihood that the behavior will occur.

13:44

Again, the purpose in mentioning all of this is not to change all of your prompts and setting events at home. But if you are having difficulty in getting the behavior you want, the use of antecedents can really help.

13:57

Please also note that you do not have to use all the antecedents at once. You can experiment with these different strategies to see which one works for you and your child.

14:07

As with any of the tools we have discussed, there are questions that may arise. For antecedents, here are the most common questions. First, parents sometimes say I give prompts all day and, trust me, they do not work.

14:22

Common phrases parents use are if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times or you know what to do, just do it.

14:31

Both of those prompts are extremely ineffective. Parents often give too many prompts too often and that is called nagging. You may feel that you have to nag otherwise your child will not do what you ask. If you tend to nag as a parent, well that’s called normal. But if you find yourself nagging you child, continue filing more of what we have covered in this video. Gentle tone of voice, adding choice and other positive setting events. Remember, prompts get the behavior going but to get the behavior consistently, it has to be praised when it occurs. This is the critical consequence. A second question that comes up is, why do I need to use antecedents in this special way at all?

15:16

Remember, for all the videos, if your current child rearing practices are working the way you like, and you’re getting all the behaviors you want from your child. There’s no need to use special techniques. You can keep the behavior change tools we have discussed in the toolbox. All of the videos are about situations in which you would like to be more effective in changing particular child behaviors. When you want help to instill a particular behavior, you can pull one of these tools from your behavior change toolkit. These tools are different ways of applying antecedents, crafting the behaviors, and providing consequences. The ABCs, for example, saying please or adding a playful challenge might not be intuitive, but these prompts and positive setting events can be extremely powerful in initiating the desired behavior. Finally, parents often ask, how long do I have to keep giving these special prompts? Of course, at some point we want our children to do the behaviors without having to be there or give any prompts or reminders. If you prompt the behaviors to get it going and praise the behavior when it occurs, you will eventually establish the positive habit. There’s no way to say exactly how long you’ll have to use these prompts and the consequences for any given behavior. The key is how often you can praise the behavior. More practice locks in the behavior. If you see the behavior when the prompt is given, be sure to praise that. If you see the behavior when the prompt wasn’t given really praise that. I did not even ask you to do that, and you started your homework right away. That is great.

16:48

Depending on the behavior, the unique features of your child and the opportunities for praise, the need for more special prompts could between one and three weeks, it’s hard to say. The tools are designed for short term use, but they lead to long term change. Let me close by commenting on the use of the tools we are discussing on this course.

17:08

Each video discusses a tool to change behavior. But more than one tool can be used to make the change you want.

17:15

Antecedents can be extremely effective in getting the behaviors to occur and that is one set of tools. Yet they are rarely used in a systematic or special way that will develop long lasting new behaviors. I hope you practice using antecedents, so the special prompts and positive setting events become more natural for you. I will outline a practice exercise in the next video, so you can work on effective antecedents. You will hear this many times in this course, remember to practice praising behavior that you want whenever you can. You might be surprised at the result. Combining antecedents and consequences and using them consistently will get the behavior you wish to be practiced repeatedly. We are discussing a temporary procedure, and you use them for a little while to get the behaviors of the child that you seek, the behaviors continue after you stop. We will have more tools in other videos.

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Here is an exercise to practice the use of antecedents in an effective way. When no one is around or when you are super comfortable, go to a place where you can look into a mirror, a bathroom mirror would be perfect. Now you are all by yourself, no child around. Now, practice making a request as you look at yourself in the mirror. This prompt could be something you normally might ask your child, maybe say, “Come down for breakfast.” Now, say this request in three ways while you look into the mirror. Remember, how you say something greatly influences the likelihood that your child will comply, which is why you are practicing. First, give the request in your usual way. Just say what you normally say, “Come down for breakfast.” OK. Now, do this in the second way with negative setting events, that is say it again with a frown. Make it sound like an order with your tone of voice, maybe add, “You have to do this,” or, “you should do this.” Maybe point a finger. In short, say it, “You have to come down for breakfast now.” We want you to act here. This could be the start of your acting career. Really go for it, make the request a little harsh by your look, your tone, and your gesture. Of course, we do not want you to develop this habit, but it will be very useful for you to see what prompts look like with negative setting events. Remember, these events decrease the likelihood that you will get the behavior you want in your child. Finally, practice the third way to say the prompt. State the request again but with positive setting events. Say the same thing but this time mix in a very gentle voice. Be your usual sweet self but slightly more exaggerated at a very calm tone. Smile a bit and put please right in front of the request, “Please come downstairs with me for breakfast.” OK. That was clearly the best of the three. Now, one more time say it again with positive setting events, but even do a better job. How would your favorite actor or actress do that. Say it this one more time calmer. Use the word please, smile and maybe add choice. You might see this as a silly exercise, but the use of positive antecedents does not come naturally to many people. And when it does, it can still be made much more effective as a tool to change child behavior. In my work, we actually bring parents into the room and practice giving antecedents. We go back and forth several times because practice is so important. We use antecedents to help parents by prompting them to add this or that and to make their voice just a little less harsh. And of course, we praise and provide feedback. For both children and parents, a key to change is practice. You will see this theme throughout the course. Now that you practice by yourself, practice in your home tomorrow when you want your child to get ready for school or to put on clothes or to put something away, to play nicely with siblings whatever. Whatever the typical requests are that you make be sure to try our different antecedents, like being calm, being close, smiling, saying please, offering choice, and giving a playful challenge. See what works. Remember, praise the child’s behavior after the antecedent gets that behavior. Praise is needed to lock that behavior in. Feel free to share your experience practicing in the mirror, with your fellow learners in the discussion threads. You might even be able to find an acting partner. Good luck. There are more tools to learn in upcoming videos.

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3.Behaviors

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I have mentioned that the approach we are using has three main parts and they all work together to develop behavior. One part is called antecedents and refers to what we can do before behavior to make it occur. Another part is the behavior itself and what one does to get exactly the behavior you wish. The third part is the consequences or what we do after the behavior is completed. These are conveniently called A antecedents, B behaviors, and C consequences and easily remembered as the ABCs. In this video, we are taking up the behavior, the B part. And the guiding question of the tool we are discussing is, how can we get the behavior of the child that we would like to see. For example, you may want your child to be nice to his sister, or to eat vegetables once in a while, or to listen to you and actually do what you ask. But these never seem to occur or, at least, do not occur as often as you would like. If you find yourself nagging your child about something, this is a good sign that the behavior you want is not occurring enough. So how does one get behavior? Well, there are two excellent procedures. One of them is called shaping and that is the topic of this video. The other is called simulation and is the topic of a separate video. So what is shaping? Shaping consists of rewarding small steps that approximate or begin to resemble the final behavior you wish. So, if you want your child to do an hour of homework, we can usually get that by shaping. But it means we build the time gradually, maybe 10 minutes of homework at first. Then, when that is consistent, perhaps four out of five days, we can move on to a longer period. So shaping is a systematic way to start out small and reward more and more time with the behavior like in the example of doing homework. Now, if you’ve ever played a musical instrument, you will be able to see shaping at work. We want someone to play songs or other pieces of music but we do not start there. We start with learning how to play notes on the instrument, then some small units like scales, and so on. Songs are the goal but we usually do not start there. Or if we do start with songs, these are extremely simple in the beginning. In everyday life we do not use shaping automatically. There are two exceptions, when a toddler is starting to talk and mumble some word that begins with M, mmm, mom G. The parent may show great praise and say, Sarah just said mommy. Sarah didn’t say mommy but Sarah approximated mommy with the M and we praise instances of that as it gets closer and closer to say mommy. The same kind of shaping occurs when a toddler starts to walk. The child stands up, moves forward one step, and falls. We say, look Matt is walking. But Matt’s not walking. He’s just starting out. So you smile. You show great praise. And these initial steps aren’t quite walking but they develop into behavior that is walking. Now, these are okay examples. But they’re not that great. Because talking and walking have their own rewards and they’ll develop whether we praise them or not. For changing other behaviors, we may have more difficulty. Many parents might just nag the child and complain that she does not do her homework. Nagging frustrates everyone and does not change behavior. You want the child to clear all the dishes from the dinner table. You ask, that doesn’t work. You nag, that doesn’t help. And maybe you shout and that helps but you got it just once. Shaping can help and replace all of those less effective ways of getting the behavior. First, gently instruct rather than tell your child to clear his plate and put that plate in the sink. At the beginning of shaping, we start small. Just clear your plate. Praise that effusively. Do this for a couple of days. And then ask him to clear one or two more items from the table and continue this. Now, if you look at the video and at the scenes, you’ll see we can add a challenge to this. And say, something like that will really help the shaping. You could say, I bet you can’t clear your plate and mine. The tone of voice, the playful style will really help here. If the child would not even do that first step, that’s not a problem. You go to your child and you say, here let me help you, let’s do this together. Do that and be helpful, not angry. In a day or two, the child will do it by himself without you. But just to start shaping, it is fine to help if needed. Now, my example, is getting the child to clear dishes from the table. In the big scheme of how our children are developing, we don’t care very much about table setting or clearing. But you probably do care about the child listening to you and not defying what you ask. And working on a task such as table setting can help that. Because when you develop listening to you or being compliant in one place, it carries over to other places. So, here’s another example where we focus on being a good listener more directly. You feel your child doesn’t listen to you and do what you ask and are frustrated. Shaping can really help. Praise your child for being a good listener for the easy requests. Maybe ask your child to come over to dinner, or to come over for a hug, or to come over and do something fun. Anything that has no tension or struggle associated with it. Then give the special praise we’ve talked about. Great, you came over when I asked. And now, touch the child affectionately. This will increase the likelihood of listening to you at other times. Repeated practice is always the key. So do this for a while. Maybe a week or so. Praise the child for being a good listener for these easy requests. Then extend the praise to instances that’d be more difficult. Gradually, your child will be much more compliant for those more difficult instances. This will spread to other situations where you have not used the praise. So shaping can be used to get more of some behavior. You want more clothing picked up from the floor? Start with a few. Shaping is good for more time in doing some behavior, working on homework, or practicing a musical instrument. Start with a few minutes and build up. And shaping is good for less time in doing behaviors. Less time in getting ready for bed, less time in getting ready for school in the morning. Start out with a lot of time and cut it back through shaping. So the key ingredients of shaping are five separate ingredients. One, specify the behavior you would like. This is the final or goal behavior. Two, specify a small step, just an initial portion. Three, choose the consequence you will use. I recommend praise. Some parents like points. Now, praise instances of those small occurrences whenever you see them. And finally, five, when these instances occur consistently, maybe after a few days, make the requirement slightly more stringent but just a little bit. So, here is a practice exercise in case you want to try this at home. And we can use the five ingredients. First, what is the behavior that will be your goal. Write this down to make it very clear and concrete. You might say, I would like my child to eat a small portion of vegetables at dinner or I would like my child not to have tantrums at the grocery store. Second, now I select a very small version of that, a very beginning an early step toward that goal and write that down too. For the vegetables, it might be just putting a spoon with vegetables to his lips and actually not eating them. Believe it or not, that can lead to eating the full portion of vegetables. For getting dressed by himself? Maybe just putting on one piece of clothing by himself. Three, what will be the consequence? Now I suggest the special praise. But some parents want to use points or a privilege. Whatever the reward, it should be something immediate. Now, a separate video on praise mentioned that praise is really effective when it is very enthusiastic, it specifies what’s being praised, and is followed by an affectionate touch. The fourth step, now praise that small step whenever you see it. And if you did not see that small step, make the step even smaller or help the child do the first step. And finally, after some consistency, step five. Add a little bit more to move toward the final goal. Why do I need to do the shaping business at all? My child knows how to do the behavior. Well, I’ve mentioned this in other videos that knowing has very little relation to doing. This is a huge source of frustration for all of us. Our children may know what to do but still do not do the behavior. In psychology, that is called normal. Most adults know how to engage in healthy behaviors. Most adults know all about diet and exercise but they don’t do that. Most people know that texting and talking on the phone while driving greatly increases the likelihood of a car accident. And we still do it. And most people know the hazards of cigarette smoking and so on. So try not to be too frustrated when your child knows but does not do. Children, adolescents, and adults usually behave in that same way. An example may be more dear to you, your spouse or partner knows you do not like some annoying habit after all these years. But that person does it anyway. Remember? What is that called? Yes, it’s called normal. You could use shaping with your spouse or partner. But this is a different set of videos, we’re working on parenting and child behavior. Another question that comes up, what if my child does not even do the first step in shaping. Well, make the steps smaller. Ask for less behavior. And, as I mentioned, providing a little help in the beginning is fine if it helps get the first behavior to occur. Just, say, in a matter of fact way, here let me help. Or, let’s do this together. And if that is still a problem, that you can’t get the behavior, take a look at the separate video on simulation. Two cautionary notes, shaping fails mostly because parents set the bar too high in the beginning. If you demand too much behavior, you want to get that hour of homework and you say, well, maybe I’ll start with 45 minutes. No, start smaller, much smaller, and build it up. If you start with 45, chances are you’ll get nothing. We can reach the final goal, not a problem. But it usually has to be done gradually. Parents, sometimes, have difficulty with that and mostly because they feel the child knows what to do, but isn’t doing it. We’ve discussed that already. Try not to be too frustrated. Knowing does not build habits. But doing does. A second caution I call slippery slope thinking. In shaping it is fine, and even helpful, to assist your child with the first few steps in shaping. You could sit with the child and help with the first few minutes of homework. Maybe just five minutes and the child does the other five by herself. You can help like that on a few occasions. Parents often have slippery slope thinking if I have to help now, I’ll always have to help. If the child can’t work on his own now, he’ll never be able to work. No. It turns out just the opposite is true. You help a little bit, you don’t have to help anymore. Try shaping behaviors that, otherwise, will not occur can be attained by this gradual approach. Remember each video discusses a tool to change behavior. But more than one tool can be used to make the changes you want. Shaping is one way to develop the behavior and that is not to be performed just the way you want. Praise the steps along the way. You can use other rewards, points, or privileges. Praise will do fine. As always, the magic is not in the rewards but getting the behavior you wish, or small portions, to be practiced repeatedly. Repeated practice builds habits. Changes the brains. Our tools are not for a temporary fix. They are temporary procedures to use for a little while but the behaviors of the child continue after you stop. We will have more videos and more tools for you in the coming days.

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In this video, we’re focusing on getting the behavior you would like in your child.There is some behavior you want your child to do that he never seems to do, or does not do very much.For example, the behavior might be speaking nicely, or being gentle with a sibling, or a pet.Or this can also mean there’s a behavior your child does a lot that you don’t want him to do at all, or so often.An example might be tantrums or talking back to you.So how does one get the behaviors one wants?In another video I talked about shaping, and that was one way to get the behavior you want.In this video we’ll talk about another way, and this technique may be one of the more surprising, it is referred to as simulation.

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Some background, before defining what simulation is it is useful to insert a reminder about the techniques we are discussing in all the videos.

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The techniques work because they increase practice of the behaviors we wish to develop.Practice here means getting the child to do the behavior over again several times.

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That practice builds habits,literally changes the brain in terms of learning to do the behavior.With that background in mind, simulation will make more sense.So what is simulation?Simulation consists of making up practice opportunities to engage in the behavior in game-like, role-play and pretend situations.

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Simulations mean doing the behavior under artificial conditions.One repeatedly practices the behavior under these artificial or pretend circumstances, the effect is to build a behavior, and the behaviors carry over to real situations, including those you wish to change.

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In most of the videos I’ve described one tool at a time that can be part of your behavior change tool kit.

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In talking about simulation we’ll need to put together a few of these tools to develop behavior.We’ll be using antecedents,something before the behavior to make it more likely.We’ll be focusing on the behavior, how we design the situation to get the exact behaviors you want, and we’ll focus on consequences,what comes after the behavior, and usually that will be praise.Now before talking about parenting and child rearing,is important to mention that you already know about simulation.And I’m guessing you are happy that simulation is used and that is effective.

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Consider commercial airline pilots for a moment, of course,pilots are trained to fly in real airplanes and for thousands of hours.

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Yet they also need to learn behaviors they cannot be practiced in real planes,because those situations do not occur very much, and they’re too dangerous.Even so, they do need to have repeated practice to develop behaviors in those special situations.Usually in which something goes wrong in a flight or there’s horrible weather, something like that.So where do they go?They go into a simulator, a fake cockpit where they can repeatedly practice how to handle difficult situations.The situations are presented to them in an artificial way, there’s no real danger,they can make a mistake while they are learning, and there’s no catastrophe.The key in the simulator for an airline pilot,as in our parenting technique, is repeated practice.The behaviors the pilots develop in a simulator, carry over to other situations when they are in real planes and when it is not pretend.For simulation to be effective is not only what you do, but how you do it.The how is extremely important and I will mention techniques from earlier videos.Let us say a child has horrible tantrums, he whines, shouts,gets on the floor and may even hit us or throw things.Our first step what is the behavior we want to change?Well getting upset is reasonable, but we want a tantrum that is not so explosive.So we have as our goal having more of a calm tantrum,which means not hitting of mommy or daddy, no throwing things, and no shouting.

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Now we are going to explain the game to your child.Choose a time of the day when everyone is calm and there is no tension or argument.Go to the child and say Billy,I have a game I want to show you, it’s called the tantrum game.It’s just pretend and here is how it works,I am going to tell you that you can’t do something.I will say you can’t watch TV tonight, but this is just pretend,you can really watch TV later, I just want to pretend that you can’t do it.Billy, after I see you can’t watch TV, it’s your turn to have a pretend tantrum.You can say, no, you can get mad, you can fold your arms, but no hitting of mommy, no throwing things, and no shouting.You are just pretending to get mad.

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Now, ask if your child understands the game, and even model, or actually show the reaction that you’d like to mean a calm tantrum that you’re looking for, just to be really clear.Now, play the game, you say, okay Billy, let’s practice.Now you lean over to Billy and you smile, and you remember these antecedents will help you get the behavior.Now you say Billy, you can’t watch TV tonight, now you real can.Let’s see if you can have a calm tantrum without hitting,throwing things, or shouting.So Billy gets mad and says no, and he folds his arms and looks away from you.

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Because he did it the way you said, or very close to that, move to the fourth step here and praise this effusively.You say, Billy, Billy, that was fabulous, you got mad, but you stayed calm, you did not scream, hit or shout, that is great.Now add a gentle touch or something physical or affectionate to Billy.

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Now you can incorporate points as reward for having a good tantrum during the game.But special praise should work here and be just as effective all by itself.Now because practice is so key,we want Billy to do this calm tantrum one more time.

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So a fifth step you can use is to get repeated practice by having a playful challenge, which is another example of an antecedent.So in a playful way you say, now Billy it is probably to hard to do one more calm tantrum, and I’m not sure your big enough to actually really do that.

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Now say this with a mischievous playful look, and pretend doubt.Usually Billy says, no I can do it,I can do it, let me do one more, let me do one more.And you say again, I don’t know Billy, are you sure?And of course Billy does it, you repeat the sequence one or two more times to practice, and that locks in the behavior.Sometimes I’ve even given a challenge to get a third practice by saying,no one on this planet could do it three times in a row, so let’s not even try.And of course, the child really wants to do that.

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So let us recap the process again.Simulation includes practice, but it includes many more procedures that are less obvious.First, you select the behavior you want to change, and think about how you can make that into a game.

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Second, you explain the game to your child, and when you do this lean over,smile, call it pretend and choose a time when everyone is calm.All of those are antecedents, things that come before the behavior that makes the behavior much more likely to happen.

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When you explain the game, you say exactly what you want to see and you may even model that behavior.Third, right after you explain the rules, play the game and run through it in a common scenario.Fourth, when your child practices the behavior in the game you praise it very enthusiastically.Fifth, then we give them a playful challenge to encourage more practice.So what have we accomplished by doing all this?Well practice is key.The purpose of simulation and all the techniques outlined in this course,is to get your child to practice the desired behaviors repeatedly.With simulations, play the game maybe once a day for at least a week or so.Keep in mind that you do not always need to include the fifth step with a playful challenge each time.The game should always be calm and always be fun.So I’ve mentioned the tantrum game, but of course this could be used for almost any behavior.So if your child does not get ready for school,play the get ready for school game.

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And do this at a time where there is no anxiety or tension or pressure,maybe begin the game on a Saturday, and during the week, do it after dinner.But at a time where there’s no real pressure to get ready for school.Do this in the child’s bedroom and pretend to get dressed, and show the child how to act this out, if needed.

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If your child does not go to bed on time, make this a going to bed game,and do that in the morning in the living room.Or have the child pretend to go to bed by actually going to his room and to the bathroom to brush his teeth.This is all pretend and act it all out,remember, make it fun, no nagging, no pressure.Praise all the good parts you see in the child’s behavior.Now, there’s some common questions that come up in discussing simulations.This all seems so artificial and fake, how can it teach behavior that will be used in everyday situations?Well practice builds the habit, and does carry over.The carry over is evidence, as I said, in training pilots,soldiers, doctors, nurses, astronauts, it carries over to everyday situations.A second question that comes up, how often should I play the game?

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Well if you can do one time per day that would be great,it doesn’t have to be perfect.And when you practice that one time, I would include a challenge.So after the child does the behavior in the game,say [LAUGH] I bet you can’t do this twice in a row.Want to try?I don’t think you can do it.It gives you another practice opportunity.And of course, really critical when you see the behavior that you want outside of the tantrum game, be sure to praise those instances.That will just make it so you can stop the game much sooner.Remember each video discusses a tool to change behavior, but more than one tool can be used to make the changes you want.Simulation actually combines a number of tools, including the use of antecedents,praise, point programs, and developing positive opposites.There is a separate video on each of these and you may want to look at those.

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Simulation is very effective because it emphasizes the point of all the techniques, namely, to have a person repeatedly practice the desired behavior.Repeated practice builds habits and changes the brain to reflect these newly acquired behaviors.

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Our tools for these video are not a temporary fix, the use of the tools is temporary, but the changes in child behavior remain after you develop the behavior.We’ll have more tools in other videos.

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Many, if not most of the topics of these videos are concepts and techniques that are already familiar. Yet, research has provided guidelines on how to use them in ways that make them very much more effective from how they are used in every day life. A good example was the use of praise in another video. Praising children in the usual way we normally do is a valuable part of child rearing. Yet research has shown us a special way to praise when we want to change child behavior and build long lasting habits. In today’s video, we have another example of a familiar concept. What we are talking about will not be a surprise. But how the technique can be used is quite different from what happens in everyday child rearing. Today we will be talking about modeling. The modeling we are talking about has nothing to do with those models who wear the latest fashions and designer clothes, and stroll down runways hoping not to fall.

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The modeling we are talking about is a way of learning. Think of it as teaching by example. We do something and this serves as a model or example for our children. Modeling you know about very well. For example, you accidentally swear or say something you wish you had not said and your child picks it up very fast and repeats it. Or your child dresses like you or imitates things that you do.

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Or even more amusing, if you ever ask your middle school or pre-adolescent child to mimic you or to show you how you behave in a situation, she usually can do that pretty well. This is the impact of modeling, the child may not have practiced being you very much, but how you behave, your expressions, and your words have been learned. These are all part of everyday child, parent interaction, they can be fun, cute, shocking and embarrassing. Modeling, in the context of our video, actually is a tool that can be used to develop child behavior, but is much more systematic than the accidental modeling in everyday life.

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Modeling is interesting as a behavior change tool, because it is learning by observing and seeing the behavior of others.

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In fact, another name for modeling is observational learning.

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And much of what we have been talking about in changing behavior in these videos, requires the child directly practice the behaviors, but we know that people can learn a lot from observing. Practice is still important, but the initial learning can come from watching someone else engage in the behavior.

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We know a little bit about how modeling happens. In the brain, there are cells that are called mirror neurons or mirror nerve cells. The term is mirror as in the mirror we look into when we get dressed in the morning. These mirror neurons become very active when we observe something. For example, if I pick up something,

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chances are that your mirror neurons are firing as if you were lifting this mug.

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One way that we believe that observational learning occurs is because these mirror neuron cells and whole networks and sets of these cells are practicing the behavior in some way and they get locked into our brain. Now again, there’s no substitute for actually practicing the behavior, but modeling can serve a very useful role because it can teach large chunks of behavior. So for example, by the time an adolescent learns how to drive, she has seen this set of behaviors performed many times. Getting in the car, fastening the seatbelt, turning on the ignition, and so on. A whole set of behaviors has been modeled, and by many people. So the adolescent is already to do these initial behaviors.

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And the issue is getting in the car and getting started, she already has that down. As another example, if you are teaching your child to hit a tennis ball, chances are your using modeling to convey how to hold the racket and how to swing the racket to actually hit the ball. Both the driving and the tennis ball examples are good because they also convey that modeling is great but not enough. Practice is still very important, but the modeling teaches the behaviors and these are picked up and learned. Well, this video is not an intellectual exercise about brain cells but about our practical way of developing behavior more effectively. As a parent, you model behavior all of the time.

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Your child sees you do all sorts of things in everyday life, from little things like how you use silverware, or brush your hair, to larger ones such as how you get mad and how you speak to friends and strangers.

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We know that the impact of modeling can be large. For example, we know that children discipline their peers using the same techniques that their parents used to discipline them.

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So, if parents use reprimands or shouts to discipline their children, this is likely to be how the child handles his peers at school when he is mad at them.

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Or if the parents used sarcasm as part of the discipline, the child is likely to use sarcasm in disapproving the activities of his peers.

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And if parents hit or beat the child, that child is much more likely to hit and beat his peers when he is angry. So we know from many sources that modeling can be a powerful influence. But what gets picked up and what you teach are a bit accidental. Most modeling is tacit, kind of quiet, no one thinks about it very much at home. So the key question for our behavior change toolkit is whether there is any way to harness and take advantage of modelling, yes, and this video is explicitly using modeling to develop behaviors You want in your child.

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There are steps to use modeling to develop behavior. Modeling used in the special way we are discussing has four ingredients. First, select a characteristic you would like to develop in your child. Begin by discussing with your spouse or partner exactly what characteristics you would like in your child. Let’s say we want our child to be kind to others. I have just selected this arbitrarily. It is for you as a parent to decide what to select. But let us work with this, kindness is very general but a fine place to start. Now we go to step two. After this general term, list specific instances or concrete examples of that characteristic. Write down the general term kindness, now list some examples. What would you count as examples of kindness? What would kind acts or gestures look like? The examples might include helping other children, sharing things with other children or a sibling, comforting someone in distress, or letting other people go first in a game. You get the idea. We need just a few concrete examples. These are examples of the behaviors not all possible variations of kindness. The reason is that, once we teach a few acts of kindness, it carries over to other areas that we have not specifically train. Step three, now we need instances of modelling the specific behaviors, so the child can see them being performed. Now modelling doesn’t have to occur each day or anything that intense, but modelling instances are needed. Fortunately, there are many ways in which the specific behaviours can be modelled. Here are some of them. As the occasion arises, you could be that model, and that would be great. So if there’s an opportunity to be kind, engage in that behavior and point this out to your child.

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As you do that, say in a matter of fact way to the child, I just gave this person some money for lunch because they did not have any. No need to mention what a great person you are. That could even be a detraction. We want it to be natural and as a matter of fact, with the exception that you will say exactly what you did. That will make the act more salient and more clear. Step four, praise any instance you see In which your child actually does one of the behaviors you have modeled as kind.

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So here’s a practice exercise, something for you to try at home. Choose one characteristic you would like to see in your child.

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Now list some examples of what that would look like, what are some of the behaviors, sample behaviors? And in the coming week, try to model one or more of these behaviors or at least point these out If you see them in the world or on TV show, or in a book you’re reading. Remember, modelling does not mean that you have to be the model all the time.

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Any instance in which you see the behaviors you wish, point that out. Finally, if you see any instance in which the child shows one of the behaviors you’ve been modelling, be sure to praise them, that will make a huge difference. Now be careful, that modelling does not undermine what you wish to see in your child. Parents occasionally model the very behaviors they want to get rid off in their children. Here’s some common examples. Parents tell me that they are worried that their teenager has a problem with drinking alcohol. And they are not sure what to do. But they happen to mention in passing that they too drink rather heavily during the day and have alcohol at dinner and after dinner.

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On an occasion in which I was at the beach,

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I was walking towards the water when I heard a parent several yards behind me. She was shouting something to her children who were playing close to where I was at the time. The mom was shouting and it was pretty loud. And it caught my attention, what does she want them to do? You guessed it, she wanted them to stop shouting while they’re playing. Now if you want your children to stop shouting, that’s fine. But go over to them, speak softly and say please stop shouting while you’re playing. And then when the children eventually get out of the water and come back for the towel or blanket, now you praise them because they did not shout. In general, we may want our children to use seat belts, wear a helmet when they ride a bike, use sunscreen, and so on. They are not likely to do them, if you do not model them.

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We as humans are not perfect, and cannot be consistent all of the time, and so that’s not what’s being asked here. But in relation to today’s video, if there are a few specific characteristics you would like to develop in your child, be sure not to model the negative behaviors you do not want. So, we cannot control all the models to which our children are exposed and that might not even be the goal.

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Children need to learn many things from many people and modeling is a large part of that. But parents have special status. Given your role as a parent, the amount of time with your child and the special relationship, parent modeling can be especially effective as a way of teaching the behaviors you wish. Here’s an example that’s really important to many parents. Many parents would like their child to confide in them. To tell them about their lives and their school. To tell them about their peer relations or what they’re worried about. Parents often even say, you can tell me anything. But it turns out, children feel that is not true at all. Children and adolescents actually want to talk about drugs and sex with their parents, but worry about being judged and end of up not talking about them with their parents at all.

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In child rearing and parenting, we speak of being an askable parent. An askable parent, that’s a parent the child can come to to ask about anything, and in fact, talk about anything. Now, modeling can help make that happen. Early in life, model, you as a parent, model talking about the details of your day. If nothing interesting has occurred, talk about something in your past, a story from your school years. Model talking about things, including what happened and how you felt about it. Maybe you were teased at school. What happened? What did you do? How did you fee, how did it work out? The type of conversation modeled by a parent can go very far in making the child able to converse with you about similar topics. Get that going on a daily basis. You do not need to talk about anything dramatic, you don’t have to say your child, you know, he’s not really your father. No, no, no, just talk about mundane things. Talk about every day things at maybe the dinner table. When you and your spouse and partner are there, talk about what happened during the day. What were the sources of tensions? What was bothersome? What went on? Give some of the details. Who did what and how? If you model this regularly, that will do a lot to get your child to talk about his or her life, and confide in you more. So we can explain to the child that she can tell us anything, but that’s not going to do very much. Modeling and practice can turn that around very, very quickly. Some questions and concerns emerge when one discusses modeling. You may have some questions about the procedure as a behavior change technique. One question that comes up, how effective is modeling in changing my child?

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Of course, we cannot guarantee what the modeling will do to change your child. Children and adults have natural dispositions to do some things more than others, and we cannot just change everything we want because we provide modeling opportunities. Yet, what we are doing is greatly increasing the likelihood of getting the behaviors you want. The technique is modeling more systematically than usual way we do this in everyday life. Identifying what you want your child to do and then modeling is much more likely to get the behaviors you wish. As importantly, if your child ever does one of these behaviors and you praise it, that will definitely help lock it in. Modeling plus praise for the behavior is clearly the winning combination. Another question, how will I know this modeling is working? Well, in parenting that’s really a great question. We sometimes see immediate effects, so you show your daughter how to swing a baseball bat and she learns how to hit the ball a little better. You see it right there, right away. Or, when you’re driving your car, someone in traffic cuts you off and you swear Now you see your child say that at home the next night when he’s interacting with the sibling. Do not fear, you don’t have to be a perfect parent and modeling is influenced by how often you show the behavior. In child rearing and parenting, sometimes the behaviors emerge right away, but often much later when the child is an adolescent or a young adult. And some effects emerge when your child eventually has children. So, parenting is for the long haul so model behaviors you wish to develop with that in mind. Some behaviors might be important if they occur now but a lot of the behaviors might be occur as they take place over the course of life.

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Finally, is there a way to tell which of my many behaviors will be picked up by my child? Well, we know that the more you model something, the more likely it would be picked up. And the more times the child sees someone modeling in the world, other than you, that too will relate to whether it’s picked up. And if someone important to the child models behavior, that’s more likely to be picked up. And so, of course, you as a parent are someone very important, but other people might be important as well. Maybe a special relative, a peer, a coach, a superhero, or someone special on TV. Behaviors modeled by other people the child thinks are important are likely to be picked up. Now, you can guide behavior by praising specific actions. And that will help speed up the learning. But you can control many of the behaviors by what you emphasize, and what you yourself model. And then, again, by praising the child.

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So, let me summarize by noting something obvious and something subtle about modeling as a behavior change tool. The obvious? You are a model for your child and some of what you do is learned and imitated. The child may not show or actually imitate the behavior right away, but it’s still learned. The subtle? Parents rarely use modeling in a planned way. This video is about the planned and strategic use of modeling. The use of modeling in this way begins with two questions for you.

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First, what would you like to see in your child? And second, what can you do to model some of those behaviors? Observational learning is going to occur but you can control it more than we normally do in every day life. Your influence is great but it can be harness to even have more impact and get to behaviors and general characteristics you would like to see in your children. Modeling is one more tool for your behavior change tool kit. We will have more tools in other videos.

4.Consequences – Positive Reinforcement

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Providing a positive consequence after a child engages in behaviors you want to develop is a very powerful tool. These consequences are called positive reinforcers. You may think of them as rewards, but the term rewards make us think of trinkets and candy and the like, and these are not what we need to use at all to change behavior. In fact, the most important positive consequence you could provide routinely is praise. In a separate video, I described a special praise and how it is used to change behavior. In this video, we will talk about giving concrete positive consequences and, specifically, the use of points. Unlike praise, points are a tangible reward that the child earns for engaging in behaviors you wish to develop. These are called Point Programs. This means that the program uses something like points or stars or checkmarks or tickets or tokens of some kind. What is used as the point or token doesn’t make any difference in how the program works. These points are given when the child engages in the specific behavior or habit we want to develop. In everyday life, we call them point programs, but the technical term is token economy. And you are very familiar with key features of this because money, in our everyday life, is part of a token economy. We earn tokens, money, for things we do, and we spend these tokens on other things. As a tool to change child behavior, point programs focus on developing specific behaviors and are more systematic than usual economy where we use money. Perhaps you are thinking, the last thing I want to do is to give my child points for good behavior. You should just do the behavior when I ask and I should not need to use praise or points. I completely agree. But if your child does not do the behaviors you want, praise and point programs can really help. A great deal of scientific research shows that the programs could be very effective. This does not necessarily mean you will want to have a point program to change behavior of your child, but it does mean that point programs are another tool you would want to have in your behavior change toolkit. So what is a Point Program? It’s a system of administering rewards to develop positive behaviors. It’s a way of structuring the rewards. The points operate like money, they’re earned by the child. In this case, they are earned for behaviors you want to develop. They are spent like money. In this case, the child can spend them on privileges or activities or other items of interest, maybe small toys. As with all the tools we’re discussing, the goal is to increase practice of the behaviors you want to develop, and point programs can do that. So there are five ingredients needed for a point program. The first ingredient, is specify exactly the behaviors that earn points. Be very concrete. For example, it should be something like completing 15 minutes of homework or putting your toys back into your room or getting into bed by 8 p.m. The second ingredient, choose a medium that will serve as points. These can be checkmarks or smiley faces, tickets, stars, even pennies. This is kind of like money. Third ingredient, have a way of monitoring and keeping track of the point earnings. Use a chart or something so you and your child can see how many points were earned. Place the chart on a refrigerator or some place easily seen. Fourth ingredient, specify how many points the behavior or each behavior earns. So for example, if you put your toys away, you earn one star; if you go to bed before 8 p.m., you can get another star. Fifth ingredient, develop a reward menu that specifies what the points can buy and what the prices are. These rewards can include privileges like staying up late, playing a game with a parent, or extra time on a computer. Each reward needs to have a price in terms of how many points are needed to buy one of them. Food and snacks can be put on the list of rewards, but I tend to shy away from these, in part, because we do not want to add extra calories when more children are overweight and because snacks that are the most rewarding tend to be the least healthful. And of course, before you start the program, explain it all to the child. Maybe have the child help in selecting rewards. So let me summarize the five ingredients: specify the behavior that will earn points, choose something to serve as the points, have a way of keeping track of earnings and expenditures, specify how many points are earned for the behaviors, and make a list of rewards and how many points are required to buy them. So consider a typical example. Suppose you were having trouble getting your daughter to follow directions when you ask her to do something. Maybe the behavior you ask her to do is get ready for school in the morning or get ready for bed. You have to remind her, actually, you have to nag a lot. Now, you may want to try a Point Program to change behavior. The behavior to change is minding or following directions when you ask. Now, choose something to service points, maybe stars or stickers on a chart. Now, make up a chart to keep track of these earnings. For this chart, you could draw days across the top with a box under each day and a space for you to give points, maybe paste a star or put a check mark. Now, specify the points that will be earned for each of the behaviors. How many points are earned from the behavior? Perhaps your child can earn a maximum of three stars per day for following any three instructions. Finally, you need a list of rewards. What can the stars buy? And these might be two stars to get the story before bed or extra bedtime, four stars to get a computer game with mom or dad, and maybe 10 stars to get a weekend activity. Add some more so there’s a choice. Have some things that are inexpensive, just a couple of stars, and other things that require saving up a little bit. But it’s important to have small rewards that can be bought right away without saving up. At the end of each day or whenever convenient, choose a time when she can buy something. Whenever she earns a star, be sure to praise her. The praise is really critical. You need to tell her exactly what she did to get a star and praise that. If she gets ready for school on time when you ask in the morning, she gets a star. If she does not do the behavior, she just does not get a star – no nagging. You go off to when you say, “You did not get a star today, but maybe you can earn one for that behavior tomorrow.” And do the same for other instructions that are part of the program. So here’s where programs break down. Parents usually want too much behavior to give out a point. We’re stingy when we do this. Our undoing is we believe the child knows how to do this and can do the whole thing. No. To build habits, we praise and give tokens for small bits of behavior. So, we didn’t get the full hour of homework, but we started out by giving points for 10 minutes of homework. Once we build that in, it’s easy to expand that. In the beginning, keep it simple, focus and try to change one or a maximum of two behaviors but no more. Once the behaviors develop consistently, you can stop giving points and praise for that and replace it with another behavior. Another thing to be aware of, do not give points for long-distance outcomes. So for example, the program will not work if you say if you get good grades, I’ll give you a car. That does not teach the behavior of studying, learning, practicing. We praise and we give points for behaviors along the way. You may have some questions about the program. The first question is, do I really need something as complex as the point program to change behavior? Actually, praise when administered correctly, in the way described in a separate video, is very effective, but point programs can help structure the situation. Points often help parents be more consistent because giving points is more easily tracked than giving praise. So we have found that if you ask parents to praise more, it doesn’t happen very systematically or often enough to change the child behavior. Giving points often helps parents give out praise systematically. The points serve as cues for parents to actually give the praise. Another question, isn’t this just bribery? It seems I’m just paying off my child to get the behavior. No, no, this is nothing like bribery at all, where you try to get something done once for some payoff. We are using consequences and other tools to develop behaviors you wish; we are building habits, we are developing prosocial, appropriate behavior. Usually, this can be done completely with a very careful use of praise, and points can add further. Remember, we are using consequences to get more instances of the behavior – that practice leads to permanent change in the child. Another question, how do I stop this program or do I have to give points to my child for the rest of his life? Like all programs and tools we are talking about in these videos, these are temporary changes in what you do. The techniques discuss a way to build habits, usually, they are temporary changes in your behavior as a parent to make permanent changes in the child’s behavior. You can eliminate the program once the behavior is consistently performed. You can say to your child, “We’re only gonna do the program on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Because you’re such a big girl, you don’t really need it anymore.” And then you can stop for a week. You could also switch to praise or praise more instead of behavior. In my experiences, most often the programs just drop out. The child does the behavior regularly and everyone just lets it fade and it stops. Once the program is stopped, will the behaviors get lost? No, not at all. We build habits. The tools we’re discussing maintain the behavior after you stop the programs. So let me summarize; point programs are effective way to change behavior, you need a few ingredients, what exactly is the behavior that will earn points, what will serve as the points – stars or something, have a way to keep track of this – some chart to monitor it, how many points are earned for the behaviors, and we need a list of rewards and what they buy. You might use this if you feel praise is not working or if want to provide more structure. Remember, each video discusses a tool to change behavior, but more than one tool is needed to make the change you want. The point is nicely illustrated in the point programs. You might say, I’ve tried reward programs and they did not work. Reward program shouldn’t work, they’re one tool and they have to be combined with other things. You would never build a house with one tool, and we do not try to build enduring habits in a child with one tool. Even so, the use of praise and points as consequences for behavior are very useful tools. When you provide points, praise exactly what the behavior is the child’s getting points for. Praise is effective by itself, points give you another option. As always, the magic is not in the rewards, it’s in getting the behavior you wish to be practiced repeatedly. That’s what builds habits, that’s what changes the brains. We will have more tools in other videos.

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Probably one of the most effective behavior change tools you have to influence the behavior of your child is the attention you provide.

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Like many other tools we have discussed, you already are familiar with the overall concept. So just paying attention to what your children are doing is hardly new.

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Yet research provides some guidelines to make attending quite effective, if done in some special ways. And the special ways are rather different from how attention is used routinely.

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In this video, I outline two techniques that go together. They are called attending and planned ignoring.

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They go together because they are opposite sides of the same coin. One is paying attention in special ways to develop behavior.

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And the other is ignoring or not paying attention to reduce or eliminate some other behavior.

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They work together to get the behavior change you would like in your child. Let me highlight attending and planned ignoring one at a time and then put them together. What is the definition of attending?

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Well, attending is noticing when someone is doing some behavior that you wish to increase and then providing attention by praising, smiling, asking present questions, talking nicely, hugging or giving the child a pat on the back. I have discussed the power of praise in a separate video, attending is a much broader category that includes praise but more.

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Also, the tension can be more subtle than praise.

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Simply paying attention to something can foster behavior, both desirable and undesirable behavior.

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That is, we can attend a behavior we really want to get rid of, and without knowing it, actually maintain that undesirable behavior. So it is important to distinguish attention from praise. Because the effects of attention can be positive or negative, for example, let’s say you’re paying close attention while your child is talking about her day at school.

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As you listen to your daughter it seems as if you’re only in the moment and paying attention to what she’s saying. Actually the effects go way beyond that. When you pay attention, that can have a really great positive effect on her talking and confiding to you more in the future. This means that attending can work against us too. Many times we give attention to behaviors we do not want, and these can increase as well. For example, your child may be complaining about a chore or something else you asked him to do. You could continue talking and explaining that attention action can maintain complaining and increase the likelihood of complaining in the future. Of course, we want to be sensitive to complaints and concerns. But one also has to be cautious if you’re accidentally contributing to the increase of the problem in the future.

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If you want to change some behavior, then attention has to be used very carefully and in special ways. What we used to practice and become aware of in giving attention, only to approve behavior.

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Once we want to increase essentially consist of catch your child being good with your attention.

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Attending is pretty unsystematic in everyday life. We attend to all sorts of things that merely draw our attention in the moment. As I’ve noted earlier in other videos, our brains are hardwired to pick out negative things in the environment, this is called a negativity bias.

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What this means is that, when children are playing together nicely, we tend to let that go. Once they start arguing, they’re fighting, that gets our attention and we run in, provide that attention and say, why can’t you two get along?

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Well first, reprimands like that are not likely to work at all in developing cooperative behavior. Second, even though the attention seems negative, it could easily maintain their fighting. Attention from parents can be a great reward even though we usually do not think of it that way.

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Attention can be used in a more planned way to have the effect that we want on changed behavior.

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So here’s how to make attending effective. The effectiveness of attending depends actually on four conditions. First, define the behavior you want to increase. It is always a good idea to write that down just to be sure it is really clear.

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Second, decide on the type of attention you’re going to use. This is usually praise but you can use other things as well. Anything you do that will pay attention to the child. For example, you might even say I noticed that you practice your music, or that you put away your clothes. If this attention is provided systematically and often rather than just on a one shot basis, the effects can be great.

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Third, make sure the attention is provided immediately after the behavior. Immediacy is very important. The effects of attending in diluted or lost if there is a delay. So for example, at dinner time if you say, I liked how you got ready for school this morning. That will not be very effective in changing getting ready for school in the morning and developing the habit. It is better and much more effective if you say something when the child comes down to breakfast something like you just got ready for school so nicely this morning that’s really great.

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Delayed attention conveys that some behavior is important or important to you and that’s valuable. But for building in practice and repetition, the longer the delay and providing attention for behavior, the less effective that attention is. So the fourth condition is to attend the behavior you want often.

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If you are using attention to change behavior and we need this connection between the behavior and attention to occur frequently.

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Each time is a practice opportunity that will help lock in the habit. That is the big difference between effective attention as a behavior-change tool and how attention is usually used in everyday life. The usual use is fine. We attend to things all of the time, but to change behavior, we need to have the child behavior connected with immediate attention several times. That is the part that develops the habit you like. In other words, making attention an effective behavior change technique depends on providing immediate attention and often attention. Let us go through the same example considering how to use attending effectively. First, you have selected playing cooperatively as the behavior you want to increase in your children. Well, what does playing cooperatively look like? You need to define playing cooperatively. That might be playing in a calm peaceful manner and with no bickering.

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Second, we need to select what kind of attention to use. You could praise, hug, look at them, or ask them questions about what they did and give them some high fives.

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You do not have to use just one kind of attention. And you do not need to use the same each time, that part’s very flexible.

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Now you actually provide attention while they are playing cooperatively and give the attention immediately, that is the third ingredient.

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Going back to our pre-dinner playtime scenario if you acknowledge your child for playing nicely right when you notice it, then you can prevent bickering from occurring later. Catching your children being good is difficult to do, but if your children tend to argue, tease, or fight when they are together, be sure to rush in once in a while when they are not doing that, which brings us to number four. Attend to the behaviors you want to increase. Playing nicely, attend to it as often as you can.

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It seems counterintuitive, but the best way to get rid of arguing, teasing, and fighting is to attend to the cooperative behavior you want to see. That is, the positive opposite behavior.

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I mentioned that attending has a sister tool. And by that I mean there are two tools that are used together. This additional tool is called planned ignoring. As with attending, you know about this. In everyday life, but it is used a little differently to make it effective. Before defining it, let me note that this tool does not work well by itself. I will explain that in a few moments, but the key is to be sure planning ignoring is used with attending. So what is planned ignoring? Well, it’s when you do not give attention to a behavior. You deliberately ignore an undesirable behavior in order to decrease it. To use ignoring, you would not look at the person, not talk to them and not smile at them. Maybe even turn away and talk to someone else or just leave the room.

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It is a good idea to avoid attending to behaviors you want to decrease because your attention could maintain some behavior you do not want to continue. This is not easy to do. In fact when I work with parents, we usually have them come in and practice walking away when they are attempted to give further attention to some behavior, like a tantra or some argument or something. This is absolutely critical point about planned ignoring. Remember, even your negative attention like your reprimands or arguing with your child, could have the effect of maintaining some behavior you want to get rid of, like arguing.

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Planned ignoring does not develop the behaviors that you wish. It just ensures that you’re not accidentally rewarding the behaviors by attending to them. So how to make planned ignoring effective? Well, the effectiveness depends on four conditions. First, define the behavior you will be ignoring. This is a behavior you want to decrease. As always, it’s a good idea to write it down to make sure it’s very clear.

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Second, decide which kind of planned ignoring to use when that behavior occurs. There are many options, and any of these would be fine. You could look away, to try to avoid facial expression to avoid facial expression to convey a reaction. You can now to talk to the child, you can ignore all requests, and of course, you can leave the room. Third, try to be consistent and use planned ignoring whenever that specific behavior occurs that you wish to decrease. Sometimes you might not be able to do that, things might just get out of hand or you’ve reached your point where you can no longer tolerate and have to say something, that is fine. But get back on track as soon as you can and resume ignoring that behavior. Finally, be sure to attend to the positive behavior because ignoring by itself is not likely to work. Let us walk through an example.

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Let us say your child whines when he wants something.

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First, select a behavior you want to decrease.

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In this case, we have chosen whining. We must define what we mean by whining. We will say asking for something in a whining tone of voice and repeated requests a few times in a row.

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Second, select what kind of ignoring to use. Walk away from your child, look away, talk to another person and so on. It is important to have a strategy in mind a head of time so you know what you will do in the moment when the behavior occurs. You might even want to practice what you will do with partner or a friend.

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Third, ignore the behavior as often and as consistently as possible. When your child escalates and continues to whine, nag and maybe even yell it will be hard not to reprimand, but try to ignore inappropriate behavior whenever you can. And if you can, just walk away.

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The fourth ingredient is absolutely critical. Attend to the positive opposite. Using our example, be sure to praise your child when not complaining or whining. So if your child asks for something politely in a calm voice and says, please, praise and attend to that.

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Even if your child is being non-compliant, but in a calm way, you can even acknowledge that to shape that behavior.

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Without attending, planned ignoring by itself will just not work.

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So I met you before that they are limit to planned ignoring and by itself, don’t depend on it to change behavior. We know a lot about this thing, we know a lot about white and effective. Here are some of the reasons. First, planned ignoring will have to be absolutely perfect for you to be effective all by itself. That means the behavior will have to occur ignoring every single time. If there’s a little attention even just a tiny pinch once in a while, the behavior you want to get rid of will continue for a long time. That research findings is used by gambling casinos.

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One reason that people play slot machines and continue to play even without winning is that the winning occurs just once in awhile and is unpredictable.

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When a reward occurs once in a while and is unpredictable, behavior continues for a very long time and will not drop out quickly. So the same thing happens in child ignoring. Ignoring will not be very effective by itself because attention occurs once in a while that will keep the behavior going a long time.

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We also know that planned ignoring, if used by itself, can have an odd effect at the beginning. Behavior sometimes gets much worse just for a brief period. For example, if your child’s having a tantrum when going to bed, you decide, we’ve been attending to this tantrum, we’re going to just do this ignoring. So you start ignoring the tantrum. Sounds good. But what happens when you start ignoring a behavior very early. There is an increase in the intensity of the behavior, it’s called a burst. Just for a very short time, it’s likely this tantrum is going to get much worse. It’ll be brief, one or two nights, but when you see that, you’re going to say, this planned ignoring isn’t working. Actually, it is. But it’s better to just go in there and try to attend to the good nights, and try to ignore the bad ones. Planned ignoring by itself sometimes things get a little worse before they get better.

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Most parents would say, I can’t do this, it’s just not working.

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It will work, if you put planned ignoring with attending to the positive behavior. Finally, planned ignoring all by itself does not teach appropriate behavior. You might ask why is it even needed if it doesn’t teach what we should be doing? Well, it does work it just has to be combine with attention for the behavior you want to develop that is the key to developing behavior with both of those. Some question come up when talking about attending and planned ignoring. Here’s the most frequent one.

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Most parents feel that already using attending and planned ignoring all the time and wonder if there’s new here. It is true on a given day with your child, you are attending to some behaviors and ignoring others. That’s just routine life and normal interaction.

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Of all the tools we have discussed attending and ignoring may even seem to be the closest to your daily experience and it’s understandable to wonder what is here that’s new and improved?

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Yet how attention is provided, and how ignoring is done make the procedures of this video very different from everyday life. And in the process, those difference make them much more effective in changing behavior.

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In this case, attending has to be immediate and frequently, that’s not everyday life. And follow specific behaviors that we’re trying to change, that is much more systematic. And add to that, now we’re putting in planned ignoring for the behaviors you want to get rid of. And these ways are very different for how we do this in every day life.

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So let me close by noting that attending and ignoring are a useful set of tools you might use systematically. They need to be combined. We reinforce or attend to the behaviors you wish, and ignore the ones you wish to eliminate.

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If there is no behavior you wish to reduce, attending is a systematic way and can be effective all by itself. This is a case where attending is close to other videos we’ve talked about, developing positive opposites. And you might want to take a look at that video.

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While attending can be used and effective all by itself, planned ignoring rarely works by itself. So if you believe that just by ignoring something it’ll go away, this is generally false. There are many reasons, but the main one is the behavior you want to get rid of or ignore has to be replaced with some positive behavior. So attention or praise are needed to develop that positive behavior. Remember, each video discusses a tool to change behavior. This video combines two tools that complement each other. As always, our goal is to get the behavior to occur repeatedly and to be locked in as a habit. Attention can really do that, but it has to be applied systematically, immediately and frequently for the specific behaviors you want to develop. We will have some more tools in other videos.

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We have discussed many different techniques, or tools that can be used to help develop behaviors and habits in your child.

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The techniques are really helpful in addressing the challenges of parenting.

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Some of the techniques you may have used before or recently have tried them after watching the videos.

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You may have found that the techniques do not work with your child.

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Some parents have come to me and have said, I have tried reward programs, and they do not work. Or they also say, I’ve tried time-out with my child, and it has no effect.

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Well, there are two points to make in response to these comments. First, it is possible that a given technique would not work with any particular child. We know this from medicine, psychology, education and rehabilitation that effective interventions do not work for everyone. Chemotherapy for cancer, antibiotics for strep throat, Aspirin for headaches, plastic surgery and so forth, all of those one can say are effective treatments, or programs but they do not work for everyone.

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Secondly, it is usually premature to conclude that the techniques are not working or would not work in the case we’re talking about. In my experience, the techniques we are discussing in these videos are not usually done correctly. For example, when someone says, a reward program did not work. My view would be, it should not work. This is not about reward program. Rewards, especially praise, is one tool, and to try to build something with one tool, would not be expected to accomplish very much. Similarly, when someone says to me, I used time-out and it did not work with my child. I believe them, but I wonder how time-out was being done. If you looked at the video on time-out, you will note that the effectiveness of time-out depends on that less familiar procedure time-in.

1:59

So when time-out has failed, perhaps it would not be expected to unless there’s time-in or reinforcing the positive opposite. More often than not, as these quick examples convey, the techniques are not being used in a way that would make them work. Well, the reasons I’ve mentioned about why programs fail maybe interesting, but it’s not exactly helpful to you right now, if you’re seeking help to solve a challenge with your child. We could be much more helpful than that.

2:27

So let me begin by the following situation.

2:31

You have tried one or more of the tools we have discussed in other videos, and you did not get the results you want.

2:38

In this video, I will be discussing troubleshooting. By troubleshooting, I mean we are going to begin with some technique not working and outline ways to fix that. The task is to figure out why the technique did not work and more importantly to make it so the techniques do work. And that you get the changes that you want. You are very familiar with troubleshooting. Most equipment, gadgets, appliances, all the things that we buy now, come with a problem solving or troubleshooting section in their manuals. We consult these sections for common problems and frequently asked questions. Usually, the problem with our equipment can be resolved by following those directions.

3:24

There is no parenting manual that comes with our children. And child rearing is much more complex and demanding than getting some quick answer to get your printer or your scanner to work. There are two videos on troubleshooting. This one is the first, and I will talk about basic troubleshooting techniques. In the vast majority of instances, if you address the points in this video, the program with your child will be much more effective and you’ll get to behave as you want. The second video focuses on advanced troubleshooting techniques. In that video, some more complex techniques are suggested that can improve an ailing program. And those techniques also offer new tools that might be useful for troubleshooting, but in other situations as well. So how can you tell when you need to troubleshoot?

4:15

Well, here are five signs, and one of these indicates the need for troubleshooting.

4:22

First, you are not seeing the change in behavior that you are working on.

4:26

Second, change is occurring but is too slow or too small, for example, it is hard to see much progress after a week. Or the number of tantrums has decreased, but the ones that occur are still nuclear.

4:41

A third way, change is occurring, but it’s not lasting. You stop the program and everything went back to where it was as if you hadn’t done the program at all. Fourth, change occurred but only where the praise or the points were given for the behavior.

4:59

The problem still occurred outside of this context, maybe outside the home, maybe at school.

5:05

And a final way is that perhaps the behavior that you’re working on has actually gotten worse.

5:11

This is very rare, and we have not seen that except under circumstances when there’s this huge stressor or event in the home, such as divorce or separation, or in one case, a parental suicide. Well, there are two common problems and quick fixes before we get into more detail on troubleshooting. Let me talk about these. First, some parents indiscriminately provide rewards for all sort of behaviors. I have heard parents get into the routine of saying, if you do this you’ll get a prize. If you go upstairs and get my slippers, I’ll give you that. And they’re kind of shooting from the hip all day on rewards for these one shot behaviors. This improvise scheme will not work in developing behaviors, and it violates all the uses of the tools we’ve been discussing. Remember, we want to establish consistency in how you respond to specific behaviors you wish to change. Second, the common problem is that parents are giving too many reminders. In a separate video on antecedents, I discussed using clear and specific prompts and these are statements that get the behavior you wish. An example would be, when a parent says, please go pick up four toys from the floor in your room and put them in the toy box.

6:27

Prompts initiate a behavior, and the prompted behavior must then be reinforced, usually with praise. So after the child does that, you say, great! You picked up the toys right when I asked, that was wonderful!

6:42

Now, repeated prompts will not get the behavior, and actually make the behavior less likely. As a rough guide, if you give verbal statements twice, let’s call that reminding.

6:54

But if you say the statement, let’s say three or four times, let us call that nagging. Now, nagging is not an effective strategy at all. And actually decreases the likelihood of getting the behavior. If the child does not do what you ask, request less of the behavior, and then go help the child carry that out, at least in the beginning. When you get a little portion of the behavior, praise that. Gradually, you could increase the amount of the behavior you get and all without nagging.

7:24

I mentioned that reward programs do not work well by themselves.

7:28

That is just getting consequences. Similarly, prompting programs do not work by themselves. That’s just getting antecedents, like constant reminders. Antecedents and consequences need to be put together to get the long lasting changes you wish. In short, for the two situations I’ve mentioned, check to make sure that you are not throwing around rewards and throwing around reminders with the hope of changing behavior. It doesn’t really work. Okay, you have determined that you’re not throwing rewards around and you’re not nagging your child. And are there other things you can do to get the results you want So let us go to our basic checklist for troubleshooting. Again, in the vast majority of instances, a change in one of these will dramatically alter the effectiveness of the program to change your child.

8:16

So for troubleshooting, check these things. First, check your prompts and positive setting events. These are the antecedents. I mentioned our programs have three components, antecedents, behaviors, and consequences. The first troubleshooting tip is about the antecedents.

8:35

Are you providing prompts right before you want the behavior to occur? The prompts can include verbal statements or notes, messages, gestures, physical guidance or actually helping the child to do part of the task.

8:52

Reminders or prompts that are distant from the behavior in time are less effective.

8:58

Especially at first, say please clean up your room, and say that right before you want that behavior to happen. Later when the behavior is well developed, you can say please clean up your room later today or when you get home from school, and so on. That close proximity isn’t important later on. But in the beginning, prompts are to occur in very, very close proximity to the behavior.

9:22

And verbal prompts can be helped by doing a physical prompt, actually doing something to help the child with the task. Remember that prompts alone will not establish behavior as an enduring habit, but check to see whether they are being used well, and maybe that more than one type of prompt is being used. So you could model the behavior, you could physically guide the child, or you could help the child do the task itself.

9:49

Another check on your antecedents is whether you are using positive setting events. Remember, these are indirect antecedents to help start the behavior. Examples include tone of voice and facial expression when you give instructions, these can really help to get behavior. For example, if you say something pleasantly like please pick up your toys, the chance of getting the behavior are greatly increased because of the way you said it. Other antecedents, modeling the behavior, giving choices, we talked about that, and giving playful challenges. I’ll bet you can’t pick up five toys in your room right now. These were covered in the video on antecedent events and can really get the behavior you want going. Parents often use prompts, the instructions, but they do not take advantage of the power of positive setting events in getting behaviors. A second basic troubleshooting technique is to demand less behavior. The most common culprit leading to program failure is a parent expecting too much behavior. That is, the parent sets the bar very high and failure rather than success is common.

10:59

Lower the bar for what gets praised. Shaping will be easier and more effective. For example, you might say to the child to do all of your homework, or to clean up all of your room or behave well all of the day. It’s unrealistic expectation, because it’s too much to demand particularly at the beginning of a program. Pretty good behaviors will dropout if you’re not praising them, and at the beginning we want pretty good behaviors. We don’t want great. Shaping is the troubleshooting strategy here.

11:31

Provide praise, reinforcement for small steps along the way. If the child is not performing to behavior, break it down and provide praise for even the smaller part of his behavior. You’ll get to where you want to go, but start small.

11:45

There are two common myths that completely misguide us as parents.

11:50

One of them is we say, the child knows how to do it, and we raise the bar high because of that.

11:56

And the second one is the child has actually done this before. So I know he not only knows how to do it, he’s actually done it. Both of these are huge problems and make programs fail. First, knowing does not mean the child will be doing this or doing the behavior regularly. Knowing and doing are not very connected at all in humans. Also, having then at once does not mean the child can or would do the behavior again or reliably. Doing something once or twice is not an ingrained habit.

12:29

For example, almost anyone can make that one basketball shot from half court and win the million dollar prize at halftime.

12:38

But only someone with repeated training and the habit could do that with any degree of consistency. The third basic troubleshooting technique is to check how the consequences, especially praise, are delivered. Are you sure that you are praising the behavior every time or almost every time it occurs? In the beginning, are you using that very special praise and praising a high proportion of the time.

13:07

This has been well studied. So, praising desired behavior every time is much better than once in a while.

13:15

And in real life, praising behavior 100% of the time is not possible. But when programs are not working, I often find it’s because parents are close to 25% of the time or even less. Another part of checking the consequences is check the immediacy of it.

13:33

The behavior occurs, praise has to be right afterward, especially when the behavior is first developing. If you can not be there, try to find other ways to make your praise immediate.

13:44

Have the child phone you after she’s done her homework, or fed the pet, or prepares part of the meal. Immediate praise by phone, even without the chance to add a touch or a smile, is much better than delayed praise in person. Your normal routine praise is fine for everyday life, but to change behavior we need that very special praise. Effusive, you might say, is not like me. I’m just not like that as a person. It doesn’t have to be you as a person. Just try to take your enthusiasm up a notch and be sure to add a little hug for younger children or a high-five in the air for older children. Way to go.

14:23

A big gesture, something like that, will go very far in making your praise much more effective. Remember, the tools and techniques of these videos are quite temporary, but they lead to rather permanent change.

14:35

So another basic troubleshooting technique, it applies if you’re using a point program.

14:41

These are points or token programs we’ve talked about. In a point program, points are given to children and the children buy the prizes or privileges with them. The act of spending the points has two important effects. It keeps the child earning the points and engaging the behaviors you want and it keeps the system working overall so the child can engage in these behaviors repeatedly.

15:06

Spending the points is a very important part of this, so the child has to earn them and spend them and so you have to make sure that’s kind of working.

15:14

Now once in a while a child’s doing very well and just saving the points. The points are valuable and that’s all the child’s doing is saving them, that’s fine too. So you only need the spending if the child is not engaged in the behavior. So, the first question to ask in a point program is, is the child earning enough points, but unable or unwilling to spend them? It’s true that some children just want to save and as I said, that is quite fine but generally, we want the system working as a whole and so check the reward and spending. If the child is not spending you might look at the back up rewards. What is the child able to earn? Sometimes there’s a link between earning the points and buying them but there’s not anything to buy. Perhaps you’ve made the child save up too many points and there’s nothing available or perhaps the points are failing Because there’s just nothing that’s very tempting. Maybe you can add some backup rewards and some things that the child will actually buy. So be sure there’s something that can be bought with just a few points, and that you do not have to accumulate points for a long time, like for the weekend. A final basic troubleshooting technique relates to whether there are two or more adults in the home.

16:26

If there are two parents or other adults in the home, work together to be sure that you are administering the program similarly.

16:35

All adults will not be consistent in providing praise. And in some case, only one parent is involved, even when there are two parents in the home.

16:46

These inconsistencies are not usually much of a problem.

16:51

But if the program is not working, it is important to check. At the beginning when you start using one of the techniques, it is fine and sometimes even better to have just one parent administer the program so the program is administered very well, or very well for just part of the day. That is better than having inconsistencies across people and across time periods. The initial task is to get behavior changed under some circumstances. And in the mornings, that might be enough. With just a mother or father, that would be fine. Once you develop behavior change under even very narrow circumstances, that’s the hard part. It is easy to extend the program to other people, settings, and times of the day. So let me summarize some of the basic troubleshooting techniques. Perhaps the main point is this, check on the program that is not working, and you will find that there are some things that you can do to correct that. In my experience, most of the time checking what I have mentioned here in the basics and slightly adjusting your approach can lead to positive changes. Actually, really large changes.

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So there are some common questions and concerns in talking about troubleshooting techniques.

18:10

The first is, what if I suspend the program, if I stop it for a while? My child may go to camp I may have to go away for a few days. Or we go on vacation and are away. What effect does that have? Well, it is fine to temporarily suspend the program if you cannot do it well. Doing the program partially and well is better than keeping it going and doing it poorly. If you have to take a week off, take a week off and then get back to it. If you can only do it properly on weekdays, take weekends off. It would be better to do it exactly right all of the time. But the program will still show useful results if you cannot do it and just do it most of the time, as long as you can do it pretty well on those occasions in which you do it. For vacations, parents often develop a small point program for a few behaviors. For example, during the car ride and other places where they might have some problem behaviors. And you should feel free to do that. And remember, you have the most potent behavior change tool with you at all times, namely that special praise for the behaviors you want to develop. A second question, what if I’m divorced or separated, and there’s joint custody? My child may have the program just in my home. Is there any point to that? Yes. If you can carry out the behavior change program in only one of the two places where the child stays, that can still make a huge difference. Of course, if the child is at one place more than the other, that would be the better place to have the program.

19:44

In many instances we’ve had parents keep some of the program going in each home after a separation or divorce. But the relief is, that’s not necessary. We can have success in your home. And once we have success in your home, we can get that to transfer to the rest of the world. A third question is about consistency. The techniques call for consistency on my part as a parent. And am I undermining the program if I relapse and yell at my child, or even hit the child? Have I undermined all of the progress? No, if you go off the program, and stop praising the behaviors you were trying to develop, that is not a catastrophe. It’s very much like going off your diet and eating a whole cheesecake, or breaking your vow not to smoke. What do you do now? You get back on your diet soon as you can, and you get back to not smoking as soon as you can. And here we are, get back on track with your child and the behavior change toolkit if you feel you’ve departed from the techniques. We are humans first, and the program can fail if we raise the bar too high for the child. I talked about that. Also, we do not want the bar to be too high for you. Implement the techniques as I described them to get the changes you want. If you go off and miss a day or so because of your own situation and circumstances, that’s called being human. These videos are intended for humans, I’m not sure if I made that clear from the beginning. But they are, so keep the bar realistic. Well, let me close by making a few points. First, if programs are not achieving the effects you wish, there are all sorts of options that can readily change that. Two, I have seen programs turn around completely and very quickly, once the changes are made.

21:34

Mediocre and infrequent praise will not change behavior very well. And it’s easy for a parent to say praise does not work, or at least it doesn’t work in my home with my child. This is not likely to be true, or at least it’s premature to say that. Actually, we have turned around that situation a few hundred times by working with parents, as well as teachers, to administer the special praises I have noted in the video on praise. Parents often focus on what tool or technique is used to change child behavior. Yet the main lesson from these videos is in the how, how the technique is used. Most of the time when a program is not working well, we check on some aspect of antecedents, behaviors, and consequences, and find something is not being done the optimal way.

22:24

Think of another tool that’s very familiar, think of a hammer, a real tool. And think of it now as if you’re holding the hammer from the wrong end. And now you say to someone, this hammer does not work very well. I still can’t get the nail into the wood.

22:41

Turn the handle around. In a parallel fashion, the tools we’ve been discussing have to be used in a special way. If a behavior change program for your child is not working well, the first thing to do is focus on tools we have discussed. And most importantly, how you are applying them. This lesson covers the basics of troubleshooting. I discuss more advanced techniques in another lesson. And those advanced techniques include new tools. as well. that could be used for troubleshooting. But also can be used separately. Please look at the second lesson on troubleshooting for information and techniques I think you will find very helpful.

0:00

This is the second of two lessons on troubleshooting.

0:03

The first lesson was on basic features to check if your behavior change program is not working or the changes you see in your child are not enough.

0:14

The basics included procedures that are the first place to begin to check, to see how your program is implemented. Typically, attending to the basics in the first lesson will fix 90% of the programs.

0:27

In this lesson, I present additional troubleshooting techniques.

0:32

These techniques can be used for troubleshooting but they also are novel in ways, so that they can be used as techniques in their own right. But if you master these advanced techniques, you’ll be a black belt in troubleshooting and repairing programs. So let us begin. Let us say you have been using some of the behavior change tools we have been discussing and the programs are not working the way you’d like. Now, we move into troubleshooting mode and use techniques designed to turn this around and make the program effective.

1:08

Advanced troubleshooting techniques are additional tools that are good to know and provide another line of attack beyond the basics recovered in the prior lesson.

1:20

The first technique is called jumpstarting. Jumpstarting, this is a strategy to get the child just to begin the behavior, or accomplish the initial steps. Often the hardest part of changing behavior is getting the new behavior going at all. So you can reward it or steps toward it. This is especially true when there’s a sequence of actions that have to be done in order to achieve the desired outcome. To take an adult example, let us say you’re spouse claims that he or she wishes to exercise.

1:56

And has even gone to the trouble of spending good money on gym membership and some equipment. But he never gets around to actually exercising.

2:05

In this case, exercising includes several steps. Consider it as a sequence of steps, getting the clothes and the equipment, getting to the gym, changing into the clothes, beginning to exercise, and so on. And now you could use the antecedent’s behaviors and consequences to help foster exercise. Antecedents would be some prompt, honey, please go to the gym today.

2:31

To tinker with behaviors, you might include shaping and add to your prompt. It is great, even if you go for just a few minutes, honey! And you could tinker with consequences, such as the promise of doing anything he wants the next day if he just goes to exercise with you.

2:48

These might work to get the behavior started, but unlikely. The inertia generated by the number of steps he has to accomplish, might well prove to be too great and you’re not seeing enough of a sequence to build a habit so you can reward it or praise, you might instead try jumpstarting the behavior.

3:08

Jumpstarting is when you get a present just to participate in the early part of the sequence or set of behaviors. When a person is in the early part, the likelihood of proceeding through the next step and the next step and the next step, is greatly increased. This procedure comes from research on sequences of behavior and has a much more technical name called response priming. The entire sequence is primed or greatly increased by just beginning the sequence. So here’s what you might do in the case of exercise. How do you get your husband or partner to the gym and do the first step? Try this, honey, I’m going to the gym today and I’d really like it if you came with me just to keep me company and check it out. You do not have to work out or anything like that. Just come with me.

3:58

This is also a clever antecedent by making it so he does not have to exercise

4:04

that alone increases the likelihood of him going with you. In terms of jumpstarting, getting him there and suited up for exercise in the gym, places him early in the sequence.

4:16

Let’s call this whole sequence exercising at the gym if he does just this early part of the sequence, he is much more likely to at least go to the next step in the sequence and may be jump into a class or lift one weight, or just do something. And when you jumpstart behavior, you’re now can start shaping with topic of another lesson. So for troubleshooting, a parent argue with the child, jumpstarting and shaping can work wonders. Many of your child’s behaviors are sequences and can be broken down into steps. Let us begin to identify the first step of a common sequence. So you want your child to complete 30 minutes of homework, for example. A first step might be sitting at a desk with his or her book open.

5:03

Or you might want your child, so what kind of project? And that first step might be, starting the project with you and working on it for just one or two minutes. After the first step is completed, the child is allowed to stop. That is the critical part. After the initial behaviour, the person can decide to continue or not. You can even say after the first step, if you’d like to stop now, that’s fine. Or we could continue. Now, you’re giving a choice which as you know is a great addition to any antecedent. Remember, giving a choice increases the likelihood of getting the as you wish.

5:42

Also, you can just remain silent and continue with the activity. The research shows that the likelihood of the child continuing is very high. Where they’re asked to continue or not.

5:54

Even if sometimes your child elects not to continue the activity, it will be easier next time to get that first behavior in the sequence, especially if you praise taking that first step. So use jumpstarting just to ask your child to do at early step of sequence. Maybe help her, if it’s possible a physical problem and that will help, too. Jumpstarting tends to violate conventional wisdom about not making a child dependent or giving in by not demanding the entire behavior. This are real worries of parents.

6:27

Yet, jump starting or any of the tools we have discussed in these lessons, will not make the child dependent. Remember, we are building long lasting habits in children that focus on behaviors you wish to work on. Another jumpstarting technique is called consequence sharing.

6:46

And this helps increase the effectiveness of a program that isn’t working too well.

6:52

Consequence sharing refers to providing a rewarding consequence to the individual for his or her behavior but also giving the same reward to others, as well.

7:03

Here’s a common use of consequence sharing. Some parents mention that they only need a special program to change the behavior of one of their children. So let us say you have a six year old son, and you are using a point program to help tone down his aggression. And he has a seven year old sister who does not need any program. Consequence sharing means that if he does the desired behavior, he gets the reward, but also so does she. Whatever he earns, she earns as well. The reward could be points, so she gets the back up reward, or it could be much easier if you just use a privilege such as staying up 15 minutes longer for bed, or hearing a story, something like that could be used each day. This is consequence sharing because the daughter does not have to do any special behavior to get the reward. She gets it as a consequence at her brother’s behavior.

7:58

Now, we use this approach only with positive things, never punishment. So it’s important that you never take away anything in consequence sharing. So you don’t say, he didn’t do this, so you lose a privilege. No, no, no, it’s always something added or extra. Never set it up so the innocent person is involved in anything that would be punishing.

8:22

One added benefit of consequence sharing is that it offers a solution to the me to problem, that may come up when one sibling needs a program and the other does not. The sibling with the pointer privilege program is getting lots of something, praise and rewards, and the other is not. This does not seem fair to the person who’s not involved with the program. Well, one way to correct that in equity, its consequentially, one shall earn the reward but both shall profit from it and that gets rid of the problem of me to. The good consequences are enjoyed by all. So solving the me to problem is not a main reason here in consequentially, the main reason that I’m talking about is because it increases the effect in this and it’s a great advanced troubleshooting technique. Siblings end up encouraging the child to do the behaviors often with very specific statements like do this or do that and I will help you.

9:19

And research shows that a child will often value a reinforcer more highly, when she urges for a sibling or a peer as well as for herself.

9:28

So consequence sharing has been used very effectively in the home, but also in the classroom, where the behavior of one child can earn an extra privilege for the whole class at the end of each day.

9:39

In such circumstances, the peers become very helpful and supportive of the child who’s earning the rewards.

9:46

There’s an occasional side effect of consequence sharing that’s really worth mentioning.

9:51

The behavior of those who share the reward but are not the target individuals, show some benefit from the program even though they did nothing to earn the reward.

10:03

There is a vicarious effect, and they pay attention to see someone else earning this other praise or reward. And in paying attention to it, usually their behavior changes and they profit from the other consequences. This tends to increase the behavior of the non-target child who only is watching or sharing in the consequences.

10:24

It is important that consequence sharing of a sibling or a classmate never involve losing anything that they would otherwise get. The consequence that is shared is always something extra that is provided. Third and final advance technique for troubleshooting is to use a group program.

10:44

Now, here, a group means a minimum of two people. It could be a child and a sibling, or all the children in a home.

10:51

Here, the behavior of each individual must be performed to receive some rewarding consequence. For example, for both siblings, both rooms might need to be cleaned up fairly well, for each of them to receive some privilege or points. Now, this is not consequentially because the behaviour of both individuals is required to receive the reward. The do share in the rewarding consequence but each has to perform to get that. This can be used in the home for all the children, or when there’s a sleep over at your house for all the children who attend, or in the classroom where the group can be the whole class.

11:28

A group program treats the whole group as one person. The group is the basic unit. Not only in doing the behavior, but in receiving the consequences. So let us say two children are arguing a lot, or too much for you, and quibble all the time about TV shows, about toys, about use of the bathroom. This should be a good place for a group program. They are treated as a unit and have to not quibble. For the morning, or after school, you set some time. If they do not argue they get some reward and your refusal praise. If one starts to tease and pick a they both miss the opportunity tom earn something, also your praise is directed to both of it as a unit. You say something like, you two have played together so nicely, that is just great to see. As with other techniques I’m mentioning, those in this lesson are for troubleshooting but can be used as a tool all by themselves.

12:26

In addition, you might want to use a group program as this technique in any time you want a single behavior from all the people involved. If you want both all the children to complete a behavior, you can make a special reward as a privilege, but they all have to do it. So let me summarize. I have covered three techniques for troubleshooting, they are designed to help with programs are not working as well as you would like.

12:52

The advanced techniques in this lesson includes jumpstarting, consequence sharing and group programs.

13:00

I refer to the techniques in this lesson as advanced because they are more complex to implement and also because they are used for more than just troubleshooting.

13:10

If you’re programmed to change some child behavior is not working well, please start with the first troubleshooting message. The reason is that the basic troubleshooting techniques, in the vast majority of instances, are all that are needed to make the program more effective. As with other techniques, the strategies outlined are temporary solutions that you use to produce permanent changes in behavior. We’ll have more techniques to help you address challenges in child rearing and make parenting a bit easier.

0:00

The majority of techniques we have discussed have applied the behavior change tools to children, including toddlers and elementary school age children, all the way through preteens.

0:12

An important question is whether the tools can apply to adolescents.

0:17

This is important to ask because some of the tools we have discussed such as effusive praise and time out seem completely out of touch with the realities of dealing with a maturing teenager.

0:29

Actually, the techniques for changing and developing behavior have been used with toddlers, children and adolescents, adults and the elderly and they have been used in a variety of settings, such as the home, schools, universities, hospitals, business and industry, the military, professional athletics, and so on.

0:51

So the tools in the parenting toolkit can really be applied to adolescents. But how they are applied varies in important ways. There are two lessons that focus on behavior change strategies for adolescents. This is the first and focuses on how to adapt behavior change tools we have discusses in other lessons so they can be applied effectively to adolescents.

1:15

The second introduces new tools that are especially useful with preteens and kings. They will make the interactions you have much more pleasant and effective. As usual, the goal of these lessons is to help with the challenges of parenting and childering.

1:31

A few features of adolescence are quite relevant to those challenges. But before addressing these features, let me begin with some reassurance.

1:40

While the period of adolescence can be challenging, most adolescents do fine and get through this period without major crises and of course so do their parents. So while many parents approach adolescence of their child with white knuckles and anti-anxiety medication, in fact, the usual process just has a few potholes rather than any major detours. At the same time, there are many changes in adolescents, I have selected two that can influence child hearing practices in our own sensitivities to what the adolescent is going through.

2:14

First, we know that adolescence is a period of engaging in risky behaviors. Risky behaviors refer to those actions that can lead to health problems, serious injury and even death.

2:26

The risky behaviors include a long list such as using or abusing alcohol, cigarette smoking, driving recklessly, engaging in unprotected sex, engaging in illegal activities such as vandalism and trespassing, not wearing seat belts or bicycle helmets, being in a car with a driver who has been drinking, and being the perpetrator or victim of physical violence while dating.

2:53

Obviously, many of these are dangerous and there is an endless stream of statistics to convey that. For example, motor vehicle accident account for approximately 25% of the deaths of adolescents related. A very large percentage of adolescents say that, they email and text while they are driving.

3:13

Given our focus on how to help, and what can be done is worth knowing more about how to reduce risky behavior.

3:20

Research tells us that risky behavior among teens is greatly influenced by many factors but two are especially worth noting.

3:29

First is the presence of peers. When with peers, the likelihood of doing something risky is much greater.

3:37

So behaviors an adolescent might not have done now are much more likely when they’re with their friends.

3:43

Second is not being monitored by parents. That also increases the likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors. Now, monitoring does not mean being with the adolescent at all times or hovering, rather it means keeping track of where your child is, what he is doing and who’s he with. Outside the home, it’s important to know where your adolescent is going after school or on weekends. You may think your child is at someone else’s house with a parent there, but perhaps your adolescent is not at that house or is there but in fact no parent is there. I’ve heard many stories where the parent tells me what the adolescent does after school and then I speak to the adolescent son or daughter to hear the real story. And sometimes they are not even close.

4:30

You can monitor your adolescent with the use of cellphones and get in the habit of texting your phone calls.

4:37

Now, monitoring is very important even when your child is at home.

4:41

Keep an eye on the use of computers, smart phones and tablets and other such devices. Adolescents can use their devices to engage in activities that promote problem behaviors. Those activities include playing with video games that are violent or encourage stealing or property destruction. And engaging in online bullying where the teen is involved as a bully, as a victim, or even both. In short, be aware of risky behavior, and monitor who your adolescent is with and where he or she is in the real world, but also in the virtual world of the Internet. In a separate lesson on nurturing family environment, I speak a little bit more about monitoring and how to set the stage to make that easier in family life.

5:24

The second characteristic I wish to mention is brain development.

5:29

I cannot begin to outline the scope of changes in the brain here. But a few features maybe useful for understanding the challenges for parents but also for the adolescence themselves.

5:40

So let’s define adolescence here as the period from ages 10 to 12, about sexual maturity age to about 20. There’s no fixed period. That defines adolescence, but those years capture the brain changes.

5:54

Let us begin with the fact that the brain is not yet fully developed in adolescence, and during this period it is developing unevenly. In other words, important brain functions are developing at different rates. Briefly consider two processes. First, consider decision-making and related processes, these include reasoning, stopping and thinking, self-control, delay of gratification, and not acting impassively. These are sometimes called executive processes or executive functions. Second, consider sensation seeking and this is a summary term here to reflect impulsiveness, trying out new things, engaging in antisocial behavior, such as vandalism, and of course taking risks. There is an unevenness in brain development because sensation seeking develops early in adolescents. And decision making develops later. This means that the drive to act impulsively develops before the ability to control that impulsive behavior.

6:54

Added to this while the brain is developing at this time, the reward centers of the brain are very sensitive to social ques and peers. So the impulsiveness and the reward experience of risky behavior is much greater when ones with ones peers. One is familiar with the informal notion of peer pressure, which implies that peers are in some way pressuring conformity and risk taking.

7:20

There is more going on here as the brain is activated in ways by the mere presence of peers. And that fosters more risk-taking. In fact, teens are similar to adults in their knowledge of risky behaviors, and what can happen. But they are much more vulnerable to the reward value, sensation seeking, and peer influences, and that increases actually doing the behaviors. So it’s not so much a matter of the teen knowing better. But rather having better control.

7:49

The main point here is that control of impossible behavior is waiting for further brain development. That comes only much later in other lessons. Now, one research has convey the uneven brain development in simple terms by drawing an analogy to a car and specifically the gas pedal and the brakes, in terms of our simple understanding, the gas pedal of the adolescent is really well-developed long before the brakes develop. Now, the comparison oversimplifies new answers of brain development. But it conveys the point in a way that’s useful to us as parents. By the time in our lesson moves into the early 20s, decision making catches up with impulsivity and sensation seeking, and risky behavior is better controlled and now it declines. Now, as a parent is important to note that these changes in the brain are real, and can readily influence many a things parents are concerned about. The brain has not yet developed to control behavior as much as we would like.

8:47

Now, the findings about adolescent brain development has even influenced the US Supreme Court and penalties for crimes committed by adolescents.

8:56

The Supreme Court has prohibited states from ordering sentences, that are for the entire life of the adolescent without parole. The reason is that adolescents by virtue of their neurobiological immaturity are not as responsible for their behavior as are adults. The decision stems exactly from what we’re talking about, mainly the uneven development of the brain. So it is important to note that maturation of teens involves so many influences related to physical and psychological states. Changes in physical states includes hormones, physical appearance, and the brain as examples. Changes in psychological states include increases in hopelessness, and reporting body image problems.

9:39

Also, many psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, moods disorders, psychosis, eating disorders, substance abuse, these begin during adolescents. And these disorders are thought to be heavily influenced by the developing brain beyond those processes I’ve mentioned.

9:55

There’s much going on with the adolescent, and national surveys add to that, by showing that adolescent are quite stressed by what’s going on in their lives. And some of these stressors are quite different from what they were in previous generations. For example, cyber bullying plays a role that is unlike bullying in prior years, adolescents can now bully each other or be bullied by smartphone, tablet, computers. And also, one can bully another person anonymously, so you have no idea who the bully is. From a parent’s standpoint, an adolescent may present special challenges Because the usual parent-child interactions that may have worked well before, have to be changed.

10:36

If an adolescent appears to be more difficult than usual, there is so much going on physically, psychologically and socially, this ought to be expected. Adolescents are not intentionally trying to be difficult or calculating ways to frustrate you. There is a way in which they, too, are along for the ride. And copy with multiple changes of which they are not actually aware.

10:57

But a key question for us is, what can parents do to ease the path through adolescence and continue to have a positive influence? There are many actions parents can take to help manage the difficulties that you might be experiencing with your adolescent.

11:13

And so, we’ve discussed tools for changing behavior and other lessons, including praise, developing positive opposites, shaping, time out, among others.

11:23

The techniques are still relevant for your adolescent, and still effective in changing behavior. However, they have to be applied differently. So let’s consider three main techniques that we’ve discussed previously and the modifications that are needed to make them really effective with preteens and teens.

11:39

First, let’s consider praise.

11:41

I have emphasized that one of the most effective behavior change tools you have at your disposal is that special praise that follows behavior that you wish to change.

11:51

The praise included three ingredients, as you recall. One is providing very effusive or enthusiastic praise. Another, giving a clear statement noting exactly what is being praised. And then, some affectionate or approving touch or a positive and non-verbal gesture. For example, with a young child, these three would be illustrated by a parent saying, great, you cleaned up all your toys on the floor! Very nicely done! And now walking over to the child and patting or touching or something like that, that’s affection. With adolescents, the three ingredients are modified. First, we still need the praise itself, just not the effusive praise. It is better to go over to the adolescent and just state more calmly and in a matter-of-fact way, this was great. That was really nice. No effusive praise. And whispered praise would even be quite fine. If their’s anyone in the room, go over and stay in a place privately because social sensitivities may make the adolescence prone to ease the embarrassment.

12:52

Second, it is still important to say exactly what you are praising in very concrete terms. So you might say, it is really nice when we chat like this when you get home from school. Or, thanks for letting me know you’ll be coming home a half hour late today. Again, this is stated without wild enthusiasm but is important to clarify exactly what is being praised. And third, it is still important to do something non verbal that you add to the praise. Many adolescents may actually shy away and move away from being touched. If that is true with your adolescent, make your gesture in the air without actually touching. From 5 or 10 feet away, you can just slap the air to give it a high five, you can raise your hand about the level of your face, put on thumb up, or you can raise both hands and be enthusiastic, but not really touch your child. These gestures or others like that convey the same message. And are important to add. Again, the key here is to provide the gesture. If you feel that touching, patting, hugging, or direct contact would be fine, of course, just do that.

13:53

In any case, special praise is still very effective, and for adolescents it needs to be toned down a little bit.

14:00

The second technique to modify for adolescents is attending and planned ignoring. Attending is noticing when someone is doing some behavior that you wish to increase and then providing attention by smiling, asking pleasant questions, talking nicely, hugging or giving the child the pan on the back. Praise’s one type of attention but it’s important to note that attention includes many additional means of developing the behaviors you wish.

14:29

Planned ignoring is systematically ignoring or not paying attention to the behaviors you wish to decrease.

14:36

These techniques can be used without change for adolescents. I mention them here because they are underused, and that can really raise problems. For example, parents often comment that their adolescence speak to them horribly roll their eyes when the parents say anything and acting ways that are not very nice to the parent. Remember, the adolescents is caught up in all sorts of biological psychological changes. And the temporary departure from you and your values and rules can be part of that process. And if you are concerned about any of the new negative behaviors that have emerged, there’s a great deal you can do. This is exactly the time to rely much more heavily on using attention and planned ignoring. Keep in mind that your adolescent is not always acting the ways you do not care for. It is absolutely critical that you attend and comment, and be responsive for those moments, we know these behaviors occur that you wish to foster and increase. Chances are very high that you are not seizing the opportunity to attend to positive opposites that are going on all of the time.

15:43

Ignore what you can of the behaviors you might find offensive. But my experience, is that parents are letting go virtually all the times the adolescent is acting quite fine. Do not get trapped into these little arguments about what is wrong and what you do not like. When you do that you are giving attention to negative behaviors, and that can actually maintain the very behaviors you want to eliminate. Draw on attending and planned ignoring much more, if you are concerned about the interactions you are having with your adolescent. One sign that it might be good to use much more attending and planned ignoring is, if you find yourself complaining regularly to yourself, partner, or teenager about how difficult it is sometimes to interact with your adolescent. Pay special attention to positive conversations around the house, while on an errand, or in the car, or comments about his or her school day. Think of these pleasant interactions. To help you think about this strategically, pause this video and list all those pleasant interactions that occurred yesterday. The purpose is to help you catch those interactions by attending more. That will increase their occurence and decrease the behaviors you’re not particularly fond of.

16:57

As an exercise, tomorrow try to attend a few times to any of those positive behaviors, and try to ignore the behavior you wish to decrease.

17:07

Third technique I want to talk about is the use of punishment, and that deserves special comments because of what happens in adolescence.

17:16

I have noted two main points about punishment in other lessons and these still apply. First, if punishment is used it ought to play a minor role in any behavior change program. And second when punish is used it should be brief and mild. I have recommended a minor role, because punishment is not very effective in changing behavior when used alone or in teaching a behavior you wish to develop.

17:40

Punishment should be brief and mild because more punishment, more intense punishment, more longer punishment, does not increase its effectiveness in changing behavior. More intensive punishment just gets everyone more upset, produces more negative side effects such as aggression and wanting to escape from one’s parents.

17:58

I spoke about timeout for reinforcement, usually timeout consists of having a child sit in an isolated place for a few minutes, or not have access to some activity. This procedure’s not going to be feasible with adolescence, because we cannot control the adolescent going easily to timeout. It is unimaginable for a 16-year-old to say to a parent, okay mom, I’m going to timeout, where would you like me to sit for the next five minutes? It’s just not going to happen. It’s better to use a brief loss of a privilege, have something in mind ahead of time that is brief that you control. For example, you might take away use of a cellphone for an evening, or perhaps watching movies for that evening. Just keep it brief, keep in mind that the punishment even if mild, leads to escape from the person and the situation where punishment is given, and eventually leads to avoidance. Now many adolescents are already doing things to escape and avoid their parents.

18:54

They go to their room and they keep their door closed. They may try not to even eat dinner with their family, and they may avoid conversation that is not absolutely essential. So the recommendation is minimal punishment, if and when you feel you have to use any at all, but the emphasis should always be on attending and planned ignoring. The punishment will increase tension in the home and between you and your adolescent, and it will really achieve very little in changing behavior. Attending and ignoring are likely to decrease tension and make the interactions much more pleasant. Let me summarize by connecting the different facets of today’s lesson.

19:31

I mentioned how the adolescent is going through dramatic changes. I highlighted two of these very briefly by mentioning an increase in risky behaviors, and some changes in the development of the brain that relate to these behaviors.

19:45

It is equally important to reassure you that most parents and adolescents pass through this stage well and without crises. On the other hand, this could also be the period in which you need the tools to maintain family life, good communication and routines. The tools we have discussed are very effective with adolescents. They have to be applied somewhat differently from how they were used with young children.

20:11

Perhaps of all things to emphasize in this summary would be the use of attending and planned ignoring.

20:20

It is likely the scores of opportunities are missed when you and your adolescent interact calmly, engage in respectful communications, and just have moments of quality time together.

20:31

Attending more to these with praise, just talking, providing feedback at how nice the interaction was, and how much you liked it. If your adolescent is not introducing any new sources of frustration, you may not need to go to the tools we have discussed.

20:46

There is another lesson on adolescents which covers new tools woth integrating into the home. Both lessons on adolescents, should give you ways of easing any difficulties in the home, making the life of your family and adolescents smoother. And directly helping your adolescent negotiate the complexities of this period.

0:00

This is the second installment on adolescents. The first installment adapted some of the tools we have already discussed, so they are more applicable with adolescents. We cover changes in delivering that special praise, attending and planned ignoring and punishment. In addition to these tools, I wanted to outline other tools that are of special use during adolescents. As your pre-teen and teen develops, there’s great value in making changes in how you communicate with them. The techniques for the day, focus on how to navigate and minimize problems and potential disputes through different strategies of communication. Let me begin. First, it is important to make a special effort to compromise. From early childhood on, parents make decisions for their child and these include what children eat, what clothes to wear, where to go when you leave at home and so on. Of course, all these decisions are essential for development and the child safety and just managing the home. Over time, children develop more autonomy and have taste what to wear and what friends to play with. In the teenage years, there is more of a qualitative leap as the need for independence and autonomy increases. Here, peers can exert enormous influence. By adolescents, your child has formed views on things such as – how to dress, what to eat, where to go, which friends to be with, as well as what beliefs to have on major life topics and what values there are. And many of these views seem to be purposely opposite of those you have. All of these views might well change later, but there may be clashes at this time. Among the issues likely to emerge are differences in rules in the home, and what is and is not allowable in the behavior of your adolescent. You can help your adolescent and yourself by making much more of an effort to develop compromise in relation to the rules that guide your adolescent. Of course, many things cannot be compromised to run family life, but try to compromise when you can and let some things go that you are inclined to forbid or weigh in on. Decide what you might be willing to let go. Here are some things to consider about being flexible on and grounds for compromise. Maybe bedtime can be flexible especially when it is on a school night. Could curfew be extended once in a while, or can you let a messy room go? How about strange outfits and personal appearance? Would these be options to compromise or let go for you? One creative compromise was brought to my attention in relation to a teenager’s messy room. The teen wanted her room completely to be her domain and never wanted a parent to ever come in. The mother wanted the clothes picked up and placed in drawers, closets or a laundry hamper and there was literally a one to two-foot pile of clothing, books, magazines, bags from stores and more that covered the entire floor. The mother complained that one cannot even see the floor in any part of the bedroom. The compromise ended up being, that the teen could keep her room exactly the way she wanted and the mother would stay out of the room with three exceptions. First, there could be no burning of incense or candles that would risk safety and even the slightest whiff of something burning would allow the mom to come in and take these items away. Second, there could be no leftover food because that would foster insects, rodents, and horrible smells. The daughter often brought snacks and sometimes dinner up to her room and would leave the plates with leftover food somewhere on the pile of clothes. Third, the mom could come into the room if the family ran out of silverware or plates because the teen just kept them in a room after eating snacks. And about once a week, the family ran out of something – dinner plates, forks, juice glasses just because they accumulate in the daughter’s room. If this happened the mom could come in and retrieve them. The compromise, the mother did not insist on a neat room but compromise with some conditions that seemed reasonable. The teen had control over her domain and the teen could keep them out of the room completely, by handling some of the problems like returning food and silverware and dishes to the kitchen once in awhile. In your family, what can you compromise that stays within your comfort zone? How about green hair, torn jeans? How about a backpack featuring some very strange stickers and marking, could you let that go? How about goth or vampire like clothing and makeup. Can you compromise a bit? Also for skirts, pants and tops. Is there something too provocative for your taste? Or is there any room for compromise? I am not advocating any specific change or recommendation. Only you can identify what can you can be flexible about your values and tastes will guide you. But compromising on practical issues will require you to bend a bit. My recommendation to parents is to consider allowing adolescents to engage in actions that are likely to be temporary and will not jeopardize safety or health. This consideration will allow colored hair, strange clothing combinations, and bizarre jewelry, even maybe a dog collar around one’s neck instead of the more common necklaces. I consider this temporary and developmentally based because in 10 years from now and probably a lot sooner, the adolescent would not be caught dead in any of these and even deny that he or she wore odd clothing and jewelry. Of course, be sure to take some photos if you want a proof later. There may be many gray areas, and as a parent, you will need to decide what is allowable. Many parents feel that using birth control, driving at night and spending all night out at a party or prom are not a place to compromise. Other parents feel that tattoos are completely out of the question but some parents may allow tattoos if they are appropriate and relatively hidden. The tool for this lesson is to urge you to compromise and expand the areas that you’re willing to compromise. Teens want more independence, you being able to reach compromises and give in on some things will contribute to that independence but also make you much more effective as a parent. Compromising for some parents raise the myth of the slippery slope. Many parents feel that if they give in or compromise in one place this will be a slippery slope and pretty soon more demands will be made. So maybe it is better to stop all that early. Set the rules and not compromise. Actually, it looks like the slippery slope concern is not a real problem at all, the opposite is more likely. By opposite, I mean like compromising has a host of benefits. When you compromise you serve as an influential model for your child in a few important ways. You are modeling and providing a great example of what it is to compromise and to be reasonable and how two people can disagree but come to terms without a fight. In addition, you’re compromising on some issues is likely to strengthen your word and the rules in place where you cannot compromise. So if you can yield on a few things to allow your adolescents some more independence and freedom, do not worry about a slippery slope. Instead, you have made yourself an ally in one more way and are there to provide support. You have also further cemented the positive facets of your relationship during this difficult period when the relationship might be strained. All of that will make you more effective when you have to intervene when no compromise is possible. The second tool is to negotiate with your adolescent. Negotiating is related to compromising. A compromise refers to the outcome or actual solution that you reach, while negotiation refers to the process of how to get there. Negotiation has several features that will greatly facilitate parenting and child-rearing, even when you are not facing an issue or an impasse. Let me start by clarifying what the opposite of negotiation is. That would be doling out of advice and making decisions without any real input from your teenager. When your teen was a young child you had to do this to get the child to this new stage of life. There’s not much in the way of negotiating about what preschool to go to, or what brand of diapers to wear, or when to begin wearing shoes. You are in the normal habit of taking charge and your child would not have made it to adolescents without you doing that. Fast forward to adolescents. Now, any effort to control or even influence facets of the adolescence life could be met with resistance and oppositional behavior. Of course, there are some decisions you still have to make without your child. Even so, there are opportunities to involve your adolescent in decisions and negotiation is the key. Negotiation is a process and here are several guidelines and steps to help you. First, listen to what your adolescent says without jumping in. Really listen, pay attention and hear the entire story your adolescent wishes to say or his side of the story. Remember the expression that sometimes the opposite of talking is not listening but just waiting your turn to talk. You do not want to do that here. You are actively listening and genuinely hearing something that may sound irrational or naive or maybe not. It doesn’t matter you are there at the moment and really paying attention. Second, be respectful of the teen. On the one hand, you may sometimes feel like your teens statements were dumb, they reflect poor judgment and they indicate that your child-rearing did not register at all. On the other hand, you’re hearing how your adolescent thinks about things and that is very important and as you listen you will probably be surprised by how reasonable and understandable the request is. Withhold judgments and refrain from rolling your eyes or looking in the air in disbelief. Body language counts as judgments. Listening is paying close attention, add respectfulness, which conveys that the content is being taken seriously for the moment. Third, focus on the present and not what the teen did in the past. Parents often call up similar situation where a teen made an error or something did not work. This is the kind of indirect, “Here we go again or I told you that would happen the last time you did this.” You may be right, but at this point being right is jeopardizing the process of negotiation. At this stage, we are in the middle of a process, so stay exactly in the present. Fourth, stay on the subject at hand. Try not to go off, raising the past as a sample of that, but in general, try to jump off to other lessons or situations. Do not drag up some situation that the adolescent will view as completely irrelevant. That would be a signal to the lesson that you were not really listening and you do not have the slightest understanding of what they are thinking. Finally, when it is your turn to talk, provide alternatives and suggestions for how to proceed with the situation. There are two parts of conveying your suggestions. First, provide a number of options of how to proceed, that might include two or three possible solutions. Second, present them in a way that is not authoritative. So try not to say anything like, “Here’s what you should do or this is what needs to happen.” Rather, leave with a sentence like, “Here are some alternatives we might talk about or have you considered this or that.” Each of those gives the adolescent a voice and allows for further negotiation and compromise. Also, the adolescent is much more likely to agree to one of your options or generate a compromise based on how you present the possible options and whether choices involved. The five steps I have outlined for negotiation are not so easy to do, especially if the focus is on something that you or your adolescent feel strongly about. At the Yale Parenting Center, we have actually brought parents in and teens in sessions into a room and have them practice negotiation on an issue that’s not very critical. So just planning a hypothetical vacation just to develop the negotiation skills, and then we give them something challenging that they select from their own lives. We can jump in and coach and keep the process of negotiation. But you can do this at home, maybe start your negotiation on some event that is not so volatile or provocative and when the stakes are low. The negotiation process will help you reach an acceptable compromise on a given issue. But as importantly, this process will help your overall communication, your relationship with your adolescent and your adolescent ability to come to you knowing that you will listen without making judgments. A final tool for this lesson is to engage in problem-solving with your adolescent. Problem-solving is a way of handling difficult situations especially difficult social relationship issues. These could be interaction with peers, teachers, coaches or girlfriend or boyfriend and of course a parent. Problem-solving consists of several steps. Let me say what they are and then apply them to an example. First step, identify and state what the problem is. Second step, prompt and encourage the identification of potential strategies or solutions to resolve that problem. Third, identify two or three possible ways of handling the situation or general approaches to the problem. Fourth, for each possible way to handle the problem identify what its consequences might be. Talk about each way and what is likely to happen if you did that solution. Fifth, select the solution that is the best in view of the consequences. Finally, through role play, practice and act out the situation and the best solution you selected. For example, let’s work through an instance in which your child, your teenager is being bullied by someone at school. The first step, is to state the problem, that’s easy. You might say, “So Jack, is picking on you at recess.” The second step, is to prompt and encourage the identification of potential strategies or solutions. So you say, “What are some of the things you might do to handle that?” The third step, is to identify two or three possible ways of handling the situation or general approaches to the problem. So now you both identify some possible ways of handling that situation. You do this together and if you’re adolescent can take the lead on one of these that is better. But jump in if needed. So for example, you might say, “Well, one thing we could do would be to talk to the teacher.” Now, ask your teen, “Is this something else we could do?” If not, jump in again and suggest another possibility. You might say, “Well, how about staying away from Jack at lunchtime because that is when this seems to happen. “ And now try to get one more solution. We want the adolescent to suggest a solution just to engage in the problem-solving process even if the solution is not that great or feasible do not judge it at this point. We are shaping problem-solving behavior and the next time you apply this approach you will both be better at it. The fourth step, now go through each possible solution one at a time to identify what the consequences would be. Here, your teen can play a role and you can jump in less. You say, “Okay, one strategy is to go to the teacher.” If you went to the teacher what would happen? And now you give the same verbal prompt for each solution. You say, “And what would happen if you stayed away from him at lunch?” Trying to get your adolescent to talk about the consequences. The problem-solving approach includes you not taking over all or even most of the talking. Briefly, discuss the likely consequences for each of the proposed solution. Fifth, now choose one of the solutions that is the best of the solutions based on the different consequences. You say, “Okay, which seems to be the best solution?” Now, you and your child discuss the need to choose just one. Finally, the six step is to practice. You and your teen actually practice the best solution, you both role play, you as a parent pay the bully and your child pretends to be himself in the situation and he acts out the best solution. Then you switch roles where you play your adolescent and he plays the bully. All of this is done, stand in place but you’re both pretending. Try to make this fun. So something should be redone in the middle of this. Just laugh and say, “Oh, let’s start all over again.” The tone of this is constructive when everyone is calm. Introducing anything to light and the task is fine. Going through all the steps is the problem-solving approach. As you can see this is very different from dispensing the solution to your adolescent. Problem-solving teaches a different way of coping with and handling interpersonal problems and research shows that this approach helps across a variety of interpersonal situations with peers as well as with adults. Also, the process greatly increases the quality of the communication between you and your adolescent. Let me summarize what I’ve covered so far in this lesson. We’ve added three tools to the toolkit that are especially valuable in relation to parenting your adolescent. These were compromise, negotiation, and problem-solving. As with other tools, we have discussed in this course, the terms compromising, negotiation, and problem-solving are familiar and are used in everyday life but how they are done is very important. For example, negotiation and problem-solving involve very specific steps to achieve their benefit. Informal problem-solving by just chatting about problems with your adolescent may be a very good way for improving your relationship and overall communication. But the steps I noted have been tested and showed to provide the adolescent with important skills in handling difficult situations and the benefits extend across many areas in everyday life. The notable feature of the techniques I discussed is that they help resolve particular situations that need to be addressed but they also have broad benefits, such as – strengthening your relationship with your teen, making you much more approachable, and teaching by modeling how to address difficult situations. In any case, you have some more tools now to ease the path. Keep in mind that you made it through your teen years and are probably doing very well, your child becoming an adolescent and an adult will probably do well too. And if you need a little extra help, if you feel frustrated or if your usual procedures are not working the way you would like, you have a variety of tools and some of these are really well suited to adolescents.

0:00

0:00

A key premise to all of these lessons in this series is that if your usual child rearing practices are working well in getting the changes you wish in your children, there may be no need to resort to the tools we’ve been discussing.

0:14

Yet, when he wished to add it help with your child, and want to change behavior better, these tools have been shown to be very effective.

0:22

The techniques have to be implemented in special ways, and these usually depart from what we do in our regular interactions with children.

0:30

One obstacle to implementing the techniques, is that the concepts are already familiar. For example, praise, time out, and giving prompts are things many parents already do. The obstacle is conveying that these default parenting strategies are not used in a way that develops the behavior you wish.

0:51

There’s another obstacle or at least potential obstacle. As parents, we have beliefs, experiences and seemingly natural inclinations about how to rear our children. The beliefs greatly influence how we interact with and discipline our child. As it turns out, a few of these beliefs how out of sync with what we have learned from a search on how to influence and change human behavior. In this lesson, I discuss common parenting beliefs that can interfere with effective parenting tools outlined in this course. Of course, there’s no need to change our beliefs. Yet, if we are at an impasse with a particular child with a child, it will be worth noting if something is momentarily interfering with use of one of the behavior change tools.

1:40

Let us begin.

1:42

The first belief that is widely held is that punishment will change behavior and teach the child how to behave appropriately. Many of us grew up with this belief that punishment is an effective way of changing behavior. In the home, parents may rely on a range of mild to severe punishment, from looks of disapproval, brief time outs or loss of privilege, to shouting, and screaming, hitting, and sometimes even physical abuse.

2:09

Here are some of the more possibly surprising points, that are part of the belief associate with punishment. First, punishment is not a way to make enduring changes or to eliminate a behavior. It stops behavior in the moment but does not usually change the overall frequency of the behavior.

2:28

A parent will have to keep punishing again and again. Second, increasing the intensity of punishment from a reprimand to a scream or a little hit to a beating, does not make punishment any more effective. In fact, a child who is being punished quickly adapts to the more severe punishment. This does not mean the child likes the punishment. But it does mean that the rate of the behavior one wants to eliminate stays the same even when the punishment gets worse. This is pretty counterintuitive. A little or mild punishment does not work, so perhaps naturally we up the ante, only to learn that it is not any more effective. It is just more severe and more upsetting.

3:13

Third, punishment can have all sorts of nasty side effects. For spanking in moderate to heavy range, the punishment can increase aggression and antisocial behavior of the child at home and at school. And is associated with poor school performance, and even physical health problems. I have a separate lesson on spanking, which elaborates this further.

3:36

Fourth, punishment does not teach the children the positive behaviors that you wanted, but it does teach them something. Ironically, punishment teaches children, actually, how to punish other people and interact with their peers.

3:53

For punishment, those are the techniques that children use with their peers when they are angry at them. If a parent beats a child, those children are likely to beat their peers at school when they are mad at them or do not like what they did. So there is a mild in effect of punishment. Punishment of the child does teach them but it teaches them how to punish others and not to behave appropriately. Finally, one of the reason punishment continues to be used by parents is called the punishment trap.

4:23

This is a trap for parents and it goes like this.

4:26

The child is doing something the parent does not want. The parent jumps in and punishes, the child stops the behaviour at that moment. That stopping of the behaviour immediately maintains the parent’s use of punishment. The immediate end to something annoying or upsetting, in this case the child’s behaviour, after you do something locks in the use of punishment and establishes a habit on our part as parents. Now, most parents who punish, even those who admit to child abuse, are usually well aware that the procedure is not working.

5:00

It’s not about awareness or knowing. The punishment trap is based on negative reinforcement. Your child stops the aversive behavior right after you punish. That stopping of the child’s behavior rewards parent behavior and locks it in. So the parents can use punishment now. The punishment trap is very powerful and it’s hard to break out of that.

5:22

Developing positive behaviors to replace the response you wish to eliminate is the key procedure to use. Very mild punishment for the behavior you wish to eliminate can help, but it must play a minor role to be effective. By minor role, I mean that if we’re punishing a particular behavior, we need many more instances in which the behavior we are praising is the positive opposite behavior we want to take its place. For example, let’s say we punish a child for not listening to something we asked him to do.

5:54

If we punish twice this week, it would be extremely important to praise the times the child did listen. The number of times he was praised for listening should greatly outnumber the times he was punished for not listening. So the misbelief is that punishment is an effective way of changing behavior and developing adaptive behaviors in children. Of course, we all have a story where someone was punished and turned out great. We also have stories where someone smoked cigarettes for years and lived to be 110. And someone else who ate nothing but fast food and cholesterol omelets for breakfast and lived even longer. And there’s even a story or two of people whose parachutes did not open but they still lived. These are all possible and true stories but they are used exceptions, and when someone says that punish changed me forever, that might be true even though it is not possible to really say that, even though the punishment stands out in their mind.

6:54

All that aside, if a parent believes that children will develop adaptive behaviors and stop annoying behaviors with the use of punishment, that believe could interfere with more effective parenting.

7:06

To eliminate a behaviour in a child, the development of positive opposites is one of the most effective tools. The second belief that can misguide us is that explaining to your child why a behaviour is wrong will lead him or her to stop doing that behaviour.

7:23

Maybe you decided the punishment isn’t working, so I’m going to be a much more modern parent. And instead, I’m going to give explanations. And that explanation will be why the child should or should not do something. As you explain, be calm and reasonable, and tell the child the behavior, why you should or should not do that behavior. You’ve probably explained to your child, you know better not to do this because it bothers your sister. Or you might have said, we do not do that kind of behavior in this house, because it is dangerous, and you will break things.

7:57

It’s important to talk about giving explanations to your child in two ways. The first is very important and valuable because explanations play a key role in child development. When we explain things to a child, we are teaching by modeling, what its like to handle various situations including those in which we get made and why to punish. We also teach complex psychological processes, such as thinking, problem solving and reasoning. Add to that our speech invariably teaches concepts, words and languages. Perhaps understandably, the effects of explaining are related to how well a child does at school, how well the child interacts with peers, and how well the child approaches life when she’s an adult.

8:44

In short, for this first part providing explanations to your child is without a doubt extremely valuable.

8:51

The second part, consider explanations as a behavior change technique. In this context, explanations are not a very effective way of changing behavior, either for decreasing unwanted behavior or increasing desired behavior. And that’s just not true of children, it tends to be true of humans of all ages. Explain to adults why they ought to stop smoking, stop eating fast foods, start eating broccoli, start exercising, try to be less prejudiced or give more to charity. These aren’t very effective ways of changing human behavior.

9:24

Explanation may change attitudes, but they are weak in changing behavior that is what the people actually do. Now I’ve mentioned that changing child behavior has a few similarities to learning how to play a musical instrument. In training someone to play, let us say the piano, it’s important to explain all sorts of things about the instrument and how to play note, hold one finger, and so on. But this is no substitute for repeated practice. That practice relaxing the behaviors and in the process changes the brain as these habits have developed. Similarly, in developing behaviors you wish in your children, explanations can speed up the learning process. But much more is needed to actually get the behavior, and to establish the behavior as a habit. So keep up the explanations for all the good that they do. But if the goals to actually change behavior, use tools from the behavioral change toolkit that we’ve discussed in other videos.

10:20

A third belief is that providing a lot of praise will spoil the child. Many parents believe that giving more praise will just spoil them and make them depend on praise.

10:30

Praise delivered in the special way I’ve discussed in a separate video is one of the strongest ways to develop behaviors you wish in your child.

10:38

Three points are relevant to mention if you have reservations about the use of praise. First, it is very unlikely that children are being praised too much. Most of us think we are doing that, but it usually means we are being nice a lot and we are affection all wonderful. But the use and overuse of praise in every day life is rare. Part of the reason, is that it’s our natural inclination to attend to things that to go wrong rather than things that go right. We are much more likely to be critical of a child for dolling and not getting for school. Then we are to say, how wonderful that you dressed yourself and came down to breakfast early.

11:16

Our inclination to attend to more negative things is perfectly normal and part of the wiring of our brain. In short, praise is not overused, and actually not even used very much in most homes. Second, praise used in the way I’ve discussed is actually associated with positive rather than the negative effects. Increased use of praise is associated with stronger connections to adults who praise them and also children like situations better in which more praise is provided.

11:46

Third, the special praise we’ve talked about only needs to target specific behaviors that have been a challenge in the home. We do not promote Riley praising all day, rather, praise should be given systematically for those behaviours you wish to develop. Using the special praise is temporary, and can be faded out as the enduring chase in your child take over.

12:09

Overall you might be concerned about praise spoiling the child. But both research and clinical experience suggests this is not really an issue.

12:17

A fourth belief is very familiar. We tend to believe that if our child knows the behavior, and has done it before maybe once or twice, that means he can do it regularly. As I have mentioned earlier in this lesson and throughout this course, knowing and doing are not very connected in humans. This is perplexing and frustrating and is also called normal.

12:40

Once in a while, information does influence what we do. For example if our doctors say we’re going to die soon if we do not change this or that habit or take this or that medicine, that is likely to have impact.

12:52

Even here however, you might be surprised to know that many people with serious diseases do not fill their prescriptions for their disease. Once they fill their prescriptions, many do not take the pills as prescribed and many who take those pills fail to get their refills that they’re supposed to get. They know better, we all know better. In short, do not be too frustrated when your child knows something but does not do it. Here she is being human like the rest of us. The second part of the belief is equally frustrating. The child has done the behavior before but won’t do it now. And you might say, you dressed yourself once, you can do it again right now before we go out.

13:33

Yet, performing once or twice is not any basis to assume consistency, or even repetition again. The key is to try to get the behavior to occur again, use antecedents for that, and then use special praise to lock it in. In short, it is natural to be super frustrated when we see that someone has done something but does not do it again. If you want consistency and see this is a problem, mention that in your praise. Sarah, you have done this twice in a row. Or Sarah, you got ready for school nicely today exactly the way you did yesterday, that’s fabulous. That will help build the consistency you want. But the main tool is praising behavior each time it occurs.

14:17

A fifth belief related to motivation of the child and goes like this, when my child refuses to do something, she’s just being manipulative.

14:26

Well when a child goes against our wishes, we often explain away the misconduct by saying and here she’s just being manipulative. But research shows that children are no more manipulative than the rest of us. And actually, probably less manipulative because coming up with a strategy to get one’s way by anticipating and managing the behavior of others are beyond most children’s abilities.

14:49

One way we pretty much know the child is not being manipulative is because we can usually turn that around pretty quickly, and make that compliant behavior using the tools we’ve talked about. Oppositional behavior may emerge briefly over the course of development, but even here, parents can play a key role in turning that around.

15:09

Getting a child to do something to listen to you, and to comply is not rocket science. Sometimes simple changes can even help. For example, one mother reported that as she was checking out at the supermarket, her daughter would start whining for a treat, such as gum or something right there near the checkout counter.

15:28

This could quickly turn into a tantrum and the mother was so embarrassed that she gave in.

15:35

She did not mind the little treat, but dreaded the entire process. And having other adults stare at her for not being able to control her own daughter. What’s the daughter being manipulative? Well I’m not sure what that even means the daughter learned a behavior, and the mother actually helped maintain that.

15:52

We made a little shift in this interaction.

15:57

Right before checking out the mother stopped her cart. Leaned over to her daughter and said that her daughter could get the gum or trinket if she could be very quiet in the checkout line, and asked for the treat in a very soft voice. If she whined and had a tantrum, she would not get the treat.

16:18

The mom prompted her daughter, quietly, as soon as they entered the line and praised her right away.

16:25

The mom leaned over and said, you are doing so well already, you will probably get this gum before the day is up. The child made it through the line calmly, and as they were finishing checkout, the child selected the trinket, and the parent moved out of the line to go out the store. But while she was still in the store, the mother stopped the cart, bent over to her child and said, how great she was to behave in such a way like a big girl. This was the special praise done fairly immediately. This went on for a few more shopping trips, no further problems. Practice opportunities are so important so the mom continued to emphasize praise after the behavior. And eventually the gum and trinkets completely dropped out. This is an abbreviated version of the use of antecedents and consequences, but what we changed was the original program. Treats for having a tantrum at the checkout will maintain having a tantrum. Once we made the changes, parents no longer consider the child as manipulative. The final belief I discuss is the belief that reminding a child is a way to get the behaviors we wish.

17:33

Reminders are repeated verbal prompts to get the child to do something. We tell the child to start her homework and she doesn’t do it. Understandably, we tell her again, and maybe even she starts, but we keep telling her until she does. Here’s what we know about reminders, first and as you know, reminders are fine for getting a behavior to occur once. As adults, we may have a list of things to do, a calendar with reminders on our smartphone or smartwatch. That list may include a reminder, pick up dinner before we come home, call the daycare center whatever. Or we remind our child after school, your dad’s going to pick you up near the entrance of the school, remember.

18:12

These and other reminders are fine and we rely on them. Reminders are great for these one or two shot behaviors we wish. The second part of what we know about reminders is that by themselves, they will not develop behaviors so they are performed consistently. Reminders will have to be repeated and repeated, at which point reminding turns into nagging. You might even say, I’ve told you 50 times to clean your room, what don’t you understand about that?

18:41

Reminders are antecedents, which we have discussed. A behavior change program based only on antecedents, in this case repeated prompts, is not like it help change behavior beyond that moment. To develop behavior so you do not need to reminders, we start out with reminder or a prompt, positive setting events to get the behaviors, and we praise the child for actually doing the behavior. The use of antecedents may be shaping behavior, and consequence together will lock in what you want. Reminders by themselves are not enough to develop behavior. In fact, lots of reminders make the child want to escape from you, and make it even less likely he will do what you ask. Now in some cases, parents see the failure of repeated reminders as grounds for punishing the child, this is a trap. The child’s actions are really quite predictable, given what we know about using reminders alone. And we know that when you add punishment to the mix, that will not help at all. So you’ll be frustrated, even feel bad about yourself. The child will be crying and we’re absolutely no closer to developing the behavior you wish. In short, when you use reminders be sure to have your goals in mind. If you want something done once or twice, and you’re not interested in developing a habit or a long-term habit of change, a reminder all by itself is great. However, if you want consistent behavior, then repeated reminders are just not going to help. Here you need prompts, followed by the behavior, followed by praise. The videos on antecedents and shaping give you all the tools you need to get that. So let me close by covering the common misbeliefs and myths I’ve talked about today. These are partial truths or myths, whatever they’re called, they are huge sources of frustration, because the child will not do something despite our efforts. Many of the beliefs I have mentioned and actions that stem from them, seem rather natural or almost automatic. So for example when our children do not do something or break a rule at home, we punish. Knowing that punishment is not likely to work, does not help us very much. Because our use of punishment just stops behavior at that moment and traps us in continuing to use punishment ineffectively. Fortunately, we have learned how to change behavior more effectively and some of these changes are in how we apply things. So for example, endless reminders will not work, but one or two reminders, followed by shaping and praise can have enormous and enduring impact. If you are caught in any situations or frustration with you child, perhaps briefly suspend the beliefs or assumptions and go to the toolbox. The tools there will not only be helpful in getting the behavior you want, but will make it much less frustrating to interact with your child at home.

21:28

In other lessons I’ll continue to discuss ways of changing child behavior and making child rearing easier.

0:00

We have been discussing various tools to change behaviors in the home.

0:06

But what happens outside the home? Problems a child may have can occur in school settings and are not behaviors that you see directly.

0:15

Problems at school usually refer to a disruptive behavior such as fighting, teasing, bullying, or interfering with the work of others. Not completing assignments at school. Not bringing homework assignments home. And getting upset when the child has to make transitions from one activity to another.

0:36

This is a sample of the common problems that emerge. But of course, these change for individual children and as a function of grade level. For example, for older children bringing home school assignments, completing these assignments and then turning them back in at school are more likely to be an obstacle because the number of homework assignments increases with age.

1:00

This is one of two lessons related to school. In this lesson, the focus is on problem behaviors that occur at school. This focus will involve working with teachers. The second lesson will focus on developing behaviors related to doing well at school, but the school is not directly involved. In that lesson, we will talk about helping your child improve reading skills, or other academic skills at home in ways that are fun but still help with school performance.

1:30

For today, we are focusing on programs to change behaviors that come up as problems or issues at school.

1:37

The special intervention we will discuss is called a home-based reinforcement program.

1:44

Home-based reinforcement programs require participation of you, a teacher, and your child.

1:51

The program itself incorporates several tools we have discussed in the course such as shaping, praise, point programs, and positive opposites. Rewatching separate lessons on those may help.

2:04

So let me begin with what the program is. A home-based reinforcement program means that much of the intervention is carried out at home. But it is based on the behaviors that the child is doing at school.

2:17

In this program, there is a need to involve the teacher. In fact, usually it is the teacher who alert you to a problem in the first place.

2:27

Even if you strongly believe it is the teacher’s job to control your child’s behavior, I recommend not relying solely on the teacher. After all, teachers are extremely busy and have many children to monitor, many lessons to plan and grade, and in general are too stretch. Parents can take up most of the burden by executing a home-based reinforcement program which draws on the teacher’s special perspective but requires minimal effort on the teacher’s part.

2:57

Most often teachers are very eager to help with a home-based reinforcement program. Because they very much appreciate your help with the school problem they see daily. So there are several ingredients that make up a home-based reinforcement program. First, it is important to identify and specify the behavior that is a problem. As I noted, the teacher probably initiated the concern about the child. So a conversation about this with the teacher will be welcomed.

3:27

Here, one needs to consult with the teacher to discuss in precise terms what it is that the child does? A complaint that he teases other children is a little too vague. We want to know more about what specifically the child does, when and where. The details can help us in devising the intervention, and deciding if we have improved the child’s behavior. As usual, it’s usual to write this focus down just to be sure you and the teacher agree that this encompasses the teacher’s concern. If your child has several teachers and goes from room to room during the day, so that one teacher and one class. Perhaps like the class with the problem is the greatest or with a teacher who’s the most willing to help.

4:09

If we can get control and behavior in one class, we can easily extend that throughout the day to other classes. That’s not all that hard to do.

4:17

Second, we now need a simple system that the teacher can use to measure the child’s performance of that behavior. Essentially, we’re going to ask the teacher to evaluate the child each day using a three point scale.

4:31

Typically, we use a 3 by 5 index card to give to the teacher. Every day we will want the teacher to circle or check off 0, 1, or 2 to let us know how the child performed that day. Then the child will bring this card home to the parent each day.

4:51

There are alternatives to using a card such as daily phone calls or text messages or emails. We find these do not work as well as the card, because the teacher or parent gets too busy after school and forgets to call or email. Even more importantly, the child does not get to see the immediate feedback of that card. So try to use the card system first, and resort to other ways of getting the daily feedback if the card fails or just is not feasible.

5:19

You and the teacher specify the three levels of behavior that essentially come down to zero, which is no change or the problem is still there. One, your child has improved a little bit and a little better than usual, and two, the behavior is a lot better and the behavior was good let’s say most of the time. For example, say the teacher wants you’re child to keep his hands to himself. The rating system would be as follows. Zero equals the child had a problem today in keeping his hands to himself.

5:51

One, the child kept his hands to himself some of the time, and is a little better. And two, the child kept his hands to himself most of the time, and really showed an improvement.

6:01

These cards are prepared by you ahead of time. The card and the three point system are designed to make the task very feasible for the teacher. In fact, we have used the procedure for many years and most teachers eagerly participate because they know the parent is actively trying to help with a school problem, and the demand of a circle or a check each day is not that onerous. So let me summarize to this point. We have defined the behavior and we have devised a simple assessment method that the teacher can complete. The third component is to devise a home-based reward program.

6:37

Here I recommend a point program. The points are awarded daily for each school day based on the teachers report.

6:45

I’ve discussed a point program in a separate lesson. But here are some of the key ingredients. They vary just a little bit because we now involve the teacher. So first specify the exact behavior that will earn the points. For this we have the behavior based on the agreement between you and the teacher. Second, choose something to serve as points. They can be check marks, stars, smiley faces, anything convenient for you.

7:11

Third, have a way to keep track of earnings and expenditures. There should be a chart or a calendar of some kind to keep track of earnings.

7:20

Fourth, specify how many points are earned for the behaviors. Now for this we rely on the 3 by 5 card and what the teachers circle or check off.

7:30

This is the unique feature. As a guide the teacher’s providing 0, 1, or 2. And usually the 0 means the behavior was a problem. And so for that they give 0 points. No points if the child gets a 0 on the card.

7:44

Usually a 1 means that the behavior showed some small improvement. We definitely want points for that. Remember, we are shaping and that’s when programs fail because parents often demand perfection too early. So maybe give one point when the teacher provides a one for that day.

8:02

Now when the teacher marks a two, it means that the child showed the desired behavior most of the time. So this is really good and you might give two points, but you might bump up the scale to give it three or four points, to give an extra incentive for trying to get a two on the index card. Also, you can find ways to add extra incentives if you wanted. For example, if the child earns a two on a given day, she gets x amount of points. But if she earns a two for two days in a row, you might want to add a bonus point. That rewards consistency in good behavior. I recommend just keeping it simple. Now you need a list of rewards and how many points are required to buy them.

8:42

Make a list of at least four or five rewards and make sure some of them can be bought with just a few points. We want the child to be able to save for a bigger reward but not to have to save for an extended period of time.

8:57

So if you can earn a maximum of, let’s say, 10 or 15 points per week, have 1 or 2 rewards for 3 or 4 points, and another for 6 our 8, and maybe another one for 10, or 15, or 20. The key is making sure there’s not a delay between earning and being able to buy something.

9:17

Starting the program we coarse effort from you, the teacher and your child if you use the current system.

9:24

Usually the child has not travel taking the card to and from school on a daily basis. However if this is a problem, or you think it will be a problem, then you can assign a point value to successfully bringing in and returning the card. And if the card system doesn’t work think of one of the other options such as calling or texting or emailing with the teacher. You will find the system that works for you. The reason we recommend the card system, is this makes the feedback to the child very clear and immediate at the end of each day. Also, the child is involved in the program directly this way. If you and the teacher communicate without involving the child that makes the program as something done to the child, not something done with the child. And that can actually influence the effectiveness of the program. With the home-based reinforcement program, it is useful to focus on just one behavior at a time. When that one behavior gets better, then the card can be changed to include some other behavior or the program could be extended to another classroom. Here is how to respond to your child each day. So each day, your child brings home the card and this requires acknowledging the score beyond just giving out points. So let us consider three scenarios. First, let us say the child brings home the card with a score of 0.

10:48

The teacher reports that your child still shows a problem, and there was no improvement for that day at all.

10:53

It is important that you be calm, do not lecture, and do not make the interaction adversive. So you say, it was good that you brought the card home, praise that. And now in a calm way continue, you did not earn point today, but you will have another chance tomorrow. Or say, I cannot give you points today, but I’m sure you’ll have a better day tomorrow.

11:16

Now it is really important that you do not lecture, complain, or ask why he didn’t do well. That will not help the program at all and make the child not even want to participate.

11:27

Also if the child begins to argue or whine about the rating either walk away or begin another topic.

11:33

Second, let us say that the child brings home a card with the score of one which means that she did a little better than usual that day, even though not wonderful. You praise this and be specific, you say the teacher gave you a one which must mean that you were sitting at your desk most of the time and that was very nicely done. Nice job or some other form of praise.

11:54

Please keep in mind we are shaping behavior. We always want to praise every sign of improvement. A major downfall of programs is that parents are expecting the best performance before a habit becomes stable. Praising mediocrity does not lead to mediocrity, in shaping, it leads to excellence, it’s a step along the way. Finally, let us say that the card that she brings home includes a two and the good behavior was performed most of the time, now you give very effusive, special praise. You say great! And of course, you say, what was great? You say, the teacher thought you really did super today, that is amazing, very nicely done. And then you do some nonverbal gesture like an affectionate touch or a high five.

12:42

You gave praise when she brought home a one but now you will take the praise up a notch in enthusiasm for bringing home a 2. And of course, you give the points after you do that.

12:53

Let me summarize key points about the home-based reinforcement program. The program can be used for a variety of behaviors. The key is to work with the teacher to focus on one behavior at a time.

13:06

Teachers usually are very helpful and eager to participate because you as a parent are attempting to make their lives easier at school. You might be surprised at how rare that is.

13:17

Ideally, the teacher agrees to fill out the index card that you supply and your child brings in and will rate that card zero, one or two.

13:27

That is the child’s behavior, did that improve, did improve or improved a lot for that day?

13:34

The corresponding point program should be clearly defined and establish attainable rewards that the child does not have to save up for, for too long.

13:44

Remember, your reaction to the score is vital to the success of the program. If the score is low be calm do not lecture or ask questions of the child. If the card comes back with a one or a two be overjoyed and praise the positive behavior. We are shaping behavior and we praise approximations toward the final goal. The home-based reinforcement program can be applied to almost any setting outside the home. For example, at day camps, at music lessons or team sports events, as long as you have someone willing to complete the three by five card, or some equivalent, based on how well the child did that day.

14:22

In any case, the home-based reinforcement program allows you to handle behaviors outside the home. With a set of behavior change tools, such as shaping, praise, positive opposites and reward programs.

0:00

In a separate lesson, I focused on developing programs at home to change behaviors and to address problems the child is having at school.

0:09

The tool I discussed was home based reinforcement, which is devised in conjunction with the teacher. in fact in most cases, home based reinforcement used because the school or a particular teach has contacted you to convey that the child is having a problem in the classroom. This lesson focused on skills and competencies that are needed to be successful in school, but do not directly involve the teacher or the school at all. There are all sorts of early readiness products like DVD sets that claim children will become smarter and do better in school and in life if the parent would just buy and use these materials. These products are rarely researched, and the ones that have been studied do not really accomplish much in the way of academics or intelligence. Much of this was based on marketing hype, very much like fad diets. In contrast, what we have learned from scientific research is that, many of the base experiences parents provide can really help children become a better student. For example, providing a stimulating environment, reading to one’s child and stopping to discuss what you are reading, r e-reading the same books over again. And when possible have your child read to you or at least tell you what’s going on in the pictures or the stories. All of that can really help how well the child will do at school.

1:34

If you’d like something a bit more systematic that would improve school performance, here is a program that will be very useful. For this home based program, we focus on school relevant behavior, but do not need the cooperation of the school. In fact, I suggest you do this program when school is not in session, during the summer months or even during extended school breaks.

1:57

To illustrate the use of this program, let me focus on reading and comprehension because they are often difficult for children, and they are fundamental to most subjects at all levels of schooling. But this is not specifically a reading program. It could be applied broadly, but reading provide a nice illustration. The program is parent and child friendly and it’s designed to improve reading and comprehension in ways that are not own a risk and are not just more of the homework assignments from school.

2:26

The program utilize a number of tools we have discussed in other lessons, but it also has a novel and somewhat unexpected features. So it is not simply a point program for reading. Here are key features needed to implement the program. First, ask your child what topics are of great interest. This could be anything and does not have to be part of the usual school subjects. Does your child like sports, birds, flowers, penguins, volcanoes, rockets, you get the idea. In early schooling, the child has little choice on what to study. So it is important to give them the opportunity to choose a topic for this program.

3:07

If the child has trouble finding a topic, you can use a magazine as a starting point, because the entries or stories in a magazine often are brief, light, and more fun than most school textbooks. You can even go to a magazine store and have your child look around and find topics that way. Any source material will be sufficient as long as it has reading content at your child’s reading level. And of course, does not include topics you disapprove of.

3:37

The second step is to develop a point program where points are given for talking about anything your child has read in the magazine. We are not forcing the child to spend time reading or sitting at a desk. Rather, we are focusing on the act of talking about what was read. Because we are focusing on reading, we do not want the child just to report on the photos or pictures that there might be.

4:01

Let the child know that if she shares what she read to teach the family about something, she can earn some point, let’s say five points. Individualize this of course, so the child tells about one thing that might earn five points, tells about two things that might earn a little bit more. Remember to praise which turns out to be much more important than the points. The points will help you track what you are doing and allow the child to save some points and exchange them for rewards. Since this is a point program, be sure you have backup rewards and a chart to monitor points earned and points spent.

4:37

The behavior that earns points is talking about what was read. The talking on the part of the child could be relatively brief, maybe only a minute or two, nothing extensive. We do not want this to be too demanding, and we want to be very careful about that. Keep this light and without pressure. Perhaps at the dinner table when the child is talking, make sure others are listening and when the child is finished, praise the special praise we discussed in another video. After dinner, at bedtime or the next day, mention again how great it was to learn about a given topic.

5:14

In fact, one of the best ways to learn is to teach others. In this case, you are being taught by your child. Children are rarely given a position where they can teach or be in control, and this will be an excellent opportunity to teach you something.

5:30

What makes the skill program so special is that, we’ve made this much more interesting casual and fun than what goes on in the typical school center. First, the child chooses a topic, and that can change if the child wants to. Second, there’s no written assignment or homework. In place of written homework, comprehension is covered by having the child chat informally about what was read at some convenient time where you and others can listen.

5:58

On any evening, one can earn points. If she wishes by talking about what she read. But, she does not have to do this. This is also an excellent opportunity for you to shape behavior. You can praise and provide points for partial completion. Maybe she only told you the theme of her reading but not much else. Make sure you give positive attention for any effort at all. Again, the tone of this program is very important. In the summer, the child may have many activities such as going to camp or even summer school. Make this low key, and if you accidentally slip into more than one or two reminders a week or nagging, stop. The program will become onerous if you nag, and that’s the last thing we want here. If your child would like you to read with them or help them, that is fine. And it would be great if you volunteered casually by saying something like, let me know if you want me to sit with you while you read your magazine.

6:52

What are the benefits? Well, fostering reading and communication about what one has read are hugely important. You might not think this is relevant to school if the child is reading about baseball, soccer or dancing. On the other hand, many fascinating science and technology topics would be great such as space travel or robotics, if you felt that was a better topic. The content doesn’t really matter too much, because we’re developing a process, not a product. But we want the child to be interested in the topic or at least willing to read a little bit about it. It is great if the child develops a new competency in the subject of interest, but the purpose is develop skills and competencies in reading Incomprehension.

7:35

You not want to create a high pressure schooling environment with homework and deadlines and then demanding excellence along the way. The program takes away all of that pressure, yet develops very relevant skills that will help at school when the child does have homework assignments and does have to report on things.

7:54

You can enhance the effectiveness of the program by modeling the behavior you want to instill in your children. You and any other adults in home, can model reporting on something that you have read, perhaps while you’re at the dinner table. You could even create a routine in which everyone has a turn sharing something that they learned that day. Again, remove the pressure so if someone misses, that’s not a problem or a failure. I have selected reading, because it’s such a crucial skill but you get the broader point. You can work on arithmetic, science skills, as long as you give the child a choice. Provide praising points, model the behavior when you can, and keep the pressure low.

8:34

Also, a point program is a good way to get this started, but that program can be dropped pretty quickly if things are going well, and you can just rely on your praise and modelling the behavior on your part.

8:47

So let me close by noting that, parents often want to know what they can do at home to give their child an advantage at school. To overcome academic problems or to develop interest and competency in a subject or topic. I suggest a low-key program in the summer that has the child read something that is an area of her interests. Had to receive points for talking about that, at dinner or another time when the family convenes. Yet in all cases, keep the pressure out of this. Make it so one or two nights a week the child can talk about something but doesn’t really have to every night.

9:25

I mention reading because it is needed for virtually all subjects, but the same type of problem for math or science would be great too. Just have the child involved in selection of the topic and what to read, and of course, you must approve. With the program I have noted, you can have greater influence on productive behaviors in ways that will be fun and more natural, and that will compliment the usual homework assignments and tests at school.

0:00

In the course, we have discussed a variety of tools that can change child and adolescent behavior. Our focus has been on helping with the usual challenges of parenting and child rearing. These challenges include, having children comply with parental requests, not having explosive tantrums, finicky eating, completing homework, interacting appropriately with other children and many many more such challenges. But what about more extremes of behavior that go beyond the normal challenges? This lesson focuses on how to tell when problems in childhood and adolescence are just temporary, and part of normal dominance and when behavior is extreme, and it is appropriate to seek professional help. In a separate lesson that follows this, I focus on how to obtain help if your child may need that and things to look for in treatment services. Let us begin with the topic of, ‘Deciding whether your child may need help because of a psychological problem or a mental disorder.’ Let me begin with three critical points about mental disorders that I believe will be of great interest. First, many psychological problems are not a matter of having or not having a problem. Instead, many of the problems are on a continuum. For example, we can tell professionally when a person is clinically depressed, because of extremes in sad mood, not engaging in any of the usual activities, low energy, changes in sleep and eating, and feelings of hopelessness. Yet, these characteristics are on a continuum and someone who has less extreme versions of these features, could still have problems that interfere with their life and happiness, even though they do not meet the formal requirements of clinically depressed as a psychiatric diagnosis. The same applies for hyperactivity and autism spectrum disorder, when symptoms are very clear and extreme, we know there is a problem that warrants intervention. But, these are on a continuum and that is why the term spectrum is used. I will comment in a few moments on characteristics that are clear signs and red flags, but in so many instances, the question for the parents will be, is this behavior or are these signs enough to seek a professional opinion and maybe even treatment? Second point I want to make is a general rule of thumb. If you are deliberating whether a child should get help, then you should probably get help. Trust your intuition. There is no harm in pursuing a professional opinion and great benefit, if your intuition is correct. Let us say you go to see a psychologist or a child psychiatrist to get a professional opinion. If the professional says there’s no problem, this is great and you have the assurance you need. But if there is a problem, it is really good that you identified this early. It is better and more effective to treat a psychological problem in its early stages than much later. A third point has to do with parents blaming themselves for problems that the child may have. Your child may be extremely anxious, hyperactive or depressed. For many parents, particularly mothers, the first thing they do is to blame themselves. You might feel you did something wrong and caused the problem, and then that if you had only done something different, the child would not have this problem now. My brief comments here cannot be expected to erase all of that, but the chances are quite small that you lead to the child’s problems. We know that parenting and child rearing can have huge effects on development. But that psychological problems and extremes in emotions and moods, thought processes, problems of attention and the like, have strong underlying genetic and brain influence. It is not at all likely that you had anything to do with the child having this particular problem. Understandably, you might be stressed and frustrated if normal efforts to help your child are not enough. In all of that, try not to blame yourself. Any bad mothering or bad fathering, is not likely to be the basis for mental illness and related problems. The exception would be harsh punishment, neglect and extremes of parenting practices. Well, there are some points to bear in mind. But still now we haven’t talked about how can you decide whether your child might need professional help. Here are six warning signs that serve as guidelines. The first is impairment. Impairment refers to whether the problem of the child or adolescent interferes with meeting the usual demands and expectancies at home or at school. Now in the early years of being a toddler, the main activities for a child maybe, sleeping, growing, engaging in daily activities at home. Here, there are too many demands and expectations. At some point, perhaps the child begins daycare or preschool and some demands increase like fitting in with others and following routines in that setting. Not much ought to be expected of your child in these early years. So, if your three year old is not a social butterfly at daycare, or does not nap at the time the rest of the children do, these are perfectly normal and no cause for alarm. However, if the child is to be regularly isolated in daycare or is repeatedly kicked out of preschool, these would qualify as impairment. Impairment becomes more easily discerned as children age and enter elementary school and more is expected of them. Is your child’s aggressive behavior, or high levels of activity, anxiety, or depression getting in the way of routine activities such as going to school, completing homework, participating in extracurricular activities, and getting along with peers? If yes, it would be wise to seek professional help. A second guideline is to consider whether the child is of any danger, or is there any risk of danger. Is the child’s behavior any danger to himself or to others? Some things to look out for are, repeatedly being aggressive with a sibling or cruel to a pet, playing with matches and setting fires, making threats to kill classmates or teachers, self-mutilation, and thoughts of suicide. The key is to evaluate how harmful the actions are. Threats should be addressed as soon as possible. For other potentially harmful behaviors, the pattern and consistency are cause for alarm. For example, hurting a sibling by accident and fighting with a bully, might not be signs of an enduring psychological issue that needs treatment. If any of these things occur regularly, you should seek professional help. Threats of danger to others now are more of a concern than ever before. Children may make comments that they will kill the teacher or a peer at school. In light of school shootings and other kinds of catastrophes. These oftenly took to a course of action on the schools and refer the child to juvenile mental health services. That is, threats are viewed as signs of danger. Here too, when in doubt, get a professional opinion. A third guideline is to look for unusual, or questionable behaviors and signs that raise questions. Does your child or adolescent engage in endless, repetitive behaviors with toys or objects for hours on end? Do they see things that aren’t there or believe that some spirit is controlling their minds or hearing voices that tell them to do dangerous or harmful things? Many of these behaviors seem to be qualitatively different and clear departures from what one usually sees in the developing child. Are any of these behaviors there? If so they probably want professional help. But, here we have to factor in age. A five year old muttering to himself, and two or three different voices, while playing with soldiers or toy hospital workers is quite normal. Much of early childhood and normal development includes, imaginary play, imaginary friends, dialogues between stuffed animals, and just plain talking to oneself, sometimes in different voices. However, a 12 year old sitting in the same place by herself, muttering in different voices, bears closer attention, especially if it happens more than once. There may be other behaviors that you should worry about such as not making eye contact with you, pushing you away when you are just trying to hold your child and avoiding other children. Trust any suspicions you might have and get an evaluation. A fourth guideline for whether to consider seeking help, is to look for a stark change in behavior. A significant change may occur in any area of life. Look for changes in relation to what your child or adolescent is usually like. Your child will set the benchmark for what is normal for them. So, a sudden and sustained deviation from their normal pattern may be cause for concern. And abrupt change may show up in school performance from doing fine or adequately, to doing very poorly. Struggling with a difficult subject matter or failing one test, are not reasons to seek an opinion from a mental health professional. But if there is a drastic change across all subjects, rather suddenly, then you may want to seek guidance. Other changes in patterns can involve eating or sleeping, or signs of anxiety that weren’t there before. Be alert to a change of behavior that goes on for more than a day or two. And that cannot be explained easily by some event you know about. A fifth guideline is to look for signs of distress. Is your child showing signs of stress that coincide with exposure to some event or stressor? There are two separate considerations here. First, what is going on in the child’s life. And second, what are the child’s reactions to those events. As for what is going on, many events can lead to signs of distress. Prominent examples of stressful events for the child are; a loss of a parent, parent’s separation and divorce, moving to another city, starting a new school and change in the family in some significant way, and of course, natural disasters like hurricanes and floods that lead to a change in living conditions. With any of these, the child may show psychological problems that are marked, but temporary, lasting perhaps up to a few months. These are often referred to as problems of adjustment, and usually pass with time. You probably can tell these reactions by knowing the event and your child. The decision to seek help pertains to the child’s reactions, and one of these reactions continue. Even temporary reaction that will pass, may deserve treatment if the child shows extreme distress. Sometimes it is difficult to tell if the child is having a difficult time. Parents and adults in general, are great at picking up conduct problems oppositional behavior and hyperactivity. But much less able to pick up depression, anxiety and withdrawal. And those may be the reactions to stress. Depression anxiety and withdrawal are more inward focused problems and do not usually result in conflicts or clashes with the environment. This makes them much less obvious than aggression related behaviors. As an example, many children are victims of bullying, either at school or cyber bullying online. Children are greatly distressed by this, yet most parents do not pick up that their child is a victim of bullying, unless there are start change in behavior like the child refused to go to school, or is unusually fearful. Here all you can do is to be sensitive to the signs of being distressed and look for a change from how the child usually is. The common signs of distress would be problems sleeping, nausea, headaches, nightmares, anxiety and more clinginess. Of course if you can discuss possible stresses directly with your child or adolescent, that would be great. Certainly try to get a better understanding of what is happening, and identify whether some action is required on your part in relation to the source of stress. The final guideline I want to mention is if you find the child unmanageable at home, or at school. By unmanageable, I mean all of the usual efforts aren’t working and the child or adolescent is now a bit out of control. He or she may be doing fine at school, but is uncontrollable at home. Perhaps, damaging things, threatening or harming siblings, or parents and completely running the house. Maybe your child has been so out of control that you have taken her to the emergency room, or called the police in a desperate effort to do something to help. You might be surprised at how often emergency room visits are made, and the police are called for unmanageable child behavior. I mentioned that the child may be doing fine at school, but is completely unmanageable at home. The reverse situation comes up too. The child may be doing well at home, but is completely out of control at school. The school will certainly let you know and often demand that the problem be addressed. That problem is likely to be hyperactivity, disruptive, or aggressive behavior, that the teacher sees as interfering with the rest of the class. In addition to not being readily controllable. In any case being out of control and unmanageable, will be good grounds for seeking help. Let me summarize what I have covered. I provided six guidelines to help decide whether seeking professional help for your child is appropriate. Sometimes, they can be difficult to identify, because there is no clear line between temporary behavior and something more enduring. For example, if your child has a nightmare too, or feel stressed or moody for a couple of days, you probably do not need to seek any outside help. Other behaviors and activities such as self injury, and threats to kill oneself or others require immediate attention. These varying criteria for how long should one wait before seeking help introduce doubts about when to contact a professional. Add to that the fact that children and adolescents are changing pretty drastically, as part of normal development. With changes going on, it is more difficult to tell if the problems are something to wait out or to react to. When in doubt, consider erring on the side of seeking help or at least an evaluation, to see if your concerns want intervention. More often than that, people delay way too long before getting into treatment. Needless to say, it is important to protect your child and perhaps others as well, and to get her back on track in everyday life as quickly as possible. The default position for many people is just letting things go with the hope that they’ll get better. I encourage you to avoid waiting to get out and get the problem checked out to see what if anything is needed. In a separate lesson, I discussed the topic of getting professional help, what to look for and key questions to ask to be sure you are getting the best treatment.

0:00

In a separate lesson, I discuss several criteria to help decide whether any problems your child or adolescent may be having are just temporary and part of normal development. Or whether the behavior is extreme and it is appropriate to seek professional help.

0:17

In this lesson I focus on key steps for getting that professional help. So being with the premise that you are concerned that your child may have a problem based on the criteria I outlined in that separate lesson.

0:31

There are two major components of getting help for your child. Evaluation and treatment. Evaluation is when a mental health professional interviews a child and parent in order to assess whether there’s any need or concern and to make psychiatric diagnosis. You see that would be a psychologist or a child psychiatric.

0:54

Just an informal chat with your child usually is not enough for a careful evaluation. There are standard systematic interviews devised just for these purposes.

1:04

During the interview you will be asked about different areas of the child’s life and here are some of the topics to be prepared for.

1:12

First, you’ll be asked what specific symptoms the child may be experiencing. What are the behaviors, or other aspects of functioning, that are of concern to you? Are there unusual behaviors, thoughts, extremes of emotions, or anything related that may be of concern?

1:30

Second, you will be asked how the child functions in every day life. Here, you might be asked about impairment but also about many positive features too, such as the child’s activities, friends and any hobbies. Three, you are likely to be ask about the current family situation in any past or present issues that might be relevant. This might be simple details like how many adults and children are in the home. But also if there’s anyone receiving treatment or experiencing problems that might be influencing the child.

2:03

Four, you’ll be asked about whether there are other potentials stressful events in the child’s life. These might include death of a family, separation or divorce, moving to another school or city. Or any change in the family in some significant way.

2:19

Any one of these can lead to psychological problems that are marked but temporary. These are often referred to as problems of adjustment and usually pass. But the interviewer is going to want to ask you about these.

2:32

In addition to these questions there might be a physical health exam and perhaps laboratory test if something medical might be involved.

2:40

Evaluation is designed to give a broad picture of how the child is doing in a systematic way. This picture will include whether the child has symptoms of one or more mental disorders, and with that, whether there is a need to intervene.

2:54

Treatment is the second facet of getting help for your child. Many parents expect that once a diagnosis is reached a clear treatment will follow. Sometimes that is true. For example, for hyperactivity referred to formerly as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder various medication have been shown to reduce and control the symptoms. Some psychological techniques including parenting tools we have discussed in these videos have also been shown to help very well.

3:25

For autism spectrum disorder, psychological achievement based on behavior change tools that we have discussed remain the main treatment that is used. But they are applied very intensively and under direct care of a professional, specially trained in these techniques. Even so, getting a diagnosis from an evaluation is not automatically clarify what treatment is provided.

3:46

There are effective treatments for many psychological problems and hence there is room for hope that changes can be made in what your child is experiencing.

3:55

A key question is where to turn to get the treatment your child might need.

4:01

First, go to reliable sources for information. Be very skeptical of what you might find on the Internet. Just a web search based on the problem you believe your child has will generate all sorts of treatment options without telling which are fads, which are known not to work and which ones are effective. This is very much like fad diets. The number of diets on the web without any evidence outnumber those which are known to make a difference. It is easy to get swept up in a simple solution for a psychological problem. Some vitamin, some vegetable, some preservative in the food. All these treatments are allocated for child psychiatric problems. I wish it were that simple.

4:42

Go to a source that is based on the US Government Evaluation of Treatment or from a professional organization that focuses on mental health and considers the research on effective treatments.

4:54

You can ask and search these websites to find out about effective treatments. There are others too, but this is a great place to start. To find a source for help, there are several options. These include local mental health services in your city. And you can search the psychological association in your state, which lists psychologists in your area. In the United States, in Canada, most states, provinces, and territories have psychological associations that help find someone who provides treatment. Organizations for child psychiatry and for social work provide similar kinds of resources. The second thing that you can do is to be prepared with relevant questions as you get close to starting treatment. At the very basic level, you’ll want to ensure the professional you go to is credentialed and licensed by the state or province in which he or she practices. Beyond that, here are some questions worth asking.

5:51

First, what is the treatment that the professional will provide for your child’s problems?

5:57

Second, ask how long the professional has been providing that treatment.

6:03

Third, ask whether the treatment has scientific evidence in it’s favor. Be careful here, I’ll return to that in just a moment. Four, ask what other treatment options there might be for your child.

6:18

You want to be sure to ask careful questions about the treatment.

6:22

Many treatments that are available have strong evidence about their effectiveness but you may not be getting that. You cannot be guaranteed at all that the person you are seeing is using the latest and most effective treatments. For example, problems seen in childhood may include depression, anxiety, disruptive behavior or extremes of aggression and oppositional behavior. There are now very effective treatments for these problems. Some medications are available too, but they are not usually appropriate for aggression and oppositional behavior.

6:54

And for Autism Spectrum disorder, there are treatments with excellent evidence on their behalf. It is important to be sure you are getting the best treatment and these are not always routinely provided.

7:06

It is good to be a critical consumer of mental health services. It is much easier to be a critical consumer when buying a washing machine, a car, or a house, or by skimming a few hundred reviews online for some product you may want to buy. In terms of mental health services, it is much harder to get that information from a reliable source. That is why the questions you ask are so important.

7:31

Also it is wise for most mental and physical health procedures if they are major to get a second opinion.

7:40

So let me summarize my comments about treatment. Most children and adolescents may not need professional help at all. Even if they do require professional help, treatment may only be on a temporary basis to get them past or through a problem. This is of course, dependent on the nature and severity of the problem that they might have.

8:01

In the event that treatment is needed, there are many treatments that have been studied and shown to be effective. These are usually referred to as evidence-based treatments. If your child is having a problem, it is important to ensure your child, and for that matter anyone in your family, is receiving one of those treatments.

8:21

My comments in this lesson on treatments and in the prior one on when to seek professional help are general guides and are no substitute for seeking a professional opinion and in person evaluation of your child. When in doubt, seek that option and get an evaluation.

8:40

There’s much that can be done to help your child and make child and family life easier when professional help is needed.

0:00

So, we have finished all of our lessons on parenting techniques.

0:05

You’ve made it to the end of the course. Congratulations. That’s it, you’re all done. Well, actually, I’m just kidding. Although finishing this course is a large step in the right direction, throughout the lectures I have emphasized the importance of practice. And I would like to end on that note.

0:22

You may now be saying to yourself, I know how to use praise, that special technique. And I know how to use the other techniques. But remember, this is pretty much like saying, I know how to exercise. Knowing is not the same as doing, and even doing is not the same as doing something well or correctly. And so practice is the key, and practice using the tools in the special ways we have discussed. When you practice applying the techniques you’ve learned in the home, you will be surprised at how well these tools work in comparison to what we normally do as parents. Remind, nag, yell, and punish.

1:00

I’m going to leave you with some additional sources that will help you brush up on these techniques, and find more examples of what to do in many situations. These sources are very useful, but I also encourage you to come back to this course and re-watch these lectures as needed. And also, ask questions and share tips and techniques you’ve found useful with your fellow parents in the discussion forums.

1:25

Lastly, I’d like to say that I’ve really enjoyed creating these lectures, and have great hopes for your success in applying the techniques. At the Yale Parenting Center, we focus on one family at a time. But with the help of the Internet, we can reach many families at once. I made this course with the idea of supporting a large number of parents, who would like some help with the normal everyday challenges of parenting. And I hope that’s what we have accomplished. Thank you so much for joining me. And I wish the best of luck to all of you and your families.

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