There have been many volumes written about behavior modification. Let me add my views on the subject. I want to talk about behavior modification from a common-sense point of view without all the technical language and theories. I will give you the basic principle of behavior modification and ten rules in applying it.

It is very helpful to have an understanding of the principles of behavior modification if you want to do a good job of guiding children. First, we need to cast away an idea many have worried about. There has been considerable controversy about behavior modifiers having the right to decide the lives of other people. Many feel only God has that right. Behavior modifiers are not gods even though they take on the responsibility of deciding how another person should be. Nevertheless, I believe you do have the right to decide some things for other people--you even have the responsibility in many cases.

As a matter of fact, you can't help it. It is not possible to live in this world with other people without using behavior modification whether you like it or not. Any time you are interacting with another person you are using behavior modification. For example, if you are having a conversation with someone, the way you respond to what the other person is saying will influence how she says it and whether she will keep on with the conversation. If you look away, and pay attention to something other than the conversation, you will find the other person will soon stop talking to you. If she is a bore or something else that would make you want to end the conversation, you could speed it along that way. Of course, you will be rude to do such a thing, but you may decide it is worth it.

If you respond to the famous "Why?" question children seem to ask over and over again, you will find the "Why's" keep on coming. You will find those questions aren't a way of finding out information, but rather are a way of keeping the interpersonal interaction going. Children like that. If you ignore the "Why?" you will find the child will soon stop. Another thing children are famous for is the question "Whatcha doing?" Have you ever noticed no answer seems to be satisfactory and your answer soon leads to another question? The way you answer or don't answer will be modifying the child's behavior one way or another.

If you want the interactions to go your way, you can apply some of the following principles and have a more pleasant time. After all, what's wrong with your modifying a child's behavior to give yourself some peace? I remember a small steak house where my wife and I used to like to eat. One day, there was a change in management and things changed at one of our favorite eating places. The new owners were a man and wife team who brought their small son to work and that's where he spent his day instead of at a day care center. This small boy was about four or five years old and he entertained himself by visiting with the customers while they were eating.

Now, unless you are the kind of person who loves children so much you can't get enough of them, you might find this annoying. He would go from booth to booth and visit, entertain, be cute, and generally monopolize the situation. All the customers except us just went along and pretended to smile while it was going on. I decided I came there to have a nice steak dinner and didn't want to provide baby-sitting services while doing so.

I explained some of the behavior modification principles to my wife and we applied them whenever he came to our booth. We found it was extremely easy to modify his behavior to the extent that he never came to entertain us after the first few times. We did this without being mean, cruel, or anything like that. All we had to do was ignore him when he approached out booth. That is, we didn't reward him with our attention. We had a nice steak dinner and peace at the same time. I can't say that for the others who were eating there. I am afraid the business dropped off considerably after the new owners took over, and the business finally folded. I hated to see it because the food was very good.

When you answer the telephone and there is a telemarketing salesman on the line, you will be modifying that person's behavior by the way you respond to the statements and questions he puts to you. Of course, that person is paid to keep doing the same thing over and over again and is probably reading from a script or has one memorized and you won't teach him to be different on his next call. You can influence him on this call, however. If you politely respond to his questions, he will go on to the end of his script and maybe even sell you something you don't want. If you firmly say "No" to his requests for you to buy, donate, agree, or whatever he is trying to talk you into doing, he will soon give up and stop.

In short, any way you respond to any other person will modify that person's behavior in the future. It may be an insignificant modification and may not last long, but you will be modifying the behavior.

Since it is going to happen anyway, it makes sense to try to do a good job of the process rather than just blunder away. Let's examine the basic principle of behavior modification and then look at the rules for applying the principle in a way to achieve the desired results.

The basic principle of behavior modification can be summed up in one short sentence:

A short sentence, but a very powerful one. This is a fact; it is not merely a belief. Consequences are those things that happen following the behavior. Note that these things need have nothing to do with the behavior. They merely need to follow the behavior in a reasonably short time. Since all behavior has consequences, all behavior is under the influence of something. The real problem is in arranging that influence wisely.

If you want to modify the behavior of your child, you need to work on controlling the consequences rather than the behavior. All too often, we adults try to control the child's behavior directly through commands, manipulation, lectures, and other ineffective ways. If you are going to work on the consequences, you need to know something about how it works. That is what this chapter is all about.

Before we get too far into this, let's be sure you understand modifying behavior means increasing desirable behaviors as well as decreasing undesirable behaviors. I'm afraid too often people think only of the best punishment to stop bad behaviors and don't think about enhancing the tendencies to good behaviors.

This is probably the most important concept of all. Both you and your child will gain from this. You will be getting the desired behavior from your child, and at the same time he will be getting something he wants. Everyone wins in this situation.

If a child will not do something as much as you would like (cleaning his room, for example), it means he is not getting enough reward as a result of doing that thing to offset the work or aversiveness of doing it. The solution is to gain control of the consequences or to initiate some consequences that will be rewarding.

Let's be sure to discriminate between "bribes" and "rewards." My definition of a bribe is something that you promise ahead of time that you will deliver provided your child does what you want. A reward is something that happens after the child does something. I do not believe in bribes for the simple reason they don't work. You may find your child will do something you want if you promise a reward, but the thing that controls the behavior is the presentation of the reward after the desired behavior occurs--not the promise.

What are some effective rewards? First let me say I put approval and attention at the top of the list, and money at the very bottom. A reward for finishing a job, in addition to approval and thanks, can be time for the child to stop and do something he wants to do. This can be such things as playing, reading, or watching television without interference. Or it could be an activity with a family member. This could be an activity as small as sharing a cold drink or as big as a shopping trip or a movie. Or it could be an item he has been wanting.

Here I must say something about which I feel strongly. Do not give your child everything he wants. I'm sure you have known children who were given everything they wanted, sometimes even before they knew they wanted it. Parents who do this rob their child of something wonderful--a sense of anticipation, of wishing for something, planning for it, hoping for it, and sometimes eventually getting it as a result of something he did. There are no rewards for the child who is given everything. He always wants more, but is never satisfied for long after getting it.

I know homework is the responsibility of the child but sometimes we can help it along. My own son was notorious for stalling around and not doing his homework when in grade school. I reasoned if there was some way we could increase the time spent at his desk doing homework, he might even get some of it done. In short, I wanted to reward him for spending time at his desk doing homework without nagging or ordering him to do it. We had already tried that and it didn't work.

My wife and I put our heads together to find a suitable reward. It so happened our son was a Dr. Pepper-and-peanuts freak at that time. He loved Dr. Pepper and peanuts. Whenever we found him at his desk doing his homework, we silently opened a Dr. Pepper and got a dish with some peanuts and placed them beside his books on the desk. He was astonished at first, but very pleased. We said nothing at all--we merely placed the goodies on his desk and left his room. That was all we did.

It worked! He started spending more time at his desk and somehow spent some of the time on homework. He made it all the way through college and is quite a successful young man if I do say so myself.

If a child keeps on doing something you want him to stop, it means something is rewarding his behavior and if you want him to stop it, you must stop the rewarding consequences. You may not know what it is, but you can be assured it is happening.

This may not be as easy as it sounds. Often, it is very difficult to determine what is rewarding the undesirable behavior. There is an old saying: "One man's meat is another man's poison." This is very true when it comes to children. You may be surprised at what rewards a child. The feeling of a warm, wet bed can be a reward for bedwetting for some children. The smell of a skunk is nostalgic to a farm boy. A beating may say to a child "At least, I think enough of you to beat you."

One of the problems in working with the idea of reward is in the fact there are many things that are rewarding that wouldn't seem to be rewarding. You wouldn't think stuffing grass into your ears would be rewarding; however, there was a little boy at an institution where I once worked who did. My work with this boy is also an example of rewarding behavior that competes with the behavior you are trying to eliminate. When I first saw him he was wearing a straight jacket. It seems when he could get his hands free, he would stuff grass into his ears. The staff was afraid he would damage his ears so he had to wear a straight jacket all the time. When he couldn't get grass, he would stuff anything he could get into his ears. Remember, I said rewards are not always what you think they are. This kind of reward is pretty hard to stop because the reward was in the feeling he received when he stuffed the grass into his ears. I never understood what was so great about that, but he liked it.

His poor little hands were withering and practically useless because he never got to use them. Someone fed him and took him to the potty so he really never got out of the straight jacket. This was too much for me, so I gave myself the project of getting that kid out of the straight jacket.

I found he was an extremely affectionate, lovable child and was a joy to spend time with. I took off his straight jacket and started rewarding him with my attention for alternate behaviors which competed with stuffing grass in his ears. If he tried to stuff something in his ears, I prevented him from doing it and at the same time gave him a lot of attention and affection when he was not stuffing grass.

It was not long before he was spending most of his time out of the straight jacket. He still had a lot to learn about how to use his hands normally, but he was able to do it. I am so glad this story had a happy ending. It is just another example of how rewards may not be what they seem and how there is usually a way to do something about it.

Once you have identified the thing most likely providing the reward, your job then is to prevent it from happening when the child does the undesirable behavior. Dentists have constructed a device which prevents the sensation of suction that comes from thumb sucking. This is one way that has been tried to prevent thumb sucking. Removing the sensation of sucking theoretically removes the reward for thumb sucking. I'm not so sure of this method because I believe thumb sucking to be more complex than that. I think in this case several rewards are taking place at the same time and sucking is not the only one or even the main one.

There will be times when you can't be sure which of alternative possibilities is providing the reward. Some of those times there could even be serious consequences for guessing incorrectly. I have a friend who used to be a second-grade teacher before she retired. She told me of a child she once had in her classroom who had a reputation for banging his head against the wall. Naturally, this created quite a problem because an adult usually feels she just can't allow a child to do something that is potentially damaging to himself. Since she was forewarned about his behavior before he came into her classroom at the beginning of the school year, she already had a plan about what to do.

Her reasoning was he was being rewarded by a lot of attention and by getting his way when something wasn't how he wanted it. Sure enough, shortly after the beginning of the first semester she did something he didn't like and he started banging his head against the wall. She calmly ignored it. He banged his head again, and she continued to ignore it. Soon, one of the other children came to her and told her this boy was banging his head. The child was very concerned about him. The teacher merely told the child quietly it was okay and not to say anything about it. In other words, this teacher was not rewarding this boy for banging his head by her attention and by letting him have his own way.

She told me he soon stopped banging his head and went on about the business of the class at the time. She said he tried this maneuver one more time after that and then didn't do it again as long as she had him in her classroom. She didn't know if he continued doing this with other people, but she had at least stopped it in her classroom. It is quite likely other people will continue to reward him by giving him what he wants and by a lot of attention when he bangs his head, and this will perpetuate the problem. That is unfortunate, but you can do your bit to stop the maladaptive behavior and feel you have done the best you could.

A problem with self-destructive behavior such as head banging is sometimes the reward comes from the stimulus of the pain involved in the process. Usually, this will be true only with children who are emotionally disturbed, brain damaged, or very retarded; however, you can't always be sure. When the reward is in the pain, you can't stop the behavior by ignoring it. This kind of problem is much more serious, and will probably require an expert to help work out a plan to eliminate the behavior. Usually, such a plan will involve punishing the behavior. I'm not going to go into methods for doing this because this is really a job for the experts and you shouldn't be trying the simple approach of this book in dealing with this kind of problem. Usually, it won't be at all difficult to determine that the head banging or other self-destructive behavior is manipulative and then the principles outlined in this book will help.

Sometimes, removing the reward is very difficult. When I first went to work at the institution mentioned previously, I was warned about one of the small boys on the ward. I was told to "watch out for Tommy." It seems Tommy (not his real name) was a mentally-retarded boy who had a reputation for kicking people. He would catch you not looking and sneak up and give you a good kick on the leg. This was pretty painful for the recipient of the kick and would generally elicit a yell and a lot of negative attention for little Tommy. He would grin with delight whenever he could get this kind of thing going.

Everyone had learned to avoid Tommy like the plague. Poor little Tommy wanted desperately to have a relationship with other people, but the only thing he knew to do was to kick them. Of course this set up a vicious circle where the more he kicked people, the more they would avoid him. The more they avoided him, the harder he had to try to get their attention.

The obvious thing to do would be to ignore the kick and not respond to it. I think that would be asking too much of anyone, however. I was the recipient of some of his kicks and they were extremely hard to ignore. This is an example of times when you will find it impractical to ignore the behavior to stop the reward. Some other way would have to be found. In addition to ignoring the kicks (assuming it could be done) Tommy needed a lot of personal attention when he was not kicking someone. Personal attention when he wasn't kicking people was possible; however, he rarely was around someone when he wasn't kicking.

What was really needed was rewards for any behavior other than when he kicked someone. Psychologists call this differential reinforcement of other behavior. This means whatever Tommy did, he should be rewarded unless it was a kick. If he kicked someone, it should have never been rewarded. I know this would be a difficult thing to do because as I said before, it would be practically impossible to ignore being kicked. It would be worth a try, however, because even though it would be difficult, some success might be obtained. After some success, it should get a little easier to avoid the kicks and provide a lot of attention while he wasn't kicking. This is because as he was rewarded for other behavior, he would tend to do that other behavior more and probably do the kicking less.

The general idea is to extinguish the behavior in question by no longer fueling it and if possible to reward competing behaviors. Notice how I worked the psychologist's technical term extinction into this. Even though I promised I would try to avoid technical terms, sometimes they have become adopted into the general vocabulary so they are no longer technical. The definition of extinction is "removing the rewards following the behavior in question."

This leads us to the third rule, which is:

Now that I have made a case for working on your children's behavior using reward as the main method, I will give you an idea of where punishment fits into this picture. The rule says punishment is the least effective way of controlling behavior. That isn't completely accurate. Actually, punishment can be very effective in controlling behavior. The trouble is it is extremely difficult to use punishment correctly, so it is most often ineffective and can cause many undesirable side effects.

I want to be sure you understand punishment does not necessarily mean physical punishment. There are emotional events that are even more unpleasant than painful physical events. To a child, it may be more punishing to see a disapproving look on your face than a spanking would be. So many of the adults I see in my practice suffered much more as children having their parents disapprove of them. These adults seem to agree a spanking would have been a lot better.

I know a lady who was severely abused by her father as a child. In addition to beatings, she also saw the look on his face which told her he thought she had no value to him. To her, the severe beatings did not matter as much as the look of dislike for her he had on his face. She felt if only her father had loved her, the beatings would not have been so bad.

I want to make it clear I do not feel either beatings or emotional abuse are appropriate ways of punishing behavior. They will help prevent the behavior from occurring in your presence, but not necessarily away from it. In addition, these severe forms of punishment psychologically damage a child. This is a certainty. Don't think you can do it "just this time" and it won't have a lasting effect. If it is only this time, the effect won't be as severe as if it continues to happen, but there will be an effect.

The difference between punishment and torture is a very fine line. If punishment is not applied properly, it is torture rather than punishment. I define "torture" as inflicting pain or discomfort upon someone in order to hurt him. Punishment is a positive attempt to control behavior, hopefully for the good of the recipient. The lady mentioned above was tortured both physically and emotionally by her father and it has had a lasting effect on her.

Some of the undesirable side effects of punishment are in the effect it has on the relationships of the parties involved. The parent feels hostile toward the child and the child feels hostile and afraid of the parent. Children often learn to be hostile, aggressive and violent people by modeling their parent's punishing behavior.

The role of punishment is the same as extinction. It is a positive way of eliminating undesirable behavior. For it to be effective it must be done properly, and that is not easy to do. There are several factors that must be controlled for punishment to work, otherwise it will be torture. If you want to torture your child, this book is definitely not for you.

The only reason to use punishment is when it is impossible or extremely difficult to control the consequences that occur as a result of the behavior. Since there will be times punishment is the only means available to control behavior, I will give you some ideas and warnings about how to use punishment effectively in Rule 4.

The most important factor is for punishment to be effective, the punishing event must immediately follow the behavior to be eliminated. The longer the time interval, the less effective will be the punishment. Ideally, the most effective interval is one-half of a second. I know this does not seem to be practical, but it can be a guideline. Waiting until father gets home is much too long. If you wait too long, the punishment will not only be ineffective, but the thing that is happening just before the punishing event will be the main thing that is punished.

The intensity of the punishing event is also a powerful factor. A mild slap on the wrist is not as effective a punisher as is a sharp slap to the derrière. A stern look on the face accompanied by the word "NO!" spoken in a loud voice may be a more intense punisher than a physical blow. The intensity and the character of the punishing event will vary from child to child. One child may be immune to spankings, but be sensitive to emotional disapproval. Another child may have just the opposite response.

One of the main reasons I don't like the use of punishment is it is a fact of life that the more it hurts, physically or emotionally, the more effective it is. I certainly hope no one will take this to mean I endorse hurting kids. This factor is the one many parents do not use effectively, and that is one of the main reasons I normally do not advocate the use of punishment to modify behavior. I see many people who were emotionally damaged by the method of punishment used when they were young.

Adaptation to the punishing event takes place quickly, so another factor is novelty of the punishment. If you use exactly the same punishment over and over, it loses its effectiveness. If you consistently punish by telling your child how disappointed you are in him, the child will eventually get so used to that message he will no longer pay direct attention to it. I am afraid, however, he will incorporate that message into his personality and feel more and more like a worthless person.

I am sure most everyone has observed a child looking at the floor and looking contrite while tuning out a lecture being administered by a disapproving parent. Children have a great ability to filter the messages they get from adults. After the first few times, they filter everything so they just get it over with and don't have to pay any attention in the process. They have learned that looking contrite prevents other aversive things from happening, such as finger pointing, shaking, or even slaps for not paying attention.

If you really want to be effective in stopping some behavior by using punishment you need to reward an alternative behavior as well as punish the offending behavior. This does not mean distraction. I don't think the typical practice of distracting a child from some behavior has any value in teaching the child to stop doing the behavior in the future. It only stops it now. When you punish a behavior and at the same time reward some competing behavior, and do it consistently, you are more likely to get lasting results.

This brings up the last factor I want to mention: consistency. You must be consistent in all these procedures for them to be effective. By consistency I mean do not punish for some behavior one time and accept that same behavior another time. This is different than the idea of using novel punishers, which makes punishment more effective. The child will not learn if you punish, reward, or ignore the same behavior at different times. As a matter of fact, the child will learn to be suspicious, wary, and generally afraid if there is no way he can predict what behavior will result in which consequence. A mother who will scream at a child for doing something one time and smile at him for the same behavior another time, is giving him a very confusing message.

The use of punishment to change behavior is very tricky and difficult to use effectively. And, don't forget, punishment does not necessarily mean inflicting pain on someone. It also includes anything the person finds aversive or unpleasant. The only time I believe in using punishment to change behavior is when there is no other alternative. Then, do it well using the information in the preceding paragraphs.

At one institution where I worked for a short time, there was a mentally-retarded boy of about six or seven years of age. This boy also had some pretty severe physical handicaps. In fact, about all he could do was to lie in his bed and move his facial muscles and some limited movement of his hands. All he had to do all day long was to lie there, and lie there...

This sounds pretty awful and it probably was. The little boy couldn't speak, however, so he couldn't tell us about it. He did seem to delight in someone visiting him and just talking or touching him. Since the staff had limited time, and there was no hope for his recovery, he was basically ignored.

When you have nothing to do all day but lie there, you want pretty badly for something to happen. This boy found if he bit his lower lip, he could feel something and it must have been better than just lying there because he started doing it a lot. I think he bit his lower lip because he wanted to feel something. Even that something was better than nothing. He received a reward by the pain when he bit his lip. You wouldn't expect pain of this sort would be rewarding, but the staff couldn't stop him from biting his lip. He was biting it so much he was doing severe damage to his lip-biting through it in many places.

The staff called in the psychologists and they decided there was no way to stop the reward he received from biting his lip. The only alternative available was to use punishment to stop the mutilation. This seemed better than seeing what he was doing to his lip.

In that institution, all treatments of patients had to be approved by certain authorities. The psychologists proposed using a mild electrical shock paired with times when he bit his lip to punish the behavior in hopes it would stop. There is every indication this procedure would have worked very well because this type of punishment has worked well in the past and also in experimental situations.

Unfortunately, the idea of shocking a child was too much for the authorities, so the proposal was rejected. I have never liked the use of punishment of this sort, but it seemed to be about the only way. The medical staff did find a solution, however. They pulled all his teeth! He never bit his lip again. My heart still cries for this little boy.

A solid definition of punishment seems to be in order here. Punishment is the presentation of something bad or the removal of something good immediately following the behavior to be changed. The purpose of punishment is to reduce the occurrence of some undesired behavior.

Notice punishment is never used to get a person to want to do something. The person may want to avoid the punishment enough to do it under threat, but this is never something the person learns to want to do. Little Johnny may learn to fear his father so much he will keep his room clean to avoid his father's rage. This doesn't mean Johnny wants to keep his room clean. It means he is afraid of the punishment he will receive if he doesn't keep his room clean--not because he takes pride in a clean room. I think most parents would prefer their children did responsible things because they had learned to be responsible people and not because they are terrified of the results that come with not being responsible.

Punishment should be the last resort in changing behavior not only because is means being unkind to the child but also because it is not as easy to use effectively as extinction. Let's distinguish extinction from punishment. Extinction is the process of stopping the rewarding consequences following some behavior. Punishment is the process of delivering an aversive event following some behavior. If at all possible, the best way is to find out what is rewarding the behavior and prevent it from happening, that is, to extinguish behavior rather than to punish it.

One concept of behavior modification that is widely misused is that of negative reinforcement. I am trying to use ordinary words in talking about behavior modification, but some of the technical words have become commonplace through popular usage. Negative reinforcement is often misused as a synonym for punishment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Negative reinforcement is something good--not something bad. Punishment is something bad.

Negative reinforcement can be defined as the removal of an aversive stimulus. See, that is good. If you are hitting yourself on the toe with a hammer and you stop doing it, the stopping of the pain is a negative reinforcer. The technical term "reinforcement" can be replaced with the ordinary word "reward." Punishment would be hitting yourself on the toe with a hammer. This is an important distinction. Negative reinforcement is a very handy concept when you are dealing with children's behavior.

Now, let's put it in a nutshell. Reinforcement (reward) is the presentation of something good or the removal of something bad. Punishment is just the opposite. It is the presentation of something bad or the removal of something good. Therefore, reinforcement is always good and punishment is always bad from the standpoint of the person on the receiving end.

When you have control of the reward system you have control of behavior. This isn't as easy as it sounds. The rewards are often very hard to identify and even when identified they are sometimes hard or impossible to control.

The main problem people have with this system is in realizing things which seem to be a punisher can, in reality, be rewards even though they don't seem like a reward. For example, children will sometimes work very hard to get a spanking. Who would think a spanking could be a reward? If you think about it, you will realize things do not happen in isolation. Other things happen along with them. When a child is getting a spanking, he is also getting attention. The attention may be aversive, but it is attention. This is one of the most powerful rewards for a child.

This complicates matters. You can't do anything with or to a child without providing attention. Sometimes you need to change the kind of attention because it is the reward for the bad behaviors.

No matter how hard you try, there will be times when you have to use some kind of punishment. A punishment can consist of nothing more than a sharp "NO!" if delivered at the right time. A very short, but stern, lecture registering disapproval can be an effective punisher. I want to emphasize the word "short" in this case. It is of little or no value to deliver a long, involved explanation or tirade about what is wrong with the child or his behavior. The message is in the delivery rather than in the message.

Grounding or depriving the child of certain activities can be used, but you must be careful not to make the deprivation period so long the child forgets what it is for. Use of a valued item, like the telephone or the car, can be taken away for certain periods. When using deprivation as a punisher, it is better if the item taken away can have some relation to the offense. For example, if a child consistently disobeys rules for using the telephone, taking away telephone privileges seems more appropriate than taking away television privileges.

Now for Rule 5 which should help prepare you for what happens when you apply some of these rules.

If you think about it, you can probably understand the common sense of this rule. If something that has always worked suddenly stops working, the natural tendency is to try harder to make it work again. After all, it was rewarding so you would want to get some more of it. Take heart. I used the word "temporarily" at the end of the rule. If you have removed the reward, the behavior will stop. You just need patience and courage. If the behavior does not first get worse and then start getting better very soon, you have missed in identifying the rewards involved. That is time to re-examine the situation.

This has been called the behavior modifier's cop-out! If the technique isn't working it is because you aren't doing it right. It may be a cop-out, but it is also true. The concept is simple, but the application is fraught with hazards all along the way.

I'll never forget a child I worked with many years ago. This child was referred to the clinic where I was working because he was such a behavior problem in school. By interviewing the parents I found the behaviors in question were primarily related to visits his mother made to the school. She was a volunteer at the school so she was there quite a lot. She also had a terrible time dropping him off at school in the morning. He would scream, cry and cling to her and the car every morning. His mother would scream, cry and push him away every morning. They created quite a scene and they both did this consistently.

Not only in the morning did this occur. Any time he saw her in the school, he would get all perturbed and agitated and make a scene. She would get involved with him in the same manner--getting all agitated herself trying to get him to quiet down. They were getting a reputation.

What was the undesirable behavior? What was the reward for that behavior? The undesirable behavior was obviously a variety of emotional outbursts whenever he was in the presence of his mother. The reward was his mother's emotional outbursts and attention. This may not sound like a reward, but her reactions were consistent and always followed his. This gave me a clue to the rewards.

I explained this to the mother and advised her to refrain from returning outburst for outburst. She was to smile and take the attitude it was no big deal he was acting up. When she left him off in the morning she was to not respond to his cries and not look back as she was leaving. This was to stop the reward for the child of her reactions to him.

She was expecting something more dramatic for such a bad problem; however, she was willing to try anything. The first few days things seemed to be getting worse. When she left him off at school, he would scream, cry, and actually try to climb on the car, then chase the car down the street as she was driving off.

Practically everyone in the school could hear what was happening. She was trying to follow my instructions so she still ignored this quietly rather than respond to it. She arranged with one of the teachers to keep him from getting hurt so she could ignore his chasing the car without worrying about his safety. Fortunately, there were some very helpful teachers at that school. Most of the teachers knew about our project and also wanted the problem solved.

She was doubtful and asked me if she should keep it up. I told her to be patient and keep doing what I had told her. She did and, wonder of wonders, in only a few days, he started leaving the car in the morning and entering the school like the other children. In the next few weeks he started behaving more like a regular child. He still tended to get agitated whenever he saw her but less than before. Sometimes he didn't even do anything out of the ordinary.

Not long after this I got the reputation of being "that wonderful doctor" because when she came to the clinic she sang my praises so highly. It was nice, but I didn't deserve it. She did all the work. I had the easy job. Her son soon became a regular kid without the label of "behavior problem."

This is an example of one of the problems that cause many people to quit too soon when trying to extinguish some undesirable behavior.

This is a good time for Rule 6.

This has to do with what psychologists call schedules of reinforcement. A fact of life is when rewards come intermittently the behavior is much harder to extinguish. This should also make sense. If you are not sure whether you will get the reward this time or some other time instead, you will tend to keep on trying to get it even though it doesn't work each time.

It has been said a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Here is the real danger. A conscientious parent, or teacher, will start trying to apply these principles and immediately the behavior gets worse (remember Rule 5). The faint-hearted sometimes weaken at this point and provide the reward if the behavior gets bad enough. Of course, this de-escalates the immediate behavior problem. After all, it worked didn't it? But look what has been done. The child now has to work harder (be a worse problem) to get the reward. Children learn fast so this will happen soon.

The worst of all is gradually to stretch the distance between rewards with the child getting worse right along with the stretching. If the rewards come only after every five tantrums, the child will be having a lot of tantrums and it will be much more difficult to change this behavior than if you hadn't done anything at all.

Most bad behavior is rewarded consistently every time it happens. This is the usual situation. Behavior that has been rewarded this consistently is the easiest to extinguish by withholding the reward. Yes, I said this is the easiest. If a child has been getting something consistently, it doesn't take him long to learn he isn't getting it any more. If he has been rewarded intermittently, he will have to keep trying longer before he catches on to the fact it has stopped.

Remember, the problem comes if you don't have the courage to keep the rewards away one hundred percent of the time. You must not weaken and give in "just this once."

Consider the mother with her child in the toy store. Mother buys the toy they came for, but the child also wants that expensive one. Mother says "no" and the child starts in with a real temper tantrum--right there in public with everyone watching. It takes a strong constitution to ignore this kind of behavior (ignore = not-reward). The usual case is for mother to give in "just this once" and start the stretching process. At this point, mother has just taught her child a temper tantrum is the price for the toy that is forbidden.

I am reminded of some research I heard of when I was a graduate student in psychology. It seems some psychologists were studying the schedules of reinforcement to see what the effect of various schedules would have on the ease of extinction. They used some poor monkeys for subjects of the experiment because they would always be there for their appointments unlike humans who usually are not there on time.

The psychologists built large boxes or cages which would hold one monkey each. The box was provided with a lever similar to that of a slot machine in Las Vegas. They arranged the lever mechanism so each time the monkey would pull down on the lever, it would deliver a single raisin in a hopper below the lever.

Now, monkeys like raisins and they learned quickly how to get as many as they wanted. All they had to do was to pull the lever and they got a raisin. No problem, so far. The sneaky psychologists, however, had other ideas. After the monkeys learned all about the raisin-dispensing power of the lever, the psychologists rigged the mechanism so it would start delivering a raisin only after an average of three pulls on the lever. The key issue here is the word average. This means maybe one time it would take two lever pulls and another time it might take five and another time only one. However, it delivered a raisin after an average of three pulls on the lever.

The monkeys soon learned the rules had changed and they kept pulling on that lever and eating their raisins--only now they were having to work three times harder for a raisin. This was a ratio of one raisin for three pulls on the lever on the average.

The psychologists then rigged the mechanism so it would deliver a raisin only after an average of five pulls on the lever. The monkeys soon figured this out and kept at it. Now they were working five times as hard for a raisin. They were now working on a ratio of one raisin to five lever pulls on the average. This means the actual ratio was variable because each time it took a different number of pulls on the lever to get one raisin although it still averaged out to five to one overall.

The psychologists kept doing this a little at a time. They were doing what is called "stretching the ratio." They kept stretching the ratio and stretching it and stretching it until finally the monkeys were pulling the levers an average of 25,000 times for one raisin. It seems no one in his right mind--including monkeys--would work that hard for one measly raisin. The monkeys would not have done it either if the psychologists had not gradually stretched the ratio.

Finally, the psychologists disconnected the raisin dispenser and no amount of pulling on the lever would produce a raisin. Do you think this deterred the monkeys? Not on your life. Those poor monkeys kept pulling the levers until they would become so exhausted they could not continue. They would rest or sleep and then immediately start pulling on those levers again. They would be there today if they were young enough and the psychologists had kept them in those boxes. Fortunately, they took them out and put them back into the regular monkey cages. I'm afraid they didn't return them to their real home, however.

This same thing can explain some things we see people do which do not make sense. Most people wonder why a woman will keep going back to a husband who keeps beating her. I have seen many such women in my psychological practice. What has happened to them is their husband has occasionally provided a kind, loving, sweet time with them for a little while. Those sweet times sometimes follow a beating as well. They seem even sweeter because of the contrast with his other behavior.

These women have been rewarded for getting a beating but they have also been rewarded on a continually stretching ratio. Before long, beatings come often and sweet times rarely happen--sometimes never again. These poor women keep waiting for the equivalent of the monkey's raisin that is not coming. I have found that explaining this situation to the women I have seen, and describing the monkey experiment has helped them stop their self-defeating behavior. When they find themselves waiting for another raisin, they remind themselves of the raisin experiment and it helps them stay away from the abusive situation rather than seeking it out as they did in the past.

Let this story have a moral for you. Whatever you do, don't put your child on a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement and then stretch it. This is the same thing that keeps gamblers losing their money in Las Vegas and it can keep your child in the temper-tantrum mode for life if you aren't careful.

Since extinction is the most effective way of eliminating behavior, it makes sense to use it as a first approach. If you want to make it even more effective, you need to add a reward for alternative behaviors as well as removing the reward for the undesired behaviors.

That all sounds fine, but how do we reward something that never happens in the first place? If Johnny never talks nice to his sister, how can we reward him for talking nice to his sister? There is a way. Now for rule number seven:

This involves a concept psychologists call "successive approximation" or "shaping." Through the proper use of reward, entirely new behaviors which a child has never done before can be taught to him.

The first step when you want to teach a child some new behavior he never or rarely does is to define the end, or goal, behavior you wish him to do. After you decide on the end behavior, the next step is to observe the child closely to determine some behavior he presently does that is related to the end behavior in some way. This is called the "initial response" in shaping behavior.

Unlike the end response which the child does not do, the initial response is something he already does with some frequency. In other words, the child must do the initial response often enough that you won't grow old waiting for it to occur so you can reward it.

Once you have identified the initial response, it is a matter of using anything that is a reward--your attention and approval is a nice one--and giving it to the child when he does the initial response. After that is well established, you start demanding a little more resemblance to the end behavior before rewarding the child's responses. A little later on, you start selectively rewarding behavior that is more likely to lead to the end behavior. Finally, you are rewarding only behaviors that are very similar and then identical to the end behavior desired.

This way when Johnny talks even a little bit nice to his sister we reward him. Then as that starts happening more often we expect a little nicer talk before we reward him. If all goes as expected Johnny will be talking nicer to his sister.

Suppose, however, there seems to be no way to get the child to do anything remotely resembling the end behavior desired. This sometimes happens and when it does, there are variations on the shaping process that can be used. You can actually move the child's body to get the response and then reward the behavior even though it was you who did it. For example, you can place Jimmy on the potty and then give him the praise. Soon, you will find Jimmy gets on the potty himself and you can then praise his own efforts.

But what do you do if you cannot get the child to make the desired behavior because you can't move his body for that particular kind of behavior? When this happens, you can teach the child to imitate you doing something you can get the child to do. Then you can chain the imitative behaviors together so they lead to the desired response or one close enough to be shaped.

Consider the case of a little girl who had absolutely no speech and made no vocal sounds at all. She was mentally retarded so the people around her really didn't expect anything from her anyway. A psychologist was consulted to see if he could teach this girl to do more than she was presently doing. The psychologist observed her for a while and decided behavior modification was the only hope, but shaping vocal responses would take forever.

He decided to teach the little girl to imitate him by shaping and rewarding her when she would do what he did. First he started by raising his hand and saying "do this." Of course, the girl did nothing. After trying this for a bit, the psychologist took her hand and raised it for her after he raised his and then praised her highly (as well as giving her something she liked to eat--he was using every type of reward he could).

He did this for a while and gradually gave her less and less help in raising her arm. All the while he rewarded her for raising her arm after he raised his arm. Finally, she would raise her arm without any help each time the psychologist raised his arm and said "do this." This has nothing to do with the end response which was for her to speak words. He did not reward her for raising her arm unless it was in imitation of him. He wanted to teach her to imitate--not to raise her arm. The psychologist was teaching her to imitate him with the goal of using imitative behavior to teach speech.

The psychologist could not assist her in speaking as he could in raising her arm. Because of this he taught her several things to imitate using the same methods. After she was successfully imitating him doing several different things and being rewarded, he started to teach her to chain the different things together. He would raise his arm and then tap his shoulder. The girl learned to do both things before getting a reward.

Next, the psychologist added a third thing to the chain. He raised his arm, tapped his shoulder, and slapped his knee. The little girl soon learned to do this. Then, he did all three things and looked at her and said "Ah!" The girl did all three things and stopped there. After several repetitions, she made some facial expressions which were a little bit in the right direction. The psychologist heaped on the praise.

You can see how he was teaching her to imitate him, then chaining imitative behaviors together, and then adding some behaviors that could then be shaped into vocalizations. This is not the kind of thing that is encountered very often and is usually seen only in places where children with severe psychological disturbances are located. But it makes a good example of how the ordinary concepts of behavior modification can be applied in a large variety of situations.

The little girl of this story actually did improve and learn to speak. Of course, this is a highly abbreviated account of a real psychologist's work with a real girl. The actual events and time involved were more complicated and lengthy. This story is presented here to show the wide applicability of shaping new responses or behavior.

Since behavior followed by a reward will happen more often, or behavior followed by a punishment will happen less often, it becomes necessary to define what is meant by "followed." Within a few seconds, many things can happen. Imagine how many things can happen within a few minutes or hours. It isn't going to do any good at all to wait until daddy gets home to deal with Johnny's behavior. By the time daddy gets home so many things have happened the original behavior will be lost in the distant past.

For a reward or a punishment to be most effective it must be delivered immediately. That doesn't mean within the next few minutes; it means now. A mistake made by so many people when they try to apply some of the principles described in this chapter is they do not connect the behavior with the consequences properly. If the reward or punishment is not delivered immediately, some other behavior will be happening and that is what will be rewarded or punished. Actually, research has found that to control behavior, the optimum time interval between the behavior occurring and delivery of the consequence is one-half of a second. That's a mighty short time.

Naturally, most real-life situations do not allow this kind of timing. You must find some way to bridge the time gap between the behavior and the reward or punishment. It will be very difficult to give Johnny a pat on the back immediately after he has done something nice--particularly if he is on the other side of the room. It really isn't as critical as I make it sound, but you must consider the time element when you are trying to influence your child's behavior. Waiting for father to come home to give the reward (or punishment) really won't do the job.

The way of meeting the time interval required that works very well is called "bridging." You can create a bridge between the behavior and the consequence by some other event that is a prelude or promise of the final consequence. Of course, that bridge will also become a reward or punishment. The bridge has its limits, however. You can't stretch it too far or it won't work. It must also be an accurate promise or predictor. You can't promise something you don't deliver and expect to get very good results.

If little Johnny has been behaving like a scoundrel all morning and finally hits his little sister in the nose, you could bridge the gap by saying "NO!" loudly and then providing the swat to the derrière. The word "NO!" said with emphasis then becomes the punishing stimulus if it is consistently followed by the real punishment. You can say that in a very short time and get it close to that half-second interval. Swats aren't necessarily the way to punish. Saying "NO!" is a verbal punisher. A disapproving look is a punisher for some children who want to please their parents. Sometimes, just a loud noise such as the clap of your hands is enough. Hitting your child is about the least desirable way of punishing. Remember, punishment also means removing something good as well as presenting something bad to follow the undesirable behavior. Many parents use a time-out punishment. They will "ground" their child for a time, or withdraw permission to use the car for a time, etc.

Our daughter related an incident that goes along with this. She looked out of the window just at the moment her five-year-old daughter hit their cat on the back with a branch. Horrified and angered, she immediately clapped her hands and shouted "No! Stop that!" then followed with, "Young lady, come in here this minute." When the child arrived inside with an apprehensive look on her face, her mother told her in no uncertain terms that one does not hit cats, that she knows better than to hit cats, and as a result of this she would not be allowed to touch any of the cats for a period to be decided when they could discuss it with Daddy. The little one protested tearfully and begged for one more chance, but her mother wisely refused.

I had only two criticisms of my daughter's handling of this: first, it would be better after the initial "stop" message to go outside and fetch the child in, rather than risk her associating punishment with coming to her mother. Second, it might be better to decide immediately on the length of the punishment period rather than waiting to discuss it with Daddy. There is always the chance she would associate punishment with Daddy coming home. Also, she probably dreaded Daddy coming home unless she thought she could wrap him around her finger, which she really can do. However, in spite of these objections, I think my daughter handled it very well. You don't have to handle things perfectly to be effective. By the way, this happened on Friday morning and they eventually decided the period should extend through Sunday which seems like an appropriate length of time for a child this age. The length of punishment or the severity should never be so long or overwhelming the child cannot see any end to it. Anything over a few days to a five-year-old is the same thing as forever.

In connection with this incident, I might mention this kind of thing has happened a time or two before, so they will need to be diligent and persistent if they wish to cure their child of this type of behavior.

It is important to remember the time-out is not the real punisher. The message that the time-out is in effect is the real punishment because it is the only thing that can be delivered immediately. Of course, if the real time-out does not actually occur, the message will not work. Children are quick to learn when you really mean something and when you don't.

Immediacy of punishment can't be emphasized too much. Please don't say "Just wait until your father gets home and you will get a spanking!" This is a terrible approach although it is one many a mother has used. It is particularly bad for both father and child. There are several reasons why this is a poor approach to the situation. First, it is highly unlikely Johnny will make the connection at all. Unless father arrives within the next ten minutes or so, the warning won't have much effect.

Also, look at what is happening if you do it and father really provides a spanking. Johnny is being punished because father came home. Remember, a punishing stimulus is connected to whatever is happening just before it is delivered. If father decides not to be the villain and refuses to deliver your promised spanking, Johnny learns he can't believe what you say. If father does spank, both he and Johnny will feel bad and Johnny will learn to dread father coming home. There are probably many more reasons but these ought to convince you.

When Johnny whacks his sister, it is something that must be handled on the spot. You have choices to make about how to handle it and you have a very short time to do it. Did I ever promise being an effective parent would be easy? Just remember when he grows up and wins the Nobel Prize it will have been worth it.

You hear a lot about how important it is for both parents to be in agreement and working together in raising children. Let me give you a logical reason for that in Rule 9.

If you are conscientious and consistent in applying these ideas in raising your child and your spouse is not, the child will soon learn he can behave differently for each of you. Not only that, but he will learn to play one parent against the other. This applies to teachers and other people in the same way. A child can learn to be a model student in school because the teacher is being effective and a mess at home if the parents are not.

This can be a real problem with divorced parents where the child spends time in separate homes with different parents and step-parents. In my practice I often work with one of the parents who is trying very hard to do a good job of raising the child, but who has to contend with the divorced parent sabotaging these efforts. This is never a good situation for either the children or the parents. The job of raising children is a very important one and requires the co-operation of all the people involved.

Children can learn to be one kind of person in one environment and a different kind of person in a different environment. This can be pretty confusing to a child and can lead to real difficulties in later life. A child needs to learn to be a complete person with a well-established personality and identity. I am afraid the inconsistency so many have to live with causes real handicaps for them.

And now for the final rule--number 10.

This rule is not a behavior-modification rule. I put it here so you won't get so worried about doing the wrong thing. Children survive most of the mistakes you will make. Of course, you want to make as few as possible but you will make some. The best advice I can give you is to relax, do your best, follow the principles I have outlined, and enjoy your child.

There are things that can really damage your child's life. Generally, you don't have to be a psychologist to know what kinds of things these are. Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse can permanently damage a child. Those of you reading this book must not want to damage your children or you wouldn't be trying to learn more about raising them. The main problem comes from using punishment ineffectively. It is hard to recognize the borderline between using punishment effectively and abusing your child. When in doubt, always err on the safe side.

If your child is in real trouble and you can't figure out what to do, by all means get help quickly. Early intervention is quicker, easier, more effective, and less expensive than waiting until real damage has been done. You may not be able to handle all situations without guidance. Get guidance for yourself first and then if that is not enough, get help for the child from a professional.

I hope this brief discussion on common-sense behavior modification will give you enough understanding so you can see how they apply to the examples given in the following chapters. These principles apply to many interpersonal relationships between people. I have been talking as if this applies only to children. These principles apply to all behavior whether it is the behavior of a child, an adult, or an animal. If you understand the basic principles, you can apply them to all relationships.

Now, let's look at some practical examples of behavior modification at work and how these principles can apply to much larger issues.