I hope I have given you some idea of what behavior modification is and how it relates to real, everyday life. I have tried to show how the so-called behavior-modification principles work, and that they are not just made-up rules but expressions of the way things actually happen when we interact with other people.

I think if I had to boil everything in this book down to one main theme, it would be this: It is practically impossible to control behavior by attempting to change the behavior. To control behavior you must control the consequences of that behavior.

At the heart of the whole concept is the fact that behavior is maintained by its consequences. If someone keeps doing something, you can be sure the consequences are somehow rewarding, whether it is apparent or not. When a behavior stops being rewarding, that behavior will sooner or later cease. Remember that, and all the other principles I discussed fit right in. These other principles dealing with such things as timing; consistency; and reward, punishment, and extinction help explain further how the whole idea works.

I've discussed in subsequent chapters various examples of how these principles apply in situations met in everyday life. I have tried to illustrate in different chapters a number of ideas. I discussed the dangers of being hooked on fairness. I stressed the importance of consistency in following up on your orders, as well as the problems that result when you make an order sound like a request. I described the various kinds of rewards and punishments and the ways they affect behavior. I talked about the role of proper timing of reward and punishment. I showed how to extinguish behavior by removing rewards and what to expect when you try this method. Once you understand these principles and how to use them, they will help you do a better job and have an easier time raising your children.

If we as parents can keep our priorities straight and keep things as simple and enjoyable as possible, how much more pleasant it is for both parents and children. We can keep things simple if we have a good knowledge of how our actions modify our children's behavior. By knowing how it works, we can do the effective things.

One of my greatest wishes for parents would be that they enjoy their children. Raising a child can be intensely frustrating but also intensely satisfying. Because we care about our children and want so much to do a good job, we sometimes lose sight of our priorities. We get caught up in trying to produce the perfect child, or trying to give our child all the things we never had, or some other thing that deflects us from our real purpose. As I stated earlier, that purpose as I see it is to guide a completely dependent person to complete independence and a responsible, rewarding, satisfying life. Our job is not to protect the child against everything and everyone, much as we would like to. It is rather to equip the child to cope, to be able to make a good life on his own.

It is certainly not a parent's job, as I see it, to live the child's life for him. Often it is tempting for a parent to use his children to live out his own dreams. I've already mentioned the tendency to buy our children things because we always wanted them. Parents also tend to force activities on their children because they value them rather than because the child wants to do them. How many fathers have forced baseball or football on a son who would rather spend his time reading or drawing pictures? How many mothers have tried to make a shy daughter into a social butterfly? I've known some adults who grew up very confused because their true nature did not match their parents' idea of what a son or daughter should be.

I think perhaps the parents of today are a little less dictatorial than parents of the past. I hope so. I remember reading about a well-to-do family whose children were being born during the early years of this century. There were several girls and a couple of boys, all of whom grew up and married in the usual way. All, that is except the youngest girl. Her parents chose her to fill the role of family caretaker. As she grew up she knew it would be her job to care for her parents when they got old. Also she was to inherit the family home and a large part of the family wealth with the understanding she would always live in the house and act as caretaker for it and the contents. Her parents continued to run her life from beyond the grave, for their wills stipulated that in order to keep her inheritance she was never to marry. She got around that one rather neatly by having the man of her choice live in the house with her without benefit of matrimony. But just think how her life was decided for her. She may not have had a bad life. No one but her could know that. But do parents have the right to take over a child's life to that extent? I think most of us would say they do not.

And yet, often parents do try to run their grown children's lives, even though they might not be as blatant as that. These parents fail to understand that although you need to decide things for a child while he is young, you need gradually to loosen your control as he grows older. They fail to realize this is a person with the right to live his own life once he had matured and gone out on his own.

Sometimes these parents think they are acting for the child's good, sometimes they have selfish motives. They can control the child's life by disapproving of his or her spouse, by trying to influence the choice of a career, by doling out money, by pulling the old "oh-my-heart" routine whenever the child attempts some action the parent disapproves of. Parents have come up with many ways to make a grown child's life miserable by constant interference. It's hard to believe they are doing it on purpose. Perhaps it's simply that they do not have a clear idea of the true job of parents.

Let me reiterate my belief that the parents neither deserve all the credit when the child turns out well, nor all the blame when the child goes bad. Parents are not the only influence a person encounters while growing up. Friends, acquaintances, teachers, all the people who are a part of the person's life outside the home, have a greater or lesser effect on that person's development. The person himself makes conscious decisions that determine the way he will go.

I would say only two groups of parents can be blamed for the failures of a child. Those are parents who don't care, and those who actively and purposely do things to harm their children. If you are reading this book, you care about your child and obviously do not belong to one of these groups. Those of us who care are going to make mistakes, but if we do our best we must not beat ourselves over the head if our children turn out to be less than satisfactory. We must remember our children are individuals with a conscious will, and they deserve the responsibility for their own actions.

And sometimes we need to be less exacting in our judgments of our children, particularly after the job of molding is finished and there is nothing more we can do. There comes a time when all we can do is to relax and accept.