For many years the punishment It has been frequently used as a strategy in the education of children. Today, fortunately, we know that there are other resources that are much more beneficial for children, such as the use of positive reinforcements. But are they really useful? We tell you pros and cons of this practice and how to apply it at home.
What is positive reinforcement?
Parents are educating all the time, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. If we explain to our son that he does not cross when the traffic light is red, we are voluntarily educating at that time.
But there is also incidental education, which is produced by the interaction with the child, when he sees us act, he hears us ... Parents are models For the kids, and with our behavior we educate.
Why do I explain this? Because in this indicental education we are applying, perhaps without knowing it, both the positive reinforcement as punishment. And it really is about human responses that are naturally in our repertoire. What happens is that they collaterally influence the behavior of others, causing them to increase or decrease, so they have been used consciously in education (and in other fields, but that is another issue).
An example: we have gone to pick up the child to the Infant School. We enter his class and when he sees us the little boy smiles and hugs us. What happens to daddies when our offspring do that to us? Apart from melting right there, the most normal thing is that we get happy, we will also smile at you and give you the hug back.
Where is there reinforcement here? Our answer It is pleasant for the child, he likes to be smiled and cheered, and this makes it more likely that he will do it again the next day. This is positive reinforcement..
Stated more formally, positive reinforcement consists of employ a kind of reward (a compliment, an action, an object ...) before a behavior that has been done by another person (adult or child, this is the same for everyone) that has been appropriate or enjoyable. That reward makes it more likely that that specific behavior will be repeated in the future.
Positive reinforcement vs. punishment
In general we can say that the use of reinforcement against punishment is recommended, for the benefits of one and the (more than proven) cons of the other. Roughly:
The reinforcement puts the focus on the positive behavior of the child, while the punishment does on the negative.
Through reinforcement the child can acquire new behaviors, while with punishment what we indicate is what he should not do (or how he should not do it) without offering alternatives and therefore without favoring the learning of new behaviors and / or strategies.
Possible negative consequences of the use of reinforcements
The reinforcement in itself does not imply negative consequences, it is its use in excess or exclusively that makes the benefits be diluted among some less positive aspects for our children. Let's see some of them:
Too frequent use of reinforcement can cause our child to end focusing more on getting the reward than in the pleasure of learning something new (just the opposite of what we want and what children naturally look for).
The abuse of reinforcement conveys to the children the message that the approval (specifically ours) is necessary, which can affect your current and future self-esteem.
If we use it in excess, it is possible for the child to get used to the rewards, so that they have less and less value and therefore less “effect”. We can see this, for example, with the use of praise: if to everything he does we say "Good, honey, you've done great" that phrase will soon cease to have value and meaning.
How to positively use reinforcements?
Always choose a compliment, a behavior or expression of affection before a gift-like physical reward.
It is preferable reinforce the process, the steps that the child is following, that the fact that he achieves the final objective. In this way we favor their curiosity, their desire to strive, to learn ... and not the medals (which then lead us to perfectionism that has such bad effects on them and adults).
We reinforce the behavior, not the person. Why? For three reasons: first because if not what we are transmitting to you is the idea that you have to do things right for us to love you, and that is not so, our love is unconditional, right? On the other hand, by reinforcing behavior and effort, we are encouraging the child to develop an intrinsic (own, internal) motivation for learning. And finally, because with this we will also get you to understand and assimilate that it is possible to improve, to advance, that learning leads to more and more things.
The reinforcement must be adjusted to behavior of the child: that is, let's not come upstairs and set up a Frozen themed party just because he picked up his glass and plate after finishing eating. Reinforcement and behavior must be adjusted and proportionate.
We must not fall into exaggeration: global praise, type "You are the best child in the world" that a priori seem great (among other things because we think so, that's what our son is for) end up becoming a slab for them: a ribbon too tall.
Apply it with common sense: it makes no sense to absolutely reinforce everything our son does, for all the reasons I have explained before, but it also makes no sense to be very demanding with what we reinforce: what we want them to learn, enjoy and be happy, true? That's what it means.
Photos | Pixabay.com, Looking for Nemo
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