What are the strangest truths about behavior modification and behavior management techniques? When do punishments reward and rewards punish?

You offer rewards and the problem behaviors keep happening. You punish problem behaviors with consequences like loss of privileges, and the problem behavior keep happening. Maybe it’s better to just let them have their video games, because at least then they are not in your face and you get a break. Or keep telling them that they won’t get what they want until they change their behavior. That their currently lousy life is their own fault because of the bad choices they keep making. Over and over and over.

If you’re stuck in a rut, it’s time to step back and evaluate. Did you know that a reward is only a reinforcer if it results in the desired behavior increasing? This means you can be offering and giving rewards, but not reinforcing the desired behavior, making the good times get bigger and last longer.

Likewise, in behavior modification, a punishment only exists if the undesired behavior decreases. Maybe it’s time to take a good look at your results and reconsider how you think about your efforts to motivate better behavior. Here’s a funny example. Say you have a student, Eric, who is disruptive in the classroom. Eric keeps going through the warnings, getting office referrals, and consequences like in-school suspension, trips to the office, sent home for 1-3 days. His behavior isn’t getting better. What if Eric has low self-esteem, or ADHD and he gets uncomfortable sitting and working in the classroom, or he has dyslexia or some sort of learning disability, maybe just slow processing speed or sensory issues? Removal from the classroom, though even he may not realize it, may be rewarding (negative reinforcement, or removal of something unwanted) the disruptive behaviors. This is when punishments reward.

Sending the child away is reinforcing (negative reinforcement) for the teacher or parent! This sustains an intervention that does not actually correct the behavior. This being the case, it would make more sense to grant opportunities to leave the classroom when appropriate behavior is displayed.

The problem with many forms of discipline, is they don’t teach the correct behavior, and focus attention on when the problem occurs. Take away their phone, send them to ISS, that will teach them a lesson. Wrong. Teach them how to hurt and be angry, maybe. Teach them how to try and cause pain in others to get them to give you what you want, maybe. Teaching them a lesson would be showing them the right way to act and then having them practice.

Why would you want to make this change? Behavior modification of whose behavior are you actually in control of?

How would you do it to be successful? Would you examine the results of your current practices and make changes based on results and data?

What would be your best reasons for doing it?

Why would this be important to you, and how important is it?

What do you think you would do?

Video games are frustrating, they can’t beat the boss, so if you take them away…

They have a victimized belief system, and believe their misery is caused by others, and can gain validation and support for their faulty beliefs, by losing what is fun and being miserable. Making sure you can see how much pain you are causing.

In the western world, spare the rod spoil the child seems to be the dominant philosophy, and represents a gross misunderstanding of what was biblically intended. Go to the original Hebrew version, and you will find that “rod” meant the sheepherders staff. This staff was used to gently guide the sheep and keep them on a safe path. What would happen if the sheepherder beat his sheep with the staff? They would all run from him. Or learn helplessness and just lay on the ground quivering.

Mild punishments are effective for most students. The ones who behave well more often. For those for whom the punishments seem not to be effective, the best answer may not be the traditional punish more often and more severely when unwanted behaviors continue.

If someone says they have tried positive reinforcement, and it didn’t work, they are automatically wrong. Remember that positive reinforcement increases the desired behavior. If the reward did not increase the desired behavior, then it was not, by definition, a positive reinforcement.

Amanda was throwing a big fit, yelling, crying, throwing toys. Her mother, Beth talks to her gently, picks her up and holds her. Amanda quits yelling, crying, and throwing toys. Amanda’s mother Beth was not, then, rewarding the fit. Since the unwanted behavior stopped, this intervention is by definition- wait for it… punishment!

So we can challenge our conventional beliefs about effective and appropriate behavior modification. Things are not always as they seem. Our efforts to correct behavior do not always work. We can step back, analyze, and generate new ideas and solutions.

Sometimes negative attention is better to the child than no attention, and verbal praise, meant as a positive reinforcer, interrupts the chain of expected behavior, thus functioning as a punishment. If a student works a long time to earn a big reward, and once they get it, the desirable behavior decreases, the reward served as a punishment. How about that. When punishments reward, or rewards punish, can depend on the outcome.

You can also learn more from my other articles on behavior management in my blog on this site.

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Read more about when punishments reward:

https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/punished-rewards-article/