Conditioning
- Oct 31, 2014
- 4 min read
Summary:
Reward when one performed well
Remove reward when one performed badly
Be firm in rewarding
Use reward system for short term goalsfrom young
It is often said that children nowadays are more pampered and rebellious. Is there any truth in this? Well, children being increasingly pampered is an undeniable fact. In the past, getting a proper meal was an issue but nowadays, the issue that children face is whether or not they have the latest gadgets.
Ask any parents out there and they will admit caning in the past is a common affair. In today’s society, hurting your kids is a chargeable offence. It is considered domestic violence. Thanks to the World Wide Web, children know that very well.
Nonetheless, we have to be thankful for all these human rights, if not domestic violence would have been more prevalent and the already dwindling child population will suffer as a result.
As much as I am a firm believer in mild physical punishment like caning of the palm, I respect every parent's method of education. However, many parents do not realise that they can also punish their children by rewarding them first. In the field of behavioural psyhology, extensive research have been done, it is known as conditioning.
Simply put, conditioning is the act of increasing or decreasing the probability of a behaviour though punishment or reward.
In order to understand how conditioning works, parents have to first agree that conditioning is essential for young children because young earthlings have no sense of right and wrong. When they are young, they only understand cause and effect. Hence reinforcement is essential.
Reinforcement is to deliver an effect when certain behaviour is displayed so as to increase the probability of that behaviour. A simple example will be you buying your child a game when he or she does well for their exam.
Not to worry, if money is an issue, it does not have to always involve gifts, it can be you taking time off to bring him for cycling or to the beach for a picnic.
The key is to give them credit for their due diligence and make them understand that hard work does pay off and you will get rewarded as long as you do your part.
However, when the desired results are not met, removing the reward is necessary. This is known as negative punishment in the field of psychology, where you remove an effect they want in order to lower the probability of the same event happening, that is them failing to do well. After all, they have to learn that they will grow up in a meritocratic society in our sunny island.
Parents should not give in too easily and frequently when their children fail to perform as pampering them can bring about more harm than goodin the long run.
One example is when your child does not do well in the exam and you still go ahead and give your child their undeserved reward just because he or she is upset about not getting rewarded. Well, good news is they will love you more that day but will probably "hate" you and find you unreasonable for not giving them what they want the next time round.On the contrary, if you can stand firm and not give in, he or she will work doubly hardin the future.
However, you should not be overly firm with your stand.If your child did work really hard but did not get the desired results and reward, after a few instances, they will be disheartened and lose faith in their own ability. Hence, sometimes it is essential to measure their effort not results. When I mention effort, I do not mean them telling you that they put in effort as children's definition of effort can be rather obscured.
Rectifying your reward system is only part one. There is still part two, rectifying the study system. If they did work hard but did not achieved the desired results, then there is only two possibilities –either they are doing it wrong or they have yet to mature. If they are doing it wrong, you have to spend time to find the remedy. If they are immature, then you will have to lower your expectations for now. The maturity I am talking about here is the "Late Bloomer Effect" which I will discuss in length in a later post.
I strongly recommend a reward based system because it is encouraging and research has constantly shown that reward based conditioning has proved to work better. In fact, children below the age of twelverespond poorly to negative feedback, with their fMRI (brain scan) showing little activity when given negative feedback. Well, the other reason is because caning your child is no longer plausible.
However, it should be noted that there is no proof that“one size fits all”. Some children may be motivated with intimidation. On another note, for children, conditioning should be applied for short term goals because children need to see their rewards instantly. For example, reward them when they do well for their weekly spelling instead of only during the once every three months class test.
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Negative Punishment: To remove something desirable after a behaviour to reduce the probability of the target behaviour in the future.
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