Why Understanding Behavior Principles is Crucial for Parents

It’s well accepted that children need secure attachment in order to thrive. Secure attachment develops in a climate with caregivers who are warm, sensitive, and responsive to their child’s needs. In order to develop into responsible citizens, children also need clear boundaries and limits. For families who happen to have even-tempered children who are not anxious or spirited, an understanding of these basic and intuitive parenting concepts can go a long way. For families with children who have feisty temperaments or anxiety sensitivity, understanding behavior principles is a must. Perhaps the most important behavior principle to understand is: 

Negative reinforcement

What a dry and technical term and yet oh so important to grasp! In order to understand negative reinforcement, we need to also define positive reinforcement and punishment. Eons ago, when I was a teaching assistant for Psych 101, there was always a question about negative reinforcement on exams. Students often answered this question wrong, because it’s easy to confuse negative reinforcement with punishment.   

Psych 101 - let’s go over the definitions.

A reinforcer is any event that follows a behavior that will increase the likelihood of that behavior recurring. The event can be internal, such as a burst of dopamine or a reduction of tension, or external, such as a reward or the cessation of a demand. 

There are two types of reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement is a pleasant event following a behavior that increases the likelihood that the behavior will recur. When we teach our dog to shake hands, we use positive reinforcement. Doggie offers paw on command - doggie gets yummy treat - doggie offers paw next time on command. When we are hungry, we open the refrigerator and find something good to eat. Next time we are hungry, we are likely to open the refrigerator again. When we go to work, we get paid, so we show up to work again. 

Negative reinforcement also involves an event that increases the liklihood that a behavior will recur. In this case, the reinforcement happens because something upleasant, or aversive, stops in response to the behavior that is reinforced.

When we get into our cars and forget to put on our seatbelt, a loud and annoying sound ensues. We put on our seat belt. The annoying sound stops. Next time we get into our car, we’re more likely to put on our seat belt before the loud sound even starts. When we have an itch, we scratch it, and the itching hopefully stops. We are now more likely to scratch when we itch. In other words, we are reinforced for behavior that causes the unpleasant experience to stop. 

In other words, both positive and negative reinforcement increase the likelihood that a behavior will recur. Punishment works in an opposite manner. 

Punishment involves the presence of an unpleasant event following a behavior that functions to decrease the likelihood that the behavior will recur. This is the least important concept for today’s piece, but I include it in order to make the distinction from negative reinforcement. 

Why do parents need to understand negative reinforcement?

Negative reinforcement is the primary way that disruptive behavior becomes reinforced over time. Positive reinforcement is also operating in the mix, but negative reinforcement is the focus here because it is a more powerful reinforcer of unwanted behavior than is positive reinforcement. 

By understanding how negative reinforcement operates in disruptive behavior and anxiety, parents gain insights about how to divert problems from becoming entrenched patterns. 

When parents make a request or place a demand on a child, the child might respond with anger and defiance. The parent may then withdraw the demand, which negatively reinforces the child for the escalation. In other words, the disruptive child behavior is strengthened because it worked to get the parent to back off.  Parent places demand on child -> child yells at the parent -> parent decides it’s not worth the fight and backs off -> child ceases yelling.  The child was just negatively reinforced for yelling because it worked to remove the unpleasant demand. The parent is also reinforced for backing off, because the child stopped yelling. The next time the parent places a demand, the child is more likely to yell and the parent is more likely to back off. This is not the kind of pattern that anyone wants to have persist, where the child is now in charge of the parent. 

Or, the parent may respond to the child’s refusal in an angry manner. If the child then complies, then the parent is reinforced for escalating. Alternatively, the child may escalate in kind. This dynamic of mutual escalation is core to cycles of emotionally wrought parent-child interactions. 

The role of negative reinforcement is not limited to acting out behavior. It is core to how anxiety, depression, and addictive behaviors escalate, as well as to how everyday challenges such as procrastination and tech overuse take root. Whenever an action functions to curtail inner discomfort, that behavior has now become negatively reinforced and will be more likely to repeat in the future. Most of us can relate to how putting off an unpleasant task results in an immediate sense of relief. It doesn’t matter that we might be creating a bigger problem for ourselves by putting off the dreaded task. The instant sense of reduced tension can easily override future stress. Awareness of how bad habits develop via negative reinforcement can help us be more mindful and intentional about making decisions that serve us better in the long-term. 

A great time for caregivers to learn about behavior principles is as their child is entering the preschool years, by about age three. Up until this point, it can be normative for children to use behaviors such as crying and noncompliance in order to get their needs met. By the preschool years, though, prosocial behaviors should be shaped and encouraged. Prosocial behaviors include compliance and developmentally appropriate use of communication to express one’s needs. If prosocial behaviors are not positively reinforced at a level that outweighs any negative reinforcement of problem behaviors, the child is at risk for struggling over the longer term. 

By understanding negative reinforcement, parents now have a lens with which to demystify how child problems can become overlearned over time. With this understanding, parents can teach their child “replacement behaviors” that involve more skillful ways of communicating needs than problem behaviors. Parents can also learn limit setting strategies that minimize the chances that problem behavior will get accidentally reinforced. The ability to view a child’s behavior through a behaviorist lens can bring clarity about how to divert disruptive behavior and build more prosocial responses in children.

Of course there are many elements that go into addressing challenging behavior in kids that extend beyond the application behavior principles. If you are concerned about your child’s behavior, it can be a good idea to reach out to your pediatrician or other trusted professional for guidance and resources.