Reinforcement and punishment to influence behaviour of teenage children

Operant conditioning is a very effective method to educate and influence behaviour of teenage children, through employing rewards and punishments for behaviour.

Definition of reinforcement and punishment. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning: Rewards & Punishments.

Positive reinforcement

Negative reinforcement. Positive punishment. Negative punishment. Learning and Behavior Modification. Learning Outcomes Apply principles of operant conditioning to parenting and behavior modification Parenting and Behaviorism.

Parenting Children with Positive Reinforcement (Examples + Charts) Children don’t come with instructions and discipline is often experienced by parents and children alike as an arena where our will and wits are tested.

Positive reinforcement is only one of many forms of discipline, but from the perspective of positive psychology, it may as well be the most important one as it focuses on amplifying what is already good in our children and in ourselves as their caretakers. Positive reinforcement as a form of positive discipline allows us to tap into our children’s individual strengths, draw attention to their personality traits and interests, and as a result give us an opportunity to connect, communicate effectively, and ultimately empower them to be more of themselves. Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our 3 Positive Psychology Exercises for free.

You can download the free PDF here. A Look at Parenting with Positive Reinforcement. Positive vs. Negative Reinforcement: A Guide for Parents – Generation Mindful. I almost stopped bringing them to the playground.

With two children under the age of 4, playgrounds had been a place of respite for me. I could sit on the bench and catch up with some parent friends while my littles jumped, slid, and climbed to their heart's content in a controlled setting. We could all let off a little steam there, but leaving the playground had become such a process that I almost stopped going altogether. Inevitably, when I announced it was time to go, my 3-year-old would run away. Laughing maniacally, he’d climb a slide or shimmy to the top of a play structure and gleefully gaze down at me as though it was a joke, as though dinner didn’t need to be made and naps didn’t need to happen.

Which is better for influencing behaviour of our teenage children?

Adolescent learning: rewards, punishments, and the importance of context. Adolescents’ unique sensitivity to rewards is thought to be due to increased activity in and communication between areas of the brain that respond to rewards.

However, we also know that many of the same brain areas also respond to punishment and that there are dynamic changes occurring throughout the brain during adolescence. Much like the complexity of brain development, the story about how adolescents learn from reinforcement might not be so simple. “The way that adolescents learn from the choices that they have made in the past will ultimately influence their future choices and actions.” An in-depth review of studies examining how we learn from reinforcement across age shows mixed results.