by James Dobson
Similar phenomena occur in higher education, too. I knew of a graduate school psychology class in which the students experimented with reinforcement on their professor. This instructor utilized two distinct teaching methods. He either lectured from his notes, which was a dry, dismal experience for students, or he spoke extemporaneously, resulting in lively and interesting discussions. One day the students agreed before class to reward his conversational style and extinguish his formal behavior. Whenever he used notes, they shuffled their feet, looked out the window, yawned and whispered to each other. On the other hand, they exhibited fascination with his unstructured lessons. The professor responded in classic fashion. He adopted the informal approach almost exclusively, although he didn’t know he was being manipulated until nearly the end of the semester.
A final example is the dad who has a very low frustration tolerance with his children. He screams at them whenever they fall short of his expectations, which seems to make them obey. He has been reinforced for his screaming and becomes a loud, aggressive parent.
The point is simple: Parents should be aware of their own reactions to reinforcement and make certain they are in control of the learning situation.
The fifth and final key of the Law of Reinforcement is:
5. Parents often reinforce undesirable behavior and weaken behavior they value.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the past two chapters relates to accidental reinforcement. It is remarkably easy to reward undesirable behavior in children by allowing it to succeed. Suppose, for example, that Mr. and Mrs. Weakknee are having dinner guests, and they put three-year-old Ricky to bed at seven o’clock. They know Ricky will cry, as he always does, but what else can they do? Indeed, Ricky cries. He begins at a low pitch and gradually builds to the decibel level of a jet at takeoff.
Finally, Mrs. Weakknee becomes so embarrassed by the display that she lets Ricky get up. What has the child learned? That he must cry loudly if he doesn’t want to go to bed. Quiet protests don’t work. Mr. and Mrs. Weakknee had better be prepared for a tearful battle the following night, too, because the response eventually succeeded. And if they forget, Ricky will undoubtedly remind them.
To explain this principle further, let’s consider another scenario. An argumentative teenager, Laura Beth, never takes “no” for an answer. She is so cantankerous that she’s only homesick when she’s home. Whenever her mother is unsure whether she should allow Laura Beth to go out at night, she first tells her she can’t go. By saying “no” initially, Laura Beth’s mom buys some extra time to think the request over. She can always change her mind, but she knows it’s easier to go from “no” to “yes” than the other way. However, what all of this tells Laura Beth is that “no” really means “maybe” . . . and that “yes” is possible if she argues and complains enough.
Many parents make the same mistake as Laura Beth’s mother. They allow arguing, sulking, pouting, door slamming and bargaining to succeed. Parents should not take a definitive position on an issue until they have thought it over thoroughly and listened to the child’s argument. Then they should stick tenaciously to their decision. If the teenager learns that “no” means “absolutely not,” she is less likely to waste her effort appealing her case.
Or suppose it is Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s tenth wedding anniversary and they are going out for dinner. As they prepare to leave, their five- and six-year-old children begin howling about being left behind. Mr. Smith is vaguely familiar with the principles of reinforcement, so he offers a pack of gum to the children if they’ll stop crying. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith has not reinforced the silence; he has rewarded the tears. The next time he and Mrs. Smith leave it will be to the children’s advantage to cry again. A small alternative would have changed the setting entirely. Mr. Smith should have offered the gum for their cooperation before the tears began to fall.
Let’s apply the principle to babies and their tears. Crying is an important form of communication for infants. Through their wails we learn of their hunger, fatigue, discomfort, or diaper disaster. Although we don’t want to eliminate crying in babies, it is possible to make them less fussy by minimizing the reinforcement of their tears. If an infant is immediately picked up or rocked each time he cries, he may quickly observe the relationship between tears and adults’ attention. How well I remember standing at the doorway of my infant daughter’s nursery for several minutes, awaiting a momentary lull in the crying before going to her crib. By doing so, I reinforced the pauses rather than the howls.
Obviously, parents must be careful about the behaviors they allow to succeed. They must exercise self-discipline and patience to ensure that the tools of reinforcement and extinction are being used to encourage responsible and mature behavior.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q How can I acquaint my junior higher with the need for responsible behavior throughout his life? He is desperately in need of this understanding.
A Rather than reinvent the wheel, let me again quote from one of my other books which addresses this very issue. There, I said the overall objective during preadolescence is teaching the child that actions have inevitable consequences. One of the most serious casualties in a permissive society is the failure to connect those two factors: behavior and consequences.
Too often, a three-year-old child screams insults at his mother, but Mom stands blinking her eyes in confusion. A first grader launches an attack on his teacher, but the school makes allowances for his age and takes no action. A ten-year-old is caught stealing CDs in a store, but is released to the recognizance of his parents. A fifteen-year-old sneaks the keys to the family car, but his father pays the fine when he is arrested. A seventeen-year-old drives his Chevy like a maniac and his parents pay for the repairs when he tears off the front fender. You see, all through childhood, loving parents seem determined to intervene between behavior and consequences, breaking the connection and preventing the valuable learning that could have occurred.
Thus, it is possible for a young man or woman to enter adulthood without knowing that life bites—that every move we make directly affects our future, and that irresponsible behavior eventually produces sorrow and pain. Such a person applies for his first job and arrives late for work three times during the first week. Later, when fired in a flurry of hot words, he becomes bitter and frustrated. It was the first time in his life that Mom and Dad couldn’t come running to rescue him from the unpleasant consequences. Unfortunately, many North American parents still “bail out” their children long after they are grown and living away from home. What is the result? This overprotection produces emotional cripples who often develop lasting characteristics of dependency and a kind of perpetual adolescence.
How does one connect behavior with consequences? By being willing to let the child experience a reasonable amount of pain or inconvenience when he behaves irresponsibly. When Barbara misses the school bus through her own dawdling, let her walk a mile or two and enter school in midmorning (unless safety factors prevent this). If Janie carelessly loses her lunch money, let her skip a meal. Obviously, it is possible to carry this principle too far and become harsh and inflexible with an immature child. The best approach is to expect boys and girls to carry the responsibility that is appropriate for their age and occasionally to taste the bitter fruit that irresponsibility bears.
Q You have referred to children who manipulate their mothers and fathers. On the other hand, isn’t the parent manipulating the child by the use of rewards and punishment?
A No more than a factory supervisor is manipulating his employees by insisting that they arrive at work by 9:00 a.m. No more than a policeman manipulates the speeding driver by giving him a traffic ticket. No more than an insurance company manipulates that same driver by increasing his premium. No more than the IRS manipulates a taxpayer who files his return one day late and pays a penalty for his tardiness. The word “manipulation” implies a sinister or selfish motive. I prefer the term “leadership,” which is in the best inter
est of everyone—even when it involves unpleasant consequences.1
Q I am a teacher in junior high school, and there are five separate classes that come to my room to be taught science each day. My biggest problem is getting those students to bring books, paper, and pencils to class with them. I can lend them the equipment they need, but I never get it back. What do you suggest?
A I faced an identical problem the year I taught junior high school. My students were not malicious; they just had too many other things on their minds to remember to bring their school materials. I tried various motivational techniques, but without success. I appealed to the students’ desire for responsibility, but generated only yawns. I launched an emotional tirade, but that seemed like a great waste of energy for such a small issue. There had to be a better way!
I finally reached a solution based on the certainty that young people will cooperate if it’s to their advantage. I announced one morning that I no longer cared whether they brought their pencils and books to class. I had twenty extra books and several boxes of sharpened pencils which they could borrow. If they forgot to bring these materials, all they had to do was ask for a loan. I would not gnash my teeth or get red in the face; they would find me very willing to share my resources.
However, there was one catch. The borrowing student had to stand beside his desk (or lean over if written work was require) for that one-hour period. I smiled to myself in subsequent days as the kids raced around before class, trying to scrounge up books or pencils from friends. Two hundred and twenty students came to my classroom every day, and yet I only had to enforce the “standing” rule about once a week. The pupils watched out for their own best interests. One lapse in their memory was all it took; they didn’t blunder into the same situation twice.
At the risk of being redundant, I will repeat the valuable formula for managing children and teenagers: give them maximum reason to comply with your wishes. Your anger is the least effective motivation I can imagine.
Q If rewards and punishment should be given very quickly, why does God not interact that way with us, His children? People seem to “get away” with bad behavior for years, and the ultimate reward for those who live a Christian life will come only after death. Surely the Lord knows about “immediate reinforcement.”
A He certainly does. He created the characteristics we only observe and try to understand. So why does He not reinforce the behavior He desires more quickly? I don’t know, although that fact is acknowledged in Scripture: “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong. Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God-fearing men, who are reverent before God” (Ecclesiastes 8:11-12, NIV).
Whether they arrive on time or not, the warnings and promises in Scripture are more reliable than anything else in the universe. He will have the last word!
Q What is your opinion of the juvenile courts? Do they reward good behavior and extinguish bad? Are they efficient in discouraging delinquency?
A Not generally, but the blame is difficult to locate. I served for three years on President Ronald Reagan’s National Advisory Commission to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. It was a fascinating, although occasionally discouraging assignment. I observed that the courts build delinquents in some cases as systematically as if they were placing stone on stone.
This happened with a ninth grader I knew who had broken every rule he could violate, just to demonstrate the tooth lessness of the law. Craig would brag to his friends before committing an illegal act, and then laugh when he was not punished. In a matter of two years’ time, he had stolen two cars and one motorcycle, had run away from home twice, was suspended from school three times, and was arrested once as a peeping Tom. I watched him march off to court repeatedly where he was released after receiving another worn-out lecture from the judge.
Finally, Craig was sent to a camp for delinquent boys where he wrote me a letter saying how he regretted the mess he’d made of his life. He was anxious to get home and take advantage of his educational opportunity. I think Craig wanted to know how far he could push “John Law.” As soon as he got the answer, he no longer wanted to fight. He should have been punished the first time he was arrested.
Shortly after hearing from Craig, I talked to a well-known judge about the obvious leniency of the courts. I asked him why juvenile authorities are so reluctant to take action against a defiant teenager, even though he may be begging for punishment. The judge cited two reasons for the attitudes of his colleagues:
(1) There aren’t enough correctional facilities available for boys like Craig. The work camps must be reserved for the greatest troublemakers.
(2) It is difficult for judges to get excited about milder forms of delinquency when they have been dealing with more serious cases involving murder, rape, and robbery. It is unfortunate that the judges are limited in this fashion. A teenager’s first encounter with the law should be so painful that he would not want to make the same mistake again, but our legal apparatus is not designed to accomplish that objective.
The juvenile courts occasionally commit the opposite error of dealing too harshly with a teenager. Such had been the case with Linda, a girl I met late one rainy afternoon. I was working on a report at my desk when I suddenly realized I was not alone. I looked up to see a barefoot, rain-soaked girl in my doorway. She was a pretty adolescent of about fifteen years.
“You can call the police now,” she instructed me.
“Why would I want to call the police?” I asked.
“Because I have run away from ———.” (She named a nearby detention home for delinquent girls.) She said she’d spent the day hiding from the authorities.
She told me her name was Linda, and I asked her to sit down and tell me why she had run away. She started at the beginning, and I later verified the facts to be true. Her mother had been a prostitute who gave no supervision or guidance to her daughter. Linda was even allowed to remain in the bedroom while her mother entertained men. The child was eventually taken away from her mother and made a ward of the court. She was placed in a home for young victims where there was not enough love to go around. Her mother came to see her for a few years, but then ignored her completely.
Linda was so starved for love that she ran away to find her mother. She was immediately returned to the home. A year later she tried to escape again, with the same result. Linda continued to run away, each time becoming more sophisticated in evading the police. The year before my introduction to this girl, she had vanished again, this time being picked up by several boys. They lived together for two weeks and were involved in several misdemeanors and various sexual escapades during that period.
Linda was subsequently arrested and brought before the juvenile court as a delinquent. She was sentenced to the detention center for delinquent girls, surrounded by ten-foot chain link fences. The court considered her to be an unmanageable, incorrigible adolescent, yet this was wrong. Linda was a lonely, love-starved girl who had been cheated by the circumstances of life. She needed someone to care—not someone to punish. Perhaps the judge was too busy to study her background; perhaps he had no alternative facility for Linda. Either way, the needs of this wispy girl remained unmet at this critical time of her life.
Juvenile justice must be designed to be lenient with the child who has been hurt, like Linda, and to sting the child who has challenged authority, like Craig. It is sometimes difficult to recognize the difference.
SEVEN
Discipline in
Learning
When I was in college, there was a malicious little rumor going around that an amazing discovery had been made about human learning. A new technique called “sleep teaching” made it possible to cram one’s head full of facts while sawing the logs. I have to tell you that idea was very appealing to me. It would have fit into my program perfectly to do the big-man-on-campus thing du
ring the day and accomplish my studying while dreaming. Also being a psychology major, I was interested in brain function and promptly set out to test the hypothesis.
I selected a class in which three tests were given during the semester with the lowest score being dropped by the professor. I studied hard on the first two exams and earned respectable grades, which permitted me to experiment with the third. When the exam was scheduled, I recorded all the necessary factual information on my tape machine, being careful not to learn the detail as I spoke into the microphone. In all, about sixty minutes of data were packed on one side of an old reel to reel tape. Then I went out and enjoyed myself the night before the test. While my brighter friends were grinding away in the library, I was shooting the breeze in a restaurant with some guys who never studied much anyway. It felt wonderful.
At bedtime that night, I plugged the tape recorder into my clock radio so that my own voice would begin speaking to my unconscious mind at two o’clock in the morning. One hour later, I was awakened by the flopping of the tape at the end of the reel, and I reset the timer for four o’clock. The tape played for another hour and awakened me again at five. The final “hearing” occurred between six and seven. So passed the restless night.
The examination was scheduled for eight o’clock and I was there, yawning and bleary-eyed. The first thing I noted was that the questions on the printed test were not even vaguely familiar to me (always a bad sign). But I was still confident that the information was stored down deep in my brain, somewhere. I turned in the test and stood waiting for a proctor to calculate my score. It only took a few minutes.
There were seventy-three people in the class, and I got the seventy-second-lowest score. I managed to beat the class dummy by one point, but he appealed to the professor over a disputed answer and was granted two additional points. I came in dead last! The only thing I got from that experiment was a terrible night’s sleep and the wrath of a roommate who had lain there in the moonlight learning junk he didn’t want to know.
