What Is Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is a very important part of behavioral analysis, which in turn is a field within psychology. Its applications are most often seen in the way specialists recommend to talk and behave with our children as they are growing up. To understand the concept of positive reinforcement we have to understand the term of reinforcement as a whole. This term means to strengthen. In the specific field of psychology it refers to anything stimulus that increases or strengthens the possibility of a specific response. There are four types of reinforcements: positive reinforcement, which works by adding a positive stimulus, which leads to a pleasant outcome, to increase a certain behavior or response; negative reinforcement, based on adding a negative stimulus, one that creates an unpleasant outcome, to decrease a certain behavior or response; punishment which refers to adding something aversive to decrease a certain behavior; and extinction which refers to removing something in order to decrease a behavior.

So, positive reinforcement is something like a reward or something we generally will work to get. A more specific way of defining positive reinforcement involves there conditions that need to be met:

· A specific behavior determines a specific consequence.

· That specific behavior becomes more likely to occur

· That specific behavior becomes more likely to occur because and only because of the expected consequence.

As I said, a very important aspect of positive reinforcement is associated with how to raise children. An element of positive reinforcement is positive communication. This is a very important tool that builds-up self-esteem and inspires confidence in a child. Once you get the hang of positive communication you will see that your child won’t be so difficult, but there are a few ground rules and here they are:

· Face your child and don’t let him look away. It is very important that you maintain eye contact with your child so that he feels much closer to you and will pay much more attention to what you have to say. It is very hard to establish a bond with a child that won’t make eye contact with you.

· Don’t interrupt your child. Let him finish what he has to say and then complete his statements. If the child doesn’t feel that you are listening to him than he won’t trust you and won’t listen to what you have to say. To build up trust with your child, he needs to see that you don’t treat him as a child but as an equal.

· Don’t “label” the child but the behavior. This works both for positive and negative reinforcement. For example, don’t tell your child that he is a good or respectively a bad boy. Tell him that the action he did was good or bad.

· Try to teach your child to talk in positive terms and avoid the negatives. Subconsciously this will affect the child’s state of mind. If he will only talk positive than he will be an optimistic person, and he will feel positive.

· It is always a good idea to start your statements by reinforcing the child’s self-esteem. For example start the sentence with praises like: “You are a bright boy, let’s see how we can solve this problem.” You also need to be very careful to always be truthful to the child because he will feel when you are lying and he won’t trust you anymore.

· Recognize and acknowledge the child’s whishes. You have to pay very close attention to what your child wants, and try to see things thru he’s eyes. That way you will try to see what middle ground there can be between what he wants, and what you know is good for him. After you recognize his whishes state the limits that have to be imposed calmly and firmly. After that present, your child with the solution you had in mind, the middle ground.

Positive reinforcement is a very important tool not only in a parent’s handy bag but in any kind of social situation. If you understand the basic psychology of a person you can predict how they will react in certain situations. In this context, knowing how positive reinforcement works can prove to be very useful. Behavioral analysis has come a long way during the last few years and especially when it comes to raising a child, the market is filled with “How to…” books. They are useful and it is very important to understand the science behind the recommended way in which to behave and treat your child. But you must always keep in mind that a parent’s instinct is sometimes just as important. For those people that everybody says they will be great parent’s someday, positive reinforcement probably comes naturally, for the others there is no reason to be distressed, positive reinforcement is a pretty easy concept and it will prove to be the corner stone of good parenting.

What Is Positive Reinforcement

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