From the ArcaMax Publishing, Parents Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/parents/s-573971-565019
Living with Children
John Rosemond
Copyright 2009, John K. Rosemond
As my regular readers already know, I am not a fan of rewards given
for behaving properly. First, any improvement in behavior that comes
about as a result of reward is almost always short-lived. Second,
rewards teach children how to be manipulative, to withhold proper
behavior until an adult makes a sufficiently attractive offer, as in
“If you will stop that and behave yourself the rest of this shopping
trip, I’ll buy you that toy you want.” In effect, rewards are
bribes, but one must be careful to distinguish between giving a reward
and giving positive feedback. The latter is essential to helping a
child “fine tune” his or her behavior.
A mother writes that things had gone from bad to worse in her attempts
to toilet train her 30-month-old. The primary problem was that he wet
his pants incessantly. Gating him in the bathroom with his
potty—something I often recommend when toilet training has
“stalled”—only made matters worse. Mom was at wits’ end.
Then, in the midst of her toileting torment, she came up with a
brilliant idea: “I used a marker to divide a note card into four
sections. Then, again following your advice, I began using a potty
bell (a simple kitchen timer, available in most discount stores for
around $7.00) that I set for thirty minutes. I explained to him that
every time the timer said ‘beep-beep’ I would come and check his
underwear. If it was dry, I would put a happy face sticker on his
card—I called it his ‘ticket’—which I put up on the bathroom
door. When he filled his ticket with four stickers, he could come out
of the bathroom. Meanwhile, I filled him up with liquid.
“Sha-zam! His attitude did a complete 180. Suddenly, his underwear
was staying dry and his potty was filling up. I should add that I did
my best not to overdo the praise I gave him for his success. I simply
told him he was doing a good job and gave the happy face.
“Like you, I am not a fan of reward charts and the like, but I think
the ‘bathroom ticket’ was a helpful visual aid to help my toddler
understand what I was expecting of him. Furthermore, earning four
happy faces only resulted in a normal state of affairs—being
released from the bathroom—as opposed to a tangible reward like a
new toy.”
Mom closes by saying, “I hope this idea will help someone else who
is at their wits' end with potty training.” I do too, which is why
I’m sharing her letter with my readers.
This toileting success story illustrates the distinction between a
reward and positive feedback. Feedback is corrective, rewards are not.
When children misbehave, they need negative feedback (which, more
often than not, should come in the form of a tangible punishment,
delivered without any display of great emotion). Likewise, when they
behave properly, and especially when proper behavior has not been the
norm, they need positive feedback (again, delivered in a fairly
low-key manner).
This mother simply used a concrete means of communicating positive
feedback to her soggy bottom boy. With toddlers especially, the more
concrete the feedback, the more effective the feedback.
But the magic ingredient in this coup de’ toilet was that in the
face of frustration, this mother used her head instead of caving into
emotion. For that, she receives a Great Big Happy Face along with a
relatively low-key “Good job!”
Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his
web site at www.rosemond.com.
*About the Author: John Rosemond has written nine best-selling
parenting books and is one of America's busiest and most popular
speakers, known for his sound advice, humor and easy, relaxed,
engaging style. In the past few years, John has appeared on numerous
national television programs including 20/20, Good Morning America,
The View, Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect, Public Eye, The Today
Show, CNN, and CBS Later Today.
Visit Rosemond's Web site,
www.rosemond.com. Currently, Rosemond is offering two
of his books for the price of one.
NEW: Read the first chapter of Rosemond's newest release "The
Diseasing of America's Children: Exposing the ADHD Fiasco and
Empowering Parents to Take Back Control" at BookDaily.com.