background preloader

Parenting teenagers: Reinforcement and Punishment

Facebook Twitter

Parents, in general, wish for their children to grow up well and with experience, often times would know behaviours that would lead to good outcomes and would try to instill them in their children.

Teenagers are children who are at the stage of adolescence where they transit between childhood and adulthood. They will go through some major changes to their body and mind and it is common for many to rebel at this stage. Responsibility of a parent is to educate their child and it is difficult period to do so.

In this post, we will go through what is known as operant conditioning, a method of behaviour learning where the probability of a response is changed by its consequences.

Better understanding of this form of learning could help parents to encourage desirable behaviours and discourage undesirable behaviour while giving teenage children the space to explore and decide.

Skinner’s Operant Conditioning: Rewards & Punishments. Reinforcement vs Punishment Psychology [Examples] Reinforcement and punishment are often used as parenting tools to modify children’s behavior.

Reinforcement vs Punishment Psychology [Examples]

Let’s review the difference between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, and the difference in outcomes between them. The Difference Between Positive And Negative Reinforcement In behavioral psychology, reinforcement is the introduction of a favorable condition that will make the desired behavior more likely to happen, continue or strengthen in the future​1​. Because the favorable condition acts as a reward, reinforcement is a reward-based operant conditioning. There are two types of reinforcement: positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. 12 Examples of Positive Punishment & Negative Reinforcement. You might be thinking that “positive punishment” sounds like an oxymoron, after all, how can punishment be positive?

12 Examples of Positive Punishment & Negative Reinforcement

Not many people “like” punishment, right? The disconnect in understanding this concept comes from the usage of the word “positive;” here at PositivePsychology.com, we generally use the term “positive” to refer to things that are inherently good, things that are life-giving, and things that promote thriving and flourishing. Discipline strategies for teenagers. Teenage discipline: the basics Discipline isn’t about punishment.

Discipline strategies for teenagers

It’s about teaching children appropriate ways to behave. For teenagers, discipline is about agreeing on and setting appropriate limits and helping them behave within those limits. When your child was younger, you probably used a range of discipline strategies to teach him the basics of good behaviour. Now your child is growing into a teenager, you can use limits and boundaries to help him learn independence, take responsibility for his behaviour and its outcomes, and solve problems. Teenage development: what to expect. Physical changes in teenagers For girls, physical changes sometimes start happening as young as eight years, or you might see these changes only now, as your child enters the teenage years.

Teenage development: what to expect

Physical changes in puberty include: breast developmentchanges in body shape and heightgrowth of pubic and body hairthe start of periods.