Transform Your Child's Behavior: Operant Conditioning For Parents

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to encourage better manners in your kids without nagging?  Or to make them less likely to repeat an unwanted behavior without harsh punishments?  A strategy that could give you a plan for how to react to your child, both in good times and bad?  You’re in luck, my friend.  There’s a basic concept from the field of behavioral psychology called operant conditioning theory that does all of that.  The name sounds big and scary, but don’t worry, I will make it super simple for you.  By the end of this post, you’ll be a pro and have a new parenting tool that I guarantee you will use every day for the rest of your life.

I love teaching parents about operant conditioning theory because this concept of shaping your child’s behavior applies to so many aspects of parenting - I mean everything from getting your child to sleep better to getting them to do their chores.  Understanding how this theory applies to parenting can give you a huge leg up on promoting better behavior in your child and deterring unwanted behavior.  That means a happier and healthier family dynamic and, frankly, a more enjoyable and fulfilling parenting experience.  It’s truly a strategy that should be taught to every new parent!

Consequences

Let’s begin by talking about consequences.  Consequences are an essential component of positive discipline - the part that allows you to create a warm and loving household while ensuring that you provide the structure and boundaries critical for successful child development.  Consequences are the teaching, or molding, part of parenting that helps ensure your child will progress to where you want them when they reach important developmental checkpoints of 5 years, 11 years, and 18 years.

Teaching consequences entails balancing your long-term goal of friendship with your children with the parental role of a loving authority figure.  It is important to establish the role of loving authority figures early.  It’s cute when your toddler climbs on you, but when your big kid climbs on you, and you ask them to stop, you want them to listen.

Consequences don’t have to be harsh to work.  You’ll see this when we talk about manners and how some fun or silly tricks work.  Consequences don’t need to be big and scary and make you think of parenting as an unpleasant event or leave you feeling icky and having your child angry with you.  There are times when real consequences are called for, but most of the time, you can use consequences as a little reminder or in a fun way.

Operant Conditioning Theory 

It’s time for a one-minute history lesson to give you some context for where this strategy falls into the overall field of psychology and how it will inform your parenting practice.  When we talk about consequences, we’re talking about Operant Conditioning Theory, which was developed by American psychologist B.F. Skinner in the mid-1900’s.

Skinner was focused on how people learn how to act through their interactions with others in their environment.  For kids, it’s primarily their interactions with their parents in their home environment that teach them how to act.  He was focused almost exclusively on observable behavior (your child’s actions) rather than internal events like thinking and emotion.

I’m about to explain the four core elements of operant conditioning theory.  Pretend you’re a high school student taking your first psychology class or a college student taking Psychology 101 and learning all the fascinating elements of the brain and human behavior.  Once you have the basics down, I will provide countless examples of how this applies directly to your daily parenting experience.  This will change your life, so stick with me.

Skinner introduced the terms Reinforcement and Punishment.  Reinforcement refers to increasing the likelihood of a behavior by providing a favorable consequence that follows that behavior.  If your child does something and you respond favorably, they are more likely to do that again.  Punishment refers to decreasing the likelihood of a behavior occurring again due to the unfavorable consequence that followed that behavior.  If your child does something and you respond unfavorably, they are less likely to do that again.

If you’ve ever trained an animal, like your family dog, and think this sounds familiar, you’re exactly right - operant conditioning theory principles serve as the foundation of animal training.  Kids are a little more dynamic, but the concepts hold true!

Sinner introduced two qualifiers that apply to both reinforcement and punishment: Positive and Negative.  Skinner’s word choice was a little tricky here because he meant positive and negative to mean adding or subtracting, whereas most people think of positive and negative as good or bad.  When I teach parents about operant conditioning theory, I substitute more clear terms: Add-on and Take-away.

In sum, there are four key categories within operant conditioning:

1) Add-on Reinforcement: Adding something good to increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated in the future

2) Take-away Reinforcement: Removing something bad to increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated in the future

3) Add-on Punishment: Adding something bad to decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated in the future

4) Take-away Punishment: Removing something good to decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated in the future

I know that’s a bit confusing.  Don’t worry; we are going to discuss each of the four categories separately with very tangible examples, so it will make perfect sense momentarily.

The critical thing to understand is that life has consequences, and each of these four categories represents different types of consequences.  You can literally shape your child’s behavior by understanding what type of response to use.  This is very important to know because using the wrong response can actually promote them to have worse behavior.  Let’s dive into each of the four operant conditioning categories.

Add-on Reinforcement

As a reminder, add-on reinforcement means adding something pleasant to increase the likelihood of a behavior happening again.  That is, adding something your child likes to promote better behavior.  Here are five examples of add-on reinforcement applied to parenting:

1. Child smiles → You smile back at them.
2. Child laughs → You smile and say, “Aren’t you the cutest thing.”
3. Child says a new word → You clap and say, “You did it!  Great job.”
4. Child draws you a picture → You hug them and say, “Wow, thank you so much.  I love it.”
5. Child says they made a new friend at school → You give them a high five and say, “That’s so exciting.  Good job being outgoing.”

Each of these parental responses is naturally or intrinsically reinforcing to your child, meaning your child likes to see you smile, hear you laugh, receive praise from you, and get a high five from you.  The positive feeling they have when you do these things makes them want to keep smiling, laughing, drawing you photos, etc.  So, if you want to keep seeing those behaviors, keep reinforcing them.

Remember, when talking about operant conditioning theory, we discuss consequences or environmental reactions to your child’s behavior.  Consequences don’t need to have a negative connotation.  The vast majority of your use of operant conditioning should be using add-on reinforcement.  I will briefly touch on four nuances of using add-on reinforcement in your parenting practice.

Honest Praise: You can praise physical attributes to boost self-image, choices like outfit selections, behaviors like kindness shown toward others, and accomplishments like new skills learned.  Be sure to mean it when you praise your child.  Don’t over-flatter.  Not every picture has to be the best one you’ve ever seen.  Your child is learning to trust that you support them but also that you are honest with them.

Accidental Reinforcement: Another thing to be aware of is the possibility of accidentally reinforcing a child’s behavior.  I find this comes up most often with other people’s kids.  If you ever see a friend’s child do something totally rude or inappropriate yet adorably cute, like talking back to their parents, mimicking inappropriate gestures, sulking, stomping, or pouting, do your best to ignore the behavior.  Turn away if you need to.  You don’t want to accidentally reinforce that behavior by smiling and laughing because that might encourage them to repeat the behavior.  It may be cute to you, but probably not to their parents.  Those behaviors can be adorable in a toddler but are not adorable in big kids.

Goal Behaviors: Be very contentious about your use of add-on reinforcement for goal behaviors.  This means focusing your praise on behaviors that you have targeted as major areas of improvement for your child.  It also means maintaining praise beyond the initial accomplishment.  For example, if your child just learned to put their shoes on by themselves and you really want them to keep up this new skill, be sure to continue smiling, clapping, and telling them how neat it is that they can put on their own shoes now and how much you love to see them do it until that goal behavior is very firmly established as part of their daily routine.  If we celebrate the first time they put on their shoes and then ignore future efforts, we may find they’re no longer interested in putting on their shoes by themselves.

If you've had success with this approach in your own parenting, I'd love to hear about it in the comments below.

Food as a Reinforcer: Treats are commonly used as a reinforcer by parents.  I’ll share an example with you.  Somebody at Trader Joe’s grocery store figured out a great scenario to help parents shopping with young children.  For years, I packed a snack for my kids to help them through the grocery trip.  Or we would make it part of the trip to pick out something like the biggest apple to snack on.

When we started shopping at Trader Joe’s, we saw add-on reinforcement built into the shopping experience.  If you’ve never been to Trader Joe’s, I’ll tell you that each store has a signature stuffed animal like Wally the Walrus.  As you go down each aisle, you search for Wally because he moves daily.  This keeps kids entertained during the shopping trip and is a great idea.

Then, at check-out, when kids are often at their limits, the clerk asks if you found Wally, and if you did, they’ll offer you a free lollipop.  Talk about a reinforcer for young children!  And it keeps the little ones from eyeing all the treats that are typically placed right by the checkout area.  Whether you shop at Trader Joe’s or a different store, this is an example of using food as an add-on reinforcer that you could set up for your own child as a grocery shopping treat.  Maybe if they are well-behaved during the trip, they get to pick a decadent snack or you bring a lollipop in your purse to give them at check-out.

If you are comfortable using food as a reinforcer, let me tell you about another little trick that I loved using when my kids were young but old enough to eat solid food safely: I would keep a few different flavors of Tic Tacs in the car to have each child’s favorite flavor on hand.

The Tic Tacs became reinforcers for behaviors like strapping in by yourself, making it to the destination without kicking mommy’s seat, making it to the destination without invading your sibling’s personal space, etc.  They’re the tiniest treat but very effective.  You could certainly use them in the house, too, but I like to keep that as a special car reward.

Do you see how simple it is to use add-on reinforcement in your parenting practice and how much it can help shape your child’s behavior in a positive way?  Now that you know the power of add-on reinforcement, I bet you’ll use it every single day with your kids.

Take-Away Reinforcement

Next in the reinforcement category is take-away reinforcement.  Remember, take-away reinforcement means removing something unpleasant to increase the likelihood of a behavior.  That is, taking away something your child doesn’t like to promote better behavior.  Let’s run through three examples together.

1. When you enter the car, you start singing the seatbelt song

Child puts on their seatbelt → You stop singing the song

Some of my kids have gone through phases where they would get in the car and take forever to put on their seatbelts.  One option using take-away reinforcement is to sing the seatbelt song, “The first thing you do when you get in the car is strap in, strap in,” from the moment you enter the car until your child straps in - over and over with increasing volume if necessary.

The idea here is to remove the unpleasant song when they start showing that good behavior of strapping in to increase the likelihood of more good behavior in the future - quickly strapping in when they enter the car.  If you have an amazing singing voice, this consequence may not be as effective for you, but my kids tend to buckle up quite quickly when I start singing.

2. Frequent requests to put their shoes away

Child puts shoes away → No more nagging from mom

Do you have any kids who constantly leave their shoes out in the entryway rather than putting them away, and you feel like you are constantly nagging them?  Using a take-away reinforcement strategy, you might overtly say something like, “Imagine how nice it would be if you didn’t have to hear me nag you about your shoes because you had already put them away.”  You help them to see that doing the good behavior (putting their shoes away) removes the unpleasant nagging.  When you see your child put their shoes away, you might jokingly pretend that you were about to say something, then mime a “zipping your lips” motion showing how you don’t need to nag them anymore.

3. Child wants to be allowed to walk on sidewalk without holding hands

Child stays near you → You let them walk “big kid style” 

As kids get older, they don’t always want to hold hands when walking on the sidewalk.  You might say they can try walking independently as long as they stay close to you.  You can release their hand after they agree.  In this case, holding hands is actually something unpleasant, making them feel like a younger child.  By giving them the independence to walk alone, you are taking away something unpleasant (hand-holding) to increase the likelihood of the good behavior of them staying near.  This works out well when they do stay safely near you because they feel mature and independent, and you may be free of a situation where they were tugging on your arm to be free.

Choices: Providing choices is a key component of teaching consequences.  Teaching consequences early (meaning as soon as they can move independently) helps children learn to make good choices and become good listeners.  It also helps you maintain a sense of control in your parenting.  The idea here is to set up a potential consequence for your child and forewarn them of exactly what behavior will lead to that consequence.  

In the sidewalk example, that means clearly stating that they do not have to hold hands if they stay within arm’s reach of you.  But if they go farther than that, you will grab their hand again.  You want to be sure the child fully understands the potential consequences before making their behavior choice.  In this example, confirm they understand before you let go of their hand, and they decide whether to stay close or not.  Of note, if you give your child the chance to walk alone and then they do not stay within arms reach, you must be sure to follow through on the consequence of grabbing their hand again.  Follow-through is key to using if-then statements.  They can try again later or on your next outing.

Providing choices and setting up consequences in this manner is really the first form of what’s often referred to as positive discipline or gentle discipline.  If you’re interested in diving deeper into the world of positive discipline and unlocking the secrets to getting your kids to listen and respect your words, I'm excited to announce an upcoming free workshop.  This event will go beyond the basics, exploring advanced strategies for what to do when your child refuses to do something you’ve asked them to do.  It's an opportunity not to be missed for anyone committed to fostering a loving, respectful, and effective parenting approach.  You can register right now at www.drlindsayemmerson.com/respect.

Take-away Punishment 

We’ve wrapped up both types of Reinforcement - Add-on and Take-away.  Now, we’re ready to move on to punishment, as defined by Skinner’s Operant Conditioning Theory.  Continuing with the take-away theme, we’ll begin with take-away punishment, saving add-on punishment for last.  Remember, punishment is a consequence that follows a behavior and aims to decrease the likelihood of that behavior occurring in the future.  The “take-away” part means removing something.  So, in take-away punishment, we are removing something pleasant to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.  That is, taking away something your child likes to promote better behavior.

Most of your interactions with your child should be neutral to positive, but there are definitely times when negative consequences are important.  Research has provided a goal ratio of 80% neutral or positive interactions with your child and no more than 20% negative interactions with your child.

That’s a very important point.  To provide age-appropriate boundaries and set up consequences for your children while maintaining a loving and friendly relationship with them, choose the target behaviors that matter the most to you and to their development such that no more than 20% of your interactions with your child are focussed on these problematic behaviors.

For toddlers, I recommend using take-away punishment in the form of removal from a situation, as opposed to removing a favorite toy or a privilege, which might be more appropriate for a child closer to school-aged.  Let’s run through four examples.

1. Child repeatedly takes toys from a friend → Take 5

First, talk to your child, explaining that we don’t take toys from friends, that they’ll get a turn soon, and that it makes their friend feel sad, angry, or frustrated.  Then, tell your child that if they can’t wait for their turn, they’ll need to step away from the play area for a short period.  If the problem behavior continues, escort the child away, hold up your hand, and ask them to take five deep breaths to help them calm down.  When the child is calm and agrees to play without taking toys from others, they can return to the play area.  Stepping away from the play area is taking away something your child likes.  This approach is similar to a time-out but feels much more supportive and restorative to me.

2. Child is hitting at a play date → Leave play date early.

Actually leaving a play date would be a consequence reserved for very extreme behavior that you really do not want repeated in the future.  Remember, these are young kids who are still learning social norms and emotion regulation, so you wouldn’t want to run off at the first sign of aggression but rather forearm the child of the potential consequence if the behavior is repeated.

3. Children are bickering in the car → Pull car over and step out

In this car example, you would first politely request that the children stop bickering, kicking your seat, etc. (whatever the problem behavior is), let them know that it makes it very hard for you to drive safely with so much distraction, and let them know that you will need to pull over if they do not stop.  There doesn’t need to be any drama; you can take your time to pull over safely.  Usually, the shock of you actually pulling over before arriving at your destination is enough to stop the problem behavior, but you can actually step out if they do not stop bickering or ask the children to step out if you are in a safe location.  Typically, doing this once means that when you encounter a similar situation and you forewarn them you’ll need to pull over if they don’t stop bickering, they’ll stop without any further incident.

4. Child throws a tantrum at store → Leave the store.

Leaving the grocery store is a classic example of take-away punishment.  You may be thinking this is more of a punishment for you than your child, but some kids do enjoy the excitement of picking out items at the store or people-watching.  And if there’s a treat at the end for good behavior that is lost by leaving early, then that is a real consequence for them.  Again, this is one of those dramatic moves that, though done calmly, is memorable and typically does not need repetition.  Usually, the mere statement of leaving is enough to stop the problem behavior, especially if you explain that it would be unfortunate to have to leave all of the items you have already picked out and inconvenience the store employees to put them back for you.

Next, I will briefly touch on four important guidelines for using take-away punishment in your parenting practice.

First, Talk it Through: Please remember with any consequence, this is not the primary disciplinary technique.  Talking through right and wrong, trying to get an understanding of the child’s feelings, and helping them get their emotions regulated will work for most problematic behaviors.

Forewarning is Essential: Most of these issues can be resolved by talking it out and won’t need a consequence.  If needed, these consequences must be stated in advance, especially with young children who are so new to social and cultural expectations.  We are teaching, not torturing your munchkins.  After talking it out, if you feel like the consequence is warranted, whether that’s the first offense, second, etc., you clearly state that if they do that same behavior again, then the specific consequence will happen.  For example, if you hit Tye again, we will have to leave the play date early and go home.  Set up reasonable and fair consequences so you feel justified in following through on them if needed.

Follow Through is Critical: You must follow through on the stated consequence.  You are giving your child an opportunity to learn here.  Do you want them to learn that your words are meaningful, your actions are reliable, and in addition to having a loving relationship with your child, you are the authority figure in the relationship?  Or do you want them to learn that you make casual threats but don’t follow through, so there’s really no point in listening to your words?  I think you know the right answer to that one.

The pattern of consistently setting parameters for your children and sticking to them helps to support your child in learning right from wrong and in learning to listen to your words.  When I see 7, 8, 9 year-olds who don’t listen to requests from their parents, I know that consequences were not consistently used in their younger years.  For example, the other day, I saw a friend rough-housing with her son in a very fun, playful manner.  Then she told him she was ready to stop and that they should take a break for a few minutes while we talked, but he wouldn’t stop jumping on her.

You don’t want to be controlling in your relationship with your child, but you do want to feel in control and know that you’re not going to get walked all over (or, in this case, jumped on repeatedly when you’re trying to have a conversation with another adult).  You do want to hold your kids accountable for their actions to help teach them self-control and responsibility.  Remember to register for my free workshop at www.drlindsayemmerson.com/respect for practical skills to help you do just that.

Physically Moving Your Child: Keep in mind that following through on consequences may mean gently but physically moving your child’s body.  Whether it’s helping to remove a toy from their hand that they took from another child and won’t release, removing a dangerous or fragile object that you’ve asked them to put down, moving their body away from the playgroup to Take 5, or even carrying them up to their bedroom if they refuse to head to nap time.  These are not ideal situations but are warranted as a last resort after you have tried talking it out, maybe tried humor (e.g., “Oh man, you don’t want to walk on your own up to nap now?  What about if we race instead?”)

Present these options as a choice to give your child as much independence as possible.  For example, “Tanya, I told you if you hit your friend again, you would need to Take 5.  You can walk over to that corner of the room with me now, or I can carry you over there.  You choose.”

Remember, we want the vast majority of interactions with our children to be neutral to positive, but when necessary, take-away punishment can be a powerful parenting tool.  When clearly communicated in a loving way, take-away punishment can effectively teach boundaries.

Add-on Punishment

You’re doing great - 3/4 of the way through learning how to apply this powerful tool of operant conditioning to parenting.  Next in the punishment category is add-on punishment.  In add-on punishment, we are again trying to decrease the likelihood of a behavior happening in the future, but this time, we add an unpleasant response to the behavior.  That is, we add something your child doesn’t like to promote better behavior.

Here are four examples of add-on punishment applied to parenting young children:

1. Child reaches for something you told them not to touch → You give a disapproving look
2. Child hits you to get your attention → You firmly say, “No, we do not hit.  Use gentle touch.”
3. Child walks into the street → You yell, “Stop!”
4. Child says something unkind to a sibling → Say 3 kind things to them

Now that you have a better idea of what add-on punishment looks like in parenting, let’s talk about whether it is a good parenting approach.  For babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, a disapproving look and a corrective, “No, we don’t hit.  Use gentle touch,” is usually sufficient.  I occasionally use add-on punishment with my older children, but these younger kiddos just haven’t developed the frontal lobes in their brains enough for me to feel ok with using tough consequences yet.  It’s much better to use add-on reinforcement and, when appropriate, take-away reinforcement or take-away punishment in general, but especially with younger children.  

Next, let’s touch on three important considerations when using add-on punishment.

When Take-Away Reinforcement Turns Into Add-On Punishment: One use of add-on punishment that might come up with your little ones would be as a consequence following the use of take-away reinforcement.  For example, following up on the example from our take-away reinforcement discussion of your child wanting to be allowed to walk on the sidewalk without holding hands…you said to them, “Yes, you can walk without holding my hand as long as you stay within arm’s reach.  And if you go farther than that, I will have to hold your hand again.”  You confirm they understand and agree to the parameters.  Let’s say they don’t stay near you, and you grab their hand again.  Now, grabbing their hand is actually acting as an add-on punishment.  You are applying an unpleasant stimulus (hand-holding when they asked for independence) to decrease the likelihood of a behavior (running off in a dangerous situation).

When It’s OK to Yell: Let’s look at this example of yelling, “Stop,” when your child walks into the street.  Clearly, this is an example of when it’s okay to yell at your child.  You really want them to pay attention to your words for their own safety.  This is also a reason why you should not regularly yell at your children.  You want them to listen if you ever yell at them.

Plus, it just feels awful to be yelled at, and we don’t want that experience for our children.  That said, I have absolutely lost my cool with my kids and raised my voice despite having the best intentions not to.  In my parenting membership, we discuss two related concepts.  The first is how to turn events like that into positive learning experiences for your children, and the second is lots of tips on how to control your anger for those most challenging parenting moments.

Physical Punishment: I recommend entirely avoiding the use of physical punishment in your parenting practice.  You now have some pretty powerful tools you can use to help shape your child’s behavior without resorting to actions like spanking.

Also, there are significant drawbacks to the use of physical punishment.  First, there’s no love involved in physically hurting your child.  If your goal is to balance disciplinary needs now with the friendly relationship, you want to have with your children when they are adults, using physical punishment may jeopardize that future relationship.

Spanking is actually one of the most researched aspects of parenting with hundreds of studies looking at the varying effects of spanking, so let’s look at some of the findings.  There’s a type of research study called a meta-analysis that pools the results of multiple other research studies to derive conclusions about that body of research.  In a large 2016 meta-analysis, spanking was found to be related to more negative relationships with parents.

Second, you can truly harm your child with physical punishment.  As much larger and stronger adults can become very frustrated or angry with their children, it’s quite possible for a parent to seriously hurt their child.  With the youngest children, you can see this in the case of shaken baby syndrome.  

Similarly, the research shows that when children are spanked, they are at greater risk for physical abuse by their parents.  You may think that would never happen to you, but have you ever slammed a door harder than intended when you were angry?  It’s no small feat to stay in control of your own body when your child is on their worst behavior.  It can be a slippery slope once you let physical punishment into your household.

Third, in addition to physical harm, there may be emotional or psychological harm involved in using physical punishment as well.  That same meta-analysis found spanking to be associated with more aggression, more antisocial behavior, more mental health problems, lower cognitive ability, and lower self-esteem.

Now, parenting choices like whether to use physical punishment or not are complex.  There can be cross-cultural and within-cultural differences.  Worldwide, spanking is actually very common.  I am here to inform you about research findings and offer my own personal opinion but not to judge you for your choices.

One more thought for anyone still not convinced about avoiding physical punishment: It is our job to model good behavior for our children, teach them problem-solving skills, and help them grow up to be good people.  What is spanking your children teaching them?  When in the real world is ok to hurt somebody who has offended you?  How would you feel if your child’s teacher called you into their office to discuss how your child has been spanking other children when they get upset?  How would you feel if your child spanked your beautiful grandchildren one day?

On the flip side, please do not stress if you ever have a total fluke and are a little too rough with your child.  I’ll freely admit that I once smacked one of my kids completely by accident.  I was engaged in a conversation and felt a sharp pain on my bottom and, out of instinct, whipped my hand back to stop whatever was causing the pain.  My child had somehow snuck up on me and, for some reason, decided to bite me on the butt to get my attention.  I was shocked that he was what I smacked.  He was totally fine, but I was quite embarrassed having to explain to the other person that I don’t normally hit my children.

Just be aware of your conscious choice not to use physical punishment with them, and do your best to stick with that.  If you feel like you are not able to control your actions and your use of physical punishment may actually be physical abuse, please seek support right away.  There is a strong intergenerational transmission effect for domestic violence, such that if you were the victim of domestic violence as a child, you are far more likely to be physically abusive with your own family as an adult.  That’s a trend that victims of domestic violence should be aware of and a reminder to get help now before your children and your children’s children suffer the consequences.

Take-Home Message

Operant conditioning is one of the most powerful tools in your parenting toolbox to help motivate your child’s behavior to align with your expectations.  It’s not just about changing your child’s behavior; it’s about transforming your entire approach to parenting to have a more clearly definable pattern.  Operant conditioning can help parents who are feeling stuck or frustrated with their current approach to discipline.  Now that you understand this theory, you’ll be able to look at each parenting situation from a new angle and think, “What is my response teaching my child, and how will that affect their future behavior?”  Remember to keep the focus on your child’s good behavior using add-on reinforcement such that at least 80% of your parenting interactions are neutral to positive.  Now, it’s time to go out there and start using your new parenting tools!  Pay attention to how much add-on reinforcement you use in your parenting practice.  Try take-away reinforcement to help with any sticky aspects of your daily routine.  Use add-on and take-away punishment on an as-needed basis.  The applications of operant conditioning are endless.  Use your imagination and adapt these tools to your unique parent-child dynamic.  I hope that you feel more calm and in control during challenging parenting moments, knowing that you have these parenting tools to draw from.  Keep up the good work on your amazing parenting journey!

P.S. I hope to see you in my upcoming workshop, where I’ll share with you my #1 tip for getting your child to listen to and respect your words.  Get ready to say goodbye to parent-child standoffs and hello to mutual respect: www.drlindsayemmerson.com/respect

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