Are you teaching your child to be annoying????

[Goddess_Mother]

I am studying personality theory right now and am reading up on B. F. Skinner and operant conditioning.  Skinner gives an example of operant theory gone awry:

"The mother may unwillingly promote the very behavior she does not want.  For example, when she is busy she is likely not to respond to a call or request made in a quiet tone of voice.  She may answer the child only when [he or she] raises [his or her] voice. The average intensity of the child's vocal behavior therefore moves up to another level...Eventually the mother gets used to this level and again reinforces only lounder instances. This vicious circle brings about louder and louder behavior...The mother behaves, in fact, as if she has been given the assignment of teaching the child to be annoying."

Now who out there, as a mom, has NOT done this???? Guilty!  Right?  Ladies, this man wrote this back in 1951.  Not last year, or the decade before that or the decade before that....over 50 years ago!  That is half a century people.  And we still haven't gotten it! 

I tell you what....I had to laugh when I read it - but, sadly, this is true and still as current as EVER!

[RunninRagged64]

Sep. 28, 2009 at 3:45 PM

Not only are they teaching the kids to be annoying, they are teaching them that negative behavior gets a reward.

[theatregirl26]

Sep. 29, 2009 at 9:50 AM

RunninRagged64 is also right.  Scary stuff.  I always try to respond to Maddie, but it is hard.