Discipline, Early Childhood

Negative Reinforcement and Punishment

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of something after a behavior has occurred, for the purpose of increasing the frequency of the behavior. Rewards are given after a child has engaged in a prosocial behavior, but they are not necessarily reinforcers if they do not increase the target behavior. By contrast, punishments decrease the likelihood that a behavior will occur. Similar to reinforcement, punishment can also be positive or negative. Some examples include withdrawing privileges (e.g., watching television) or tangible items (e.g., toys), putting a child in time-out, and spanking. Extinction involves eliminating the reinforcement that maintains a behavior in order to reduce or eliminate previously reinforced behaviors. For example, if parental attention reinforces children's temper tantrums, ignoring temper tantrums should lead to extinction (or at least reduction) of temper tantrums. The premise behind the behavioral approach to discipline is that extrinsic motivation can help children identify which behaviors are appropriate and desirable, and eventually, children internalize these rules of conduct and behave as a result of intrinsic motivation, rather than to receive rewards or reinforcement or to avoid punishment.

Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement involves the addition of something after a behavior has occurred to increase the frequency of that behavior, such as praise and attention, tangible items (e.g., stickers or toys), and privileges. Using positive reinforcement for desirable behaviors helps foster positive self-esteem in children. When parents rely excessively on punishments or use punishments that are too harsh, this can foster low self-esteem in children. Spanking as a form of punishment tends to be an ineffective disciplinary strategy, since children remember the emotional reaction, pain, or embarrassment they felt regarding the spanking as opposed to the message about why a certain behavior was not allowed. This strategy runs counter to the goal of helping children to internalize standards of conduct, since their compliance likely results from fear of punishment. Reinforcement and punishment are more likely to be effective when combined with [Page 363]clear and consistent limits for children, a positive environment, and explanations for why certain behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable so that children internalize the rules. Use of reinforcement and punishment without the use of explanations and reasoning will likely foster children's compliance to rules in the short term, but not internalization of values in which children adopt standards of conduct as their own.

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