Reframe your perspective on the common learning tool and how to apply it
It’s time to look at punishment: What it is, what it isn’t, and how can it be utilized for a more connected family? Is there really such a thing as positive punishment?
Punishment is a natural phenomenon that’s poorly understood, frequently misapplied, and often riddled with controversial applications. While punishment can often be considered ‘bad,’ it’s simply a principle of learning. When we look at behavior in the context of learning, punishment is not about teaching a lesson for misbehaving, but a response to suppress the future frequency of similar behavior.
Touch a hot stove? You better believe next time you won’t touch it again for fear of the burn.
Let’s consider another, less concrete, example: A child is sent to the principal’s office for ‘bad’ behavior as a form of punishment. Sometimes, sending a child to the principal’s office will have some control over a child’s behavior and for others, not so much. It’s all based on an individual basis. But, if this didn’t decrease the ‘bad’ behavior, it’s not technically considered punishment.
Examples of Positive Punishment
So, when is a punishment positive? When it successfully decreases the unwanted behavior – without hurting the parent-child relationship.
Let’s look at examples of positive punishments that are acceptable with careful consideration from a psychologist or behavior analyst:
Reprimands
This is a positive punishment technique, meaning it adds something to the environment. A verbal reprimand delivered after a problem behavior is probably the most commonly used (attempted) positive punishment.
There are studies that demonstrate a firm ‘No’, ‘Stop’, or ‘Don’t do that’ is effective in making it stop. However, if a reprimand is the only way a child can get someone’s attention, it can actually reinforce the negative behavior to happen more often.
Response Cost
Remove stimuli from the environment. This is as simple as it sounds. If your children are fighting over a toy, the toy is removed from the playroom until they can use it safely and calmly. If your child is overwhelmed by the crowded playground and acting out, it’s time to head home.
Time-out From Positive Reinforcement
Time-outs may be one of the most hotly debated forms of punishment for toddlers and young children. Some parents swear by them, others have sworn time-outs off completely. I believe a time-out can be a positive punishment example when done right.
Read my blog post about how to use time-outs effectively to learn more.
Positive Practice Overcorrection
Contingent on problem behavior, the learner is required to engage in the correct behavior related to fixing the damage caused by the behavior. Examples include: walking out of line vs. running out of line.
Response Block
This type of positive punishment is most commonly used when children engage in self-injury. The idea is to block the child from emitting the behavior to prevent the completion of the response. This intervention has proven to be effective in reducing behavior such as mouthing or self-injury.
The Side Effects and Long-term Problems with Punishment
While positive punishment is possible, there’s a reason it’s a controversial subject among parents and child psychologists. Punishment can cause long-term impacts if not done well.
Some of the biggest side effects of punishment include:
- Possible long-term psychological harm. This stems from the long-lasting effects of toxic stress.
- The person providing the punishment becomes aversive.
- Emotional and physical aggression towards others nearby when punishment is delivered.
- Punishment results in escape or avoidance. If a child knows that punishment is going to be delivered, they will engage in other behaviors that might be worse to avoid it. A child who gets reprimanded for something may begin to lie to avoid a hard reprimand from a caregiver.
- Punishment may result in imitation of the punishment procedure. As humans, we learn through modeling. When a behavior’s been modeled for us, we are more likely to model or use the same behavior under similar conditions.
- Behavior contrast. This is when the problem behavior happens more often under conditions where punishment is not occurring.
- Often, when parents continue to use punishment because it’s effective in the short term, it fails to teach what behavior to do under specific conditions.
How to Use Punishment in Positive Ways
Knowing this, it’s important to only use punishment when appropriate. When trying to correct, change, or stop unwanted behavior, use reinforcement first.
Think about the appropriate behavior based on the context of the situation, focus on teaching acceptable behavior and reward it with natural praise. Skill-building lagging skills is better than resorting to punishment to change behavior.
Finally, when you’ve exhausted all your positive, proactive, reinforcement-based strategies, you can then consider trying punishment.
Want to learn more? I teach this in my Back Pocket Essentials guide. If you choose to use appropriate punishment strategies, always make sure you are using positive reinforcement for the replacement behavior.
In order to use this effectively, the punisher must actually work. Collect your own notes on how your time-out or overcorrection procedure is or isn’t working. It’s only considered punishment if you see a decrease in the behavior under similar conditions.
For more parenting tips from Michelle at Thriving Toddler, check out thrivingtoddler.com.