Good Parenting

In order to curb a child’s temper tantrum you have to use the principles of operant conditioning which states that a response that is followed by a reinforcer is strengthened and repeated. A child who is reinforced for a particular behavior will exhibit that behavior again. In the case of a temper tantrum, the child acts up to get the adult’s attention. The adult’s attention acts as the reinforcer. Let’s examine the temper tantrum. The child may start off by whining and as good parents we ignore the child’s behavior. The child does not get the parent’s attention so he/she starts to whine a little louder and as parents we continue to ignore the behavior. The child then gets louder and louder until the child is screaming. We as parents can’t take it anymore and give in by providing some type of attention at this point. Remember that attention is the reinforcer and the behavior that was reinforced was the screaming.

What happens the next time? Yes, you guessed it…the child will start a temper tantrum by screaming because that is the behavior that got him/her the attention during the previous tantrum. So what do we do as parents? Using the same principle of operant conditioning and reinforcers you have to choose which behavior it is that you want to reinforce. Of course, you want to reinforce the “quiet” behavior in this case, so you have to give the child attention as soon as he or she is quiet even if it is for a split second. Eventually that second will grow into minutes and the temper tantrum is gone.

Many times, children are only given attention when they are doing something wrong and ignored when they are behaving. Children need to be given attention when they are behaving well in order to reinforce and promote that type of behavior in the child. Reinforcement especially praise and attention is very effective with children but only when used appropriately.