Specially designed to treat the syndrome of \”crying, yelling, acting bad to achieve goals\”

Yesterday, my upstairs neighbor talked to me about her son\’s obsession with video games, and she felt helpless. Of course she knows that she should limit the time and frequency of her children\’s play, but every time she gives up her principles because of her son\’s crying and fussing. \”Every time, when I say I don\’t allow him to play games, he immediately starts crying and fussing, and even rolls on the floor. I can\’t help him, so I have to let him play.\” The neighbor was very distressed. Ogawa has had similar problems before. For a while, he would also \”cry\” to fight for some \”unreasonable demands\”, such as eating too many snacks and watching too many cartoons, especially when he was with his grandparents. One day when I was preparing class materials, I saw Skinner\’s experiment on mice, and suddenly connected the two. I gained a deeper understanding of the reasons why children behaved this way, and found corresponding solutions. Skinner is a famous American psychologist and the founder of the new behaviorist learning theory. His mouse experiments are included in the \”Four Major Experiments\” of the behaviorist school. The original experiment went like this: A hungry white rat was put into a box. A small lever is installed in the box. Once the small lever is pressed, a pellet of food will fall. At the beginning, the mouse accidentally pressed the lever and got the food; but after a few repetitions, it would continue to press the lever and get the food until it was full. The reason why the mouse continued to press the lever was because it recognized the connection between \”pressing the lever\” and \”getting food.\” Or in Skinner\’s terms, subsequent \”rewards\” \”reinforce\” the likelihood of performing a behavior in similar circumstances. Similarly, the child initially did not know that \”crying\” could achieve his own goals; after several unintentional attempts, he accidentally discovered the connection between the two, and from then on, like a guinea pig, he frequently did so in order to achieve his own goals. Crying, fussing, and rolling around on the floor. How to break it? Skinner\’s subsequent experimental findings provided us with valuable suggestions and guidance. 1. Extinction may be the best method. Later, Skinner took away the food connected to the lever; after a few times (without getting food), the mice stopped pressing the lever. This means that the mice have \”learned\” again and understand that there is no longer a connection between \”pressing the lever\” and \”getting food.\” In the child\’s situation, the key to changing the child\’s crying behavior is to eliminate subsequent \”rewards\”. When children know that they cannot get what they want by crying, they will slowly give up those unnecessary behaviors. Similarly, sometimes, a child will deliberately say dirty words to stimulate the adult\’s reaction; the more furious the adult is, the more powerful he feels. At this time, fading is also a better way to deal with it. When a child says something unpleasant, ignore it and don\’t react in any way. Over time, the child will feel bored and uninterested and stop saying it. 2. Punishment may have an immediate effect, but it has no long-term effect and may even be counterproductive. Skinner later placed the mice in an electrified box. Press the button inside the box and the box will be powered off. Soon, the mice discovered the connection between \”pressing the button\” and \”cutting off the power\” and learned to press the button. This finding suggests that as a reward \”\”Twins\”, punishment can quickly establish behavioral patterns. For example, when a child cries and makes a fuss, we immediately punish him by scolding, beating, threatening, etc., which can quickly stop his crying behavior. But Skinner later It was found that once the box is turned off, the button-pressing behavior of the mice will also disappear quickly. In other words, the effect of using punishment to correct the child\’s bad behavior is short-lived, and he will soon repeat the same trick. Sometimes we even It was found that the result of punishment is that the child will cry \”intensified\” next time. This is the so-called \”Veblen effect\” of punishment (a concept in economics, the higher the price of certain products, the better they sell). Therefore, when faced with a child\’s unreasonable behavior and crying, no matter how angry we are, we should try not to use punishment to stop it. 3. Consistency of adults\’ attitudes is the key. Skinner also made the following modifications to the original experiment: When the mouse presses the lever, the food is not 100% dropped, but has a probability of falling (there may or may not be food). The experiment found that the mouse also learned to press the lever, and even if the food was subsequently removed, it would still Will continue to press the button. Similar logic, when a child cries, if we sometimes meet his requirements and sometimes do not meet his requirements; because the result is not clear, he will have a \”gambler-like\” mentality and choose Crying and looking forward to \”perhaps\” good \”results\”. Therefore, to correct children\’s crying and fussing behavior, we must adhere to a unified attitude. First, the attitude of all adults is consistent, especially the attitude of the elderly. Children are smart Very well, he knows how to attack weak links and win. The second is the consistency of attitude in different situations. When we close the door, it is easy for us to stick to principles. Once outside, it is difficult to say. The child is very shrewd, Knowing that we care about our feathers and face outside, we will deliberately act mischievously and force us to surrender. Of course, we cannot fully adopt Skinner\’s attitude and method of training guinea pigs to discipline our children. Skinner only cares about the guinea pigs. behavior, and we must also care about the child\’s inner feelings. When we adhere to the principle of not rewarding children for \”rude behavior\”, we must pay attention to protecting his feelings. The attitude must be firm, but the language can be gentle, and at least Until you are neither impatient nor impatient. Calmly tell him the facts and reason, and you will find that the child is reasonable. Another meaning is that we are also telling him what the correct way of communication is. Sometimes, children Yelling, crying and making fuss are not only because this is his \”method\”, but also because this is also his \”way of communication\”.