Positive ReinforcementHow to teach your child new skills to improve independence with ADL’s,

chores and homework

Presented by Sheila Guiney, M.Ed.

Northshore Education Consortium

November 2015

Teaching your child new skills

• Make a list of skills you would like to see your child learn

• Prioritize the list• Make a plan to teach skill• Create environment for teaching• Motivate your child

What to teach?

• Improved independence with self-help skills• Improved toileting skills• Increased tolerance to changes • Decreased tantrums, self-injury, etc.• Independence with homework• Independence with household chores

List skills you want child to learn

Think about your child’s strengths – those are building blocks for learning new skill.

For example: if your child has ability to recognize pictures, using pictures in a teaching sequence for getting dressed would be a great place to start.

Keep it Simple

Teaching new skills is most successful when the skills are taught in small steps.

You and your child can feel successful right away

Early success keeps you & your child motivated to continue working on the skill.

How to break down tasks

Example: Improved waitingPlan: start with small intervals of time that child is asked to wait and gradually increase wait time when he has success.Use a visual timer, if effective.

Example: Independence with getting dressedPlan: Break down getting dressed into steps and use a visual checklist

Motivate Your Child

Positive Reinforcement – The addition of a reinforcing stimulus following a behavior that makes it more likely that the behavior will occur again in the future. When a favorable outcome, event, or reward occurs after an action, that particular response or behavior will be strengthened.

One of the easiest ways to remember positive reinforcement is to think of it as something being added.

Examples of Positive Reinforcement

• After you execute a turn during a skiing lesson, your instructor shouts out, "Great job!”

• At work, you exceed this month's sales quota so your boss gives you a bonus.

• For your psychology class, you watch a video about the human brain and write a paper about what you learned. Your instructor gives you 20 extra credit points for your work.

Can you identify the positive reinforcement in each of these examples? The ski instructor offering praise, the employer giving a bonus, and the

teacher providing bonus points are all examples of positive reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement also gives children attention.

Children love and need attention. They can get attention by doing good things and by doing bad things.

You can avoid some bad behaviors by giving the child attention at the right times. Give your child plenty of positive attention so that he won’t need to misbehave to be noticed by you. Try not to give him very much attention when he is doing the wrong things.

Praise your child for good behavior. Be very specific. Tell him exactly what behavior, actions and words you liked. Examples:

• “ Thank you for cleaning up your room.”• “I like the way you shared your toys with your friends.”• “I am proud of the way you ran the race.”

When your child is doing something you do not like, stop and think. Do you need to say something negative to stop that behavior right away? That might reward her bad behavior with your attention. For example, your child may be getting restless at the doctor’s office and begin to make faces and to complain. You could ignore that behavior and watch for when she gets involved in a magazine and stops complaining. Then you could tell her that you see that she is being very patient and that you appreciate her acting grown up. This way you are giving her positive attention. That teaches her what she should do instead of what she shouldn’t do.

"Great Job!" or "Good Girl!"What could possibly be wrong with praise?

Positive reinforcement, after all, is one of the most effective tools a parent has. The trouble comes in when the praise is vague and indiscriminate. Tossing out "Great job!" for every little thing your child does—from finishing his milk to drawing a picture—becomes meaningless. Kids tune it out.

Praise only those accomplishments that require real effort. Finishing a glass of milk doesn't cut it.

Be specific. Instead of "Beautiful job," say, "What bright, happy colors you picked for the dog's spots." Or "I see you drew a picture of the story that we read this morning.”

Praise the behavior rather than the child: "You were so quiet with your puzzle while I was finishing that paperwork, just like I asked.”

Positive reinforcement with your child

When the desired behavior is done by the child, a reward known as a reinforcer is presented to the child. Reinforcers are anything that motivate the child and can range from tangible items to pleasurable activities or social recognition.

Choose a strong reinforcer

A reinforcer or reward should be something that is important to your child. Reinforcers can include anything from a small candy to a coin to a token or sticker.

With teens and young adults earning choices with regard to movies, take-out, etc. can be highly motivating reinforcers.

Positive Reinforcement systems

Positive Reinforcement can become difficult to implement and track without some sort of system for structure and tracking. To that end parents and caregivers have used various charts and tables.

On a more elaborate scale entire programs utilizing tokens as measurement toward a reinforcing goal that can be a single reinforcer or a choice of reinforcers from a list or catalog. These are known as token economies and can use chips, tickets, points or any number of other things as the tokens.