Rewards are Encouragement for Good Choices

In the first part of this rewarding child for good behaviors, I mentioned that all parents reward. The purpose in rewards are to encourage children to continue the desired behavior. This may be to keep following directions, cleaning up their room, making good choices at school, or being kind to a sibling. The more positive reinforcement the child receives, the more likely they will have the "good feeling" about the choice he made. If you are working with constant disobedience or more severe behavior, you need to pick one part of the behavior to work on first. For example, if you have a child that hits a parent every time they are asked to clean his room, you have to start with the hitting, then the room cleaning. You should choose to encourage every time the child went to clean his room without hitting, even if he does not actually clean his room. Using words explaining the right choice of not hitting is how the child will learn not to hit. Then begin to encourage the times the child does actually goes into his room and begins to clean it. Then encourage going into his room without instruction and cleans his room. Eventually with positive encouragement, the child will train himself to think of the right choice. It may take a long time, but positive encouragement will do far more than spankings or time out (Which in this case will give the child a way to escape cleaning his room! More on that in another post!) Keep up the good choices!