Positive Reinforcement
When I was a special education teacher I worked in a middle school resource room. I helped to support kids with a variety of learning and behavioral/emotional needs. I also found for many of these kiddos, by middle school, school had lost its luster. Many of these kids appeared to lack intrinsic motivation to complete their schoolwork, stay on task, get good grades. What do you do with that?
As a parent, teacher, manager, leader…?
Is there any way to grow one’s motivation? This matter has certainly been up for debate.
What I saw was that kids were just on a negative mental spiral around school. They needed some small wins to help them build back confidence and enjoyment… they needed to feel good about school - in any way possible… so that we could help them turns things around and/or initiate some kind of change or improvement.
For some kids it was just more praise from their teachers, or adding in a reward system at home for work completion or good grades. Other times I would facilitate a positive reinforcement plan. It’s a simple concept but one that we can apply to many different areas of our lives, including in the home with our families.
What is Positive Reinforcement?
Positive means that you are adding something to the environment.
Reinforcement means that you are seeking to increase or continue encourage a certain behavior.
Positive reinforcement does not mean that the behavior is positive… It just means that you are getting something out of it versus having something taken away.
Quick side note: positive reinforcement is different from bribery (although we have made lots of jokes interchanging the two… haha). But bribery is actually when the reward is given before the action is taken; with positive reinforcement you have to show up and do the task first. And then you get the reward. SO, there you go! It’s not a bribe!
How to incorporate Positive Reinforcement
Here’s the thing… when the task is really challenging, or we have experienced prior failure, or we are not in the heartiest mental space to try something new, positive reinforcement can help us activate or move forward by adding in an external motivator such as:
15 minutes of Minecraft for participating in three periods of academics.
One lego set for every 25 reading lessons, plus a movie night after all 100 lessons.
One dollar for every book read.
You can do this formally or informally. You can do this with tangible gifts or access to preferred activities, or you can do with praise and attention. If you do set up a “plan”, give yourself a little time to set up and work the plan before you expect magical results. Be EXCITED about the plan! WRITE IT OUT and create a visual for your child too. Bonus points if there is a visual tracker of some kind - it doesn’t need to be fancy - but something to mark progress and show them their success.
You may need to tweak it, you may need to up the rewards and the stakes, and you may need to act more excited than your kid at first… but stick with it for a few weeks and BE CONSISTENT with the rewards.
Our Attitude Matters
Ok, now… be honest. You’ve read this far.. .but does anyone reading this have voices inside saying, “they shouldn’t need that kind of reward” or “they should just do it anyway”.
But honestly, is that working?
How is that attitude setting our kids up for success and making changes if they need to do so?
Change is hard and we have to honor that!
SO… just a gentle reminder that you have to decide if you’re on the struggle bus or in a situation that’s not working with your kid, you have to decide if it’s time to try a different approach… or to take positive reinforcement to the next level with a behavior plan. When we create more positive associations around working through the hard stuff with our kids…I am all for that, and this is one way to do it!