1. DISCIPLINE

2. The role of the parent...
To produce a child is simply a matter of biology. To “parent” a child is a difficult role to fulfill.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a Pyramid of Human Needs, an hierarchy of needs critical to survival.
It is the parent’s job to help meet these needs of their child:
The child has physical needs of food, water, shelter
The child must feel and be safe from harm
The child must feel love, a sense of belonging; acceptance
The child must feel a sense of self-worth
The child must strive to be “all that they can be” (fulfillment/ self-actualization))
In order to help the child satisfactorily meet these needs throughout their lifetime, the parent must provide guidelines for behavior…discipline.

3. Definition of discipline...
One of the most challenging aspect’s of the parent’s job is discipline.
Discipline is “the task of helping children learn to behave in acceptable way within the family and within society”.
The ultimate goal of discipline is to help children achieve self-discipline… the ability to control one’s own behavior.
With excellent guidance, children gradually begin to understand why certain actions are right or wrong…developing a conscience!

4. The care-giver-child bond is important...
An adult can discipline a child without having an “attachment” to that child, but a strong bond between the parent and child is very effective… making the process of disciplining easier.
Communicate your respect to your child in word and deed each day.
Listen and respond to your child’s feelings as well as their words.
3. Model and teach courtesy, patience, kindness, thoughtfulness, honesty, loyalty, responsibility, fairness, and forgiveness.
4. Give your child age-appropriate responsibilities at home. This solidifies their sense of worth in a measurable way.
5. Recognize, acknowledge, and praise your child when s/he makes an effort to do something good. Make a big deal out of it!
6. Avoid destructive expressions of anger such as insulting, sarcasm, shaming. Try to discipline with dignity.

5. Be a parent, not a friend...
1) While parents can be friendly, they should not be a friend.
2) They need you to be an authority figure who lets them know where the boundaries of acceptable behavior are.
3) Trying to be his or her friend will only undermine your authority as a parent.

6. The psychology of discipline...
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in a small Pennsylvania town.
-Originally studied English.
-Masters in psychology in (Harvard)
-Doctorate in (Harvard)
-In 1945, he became the chairman of the psychology department at Indiana University. 
He was renowned for his theories on human behavior... the basis of many of today’s discipline methods.

7. Operant conditioning...
B. F. Skinner’s entire system is based on operant conditioning. 
While operating on the environment, an organism will encounter a special kind of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a reinforcer. 
This special stimulus has the effect of increasing the operant -- that is, the behavior occurring just before the reinforcer. 
“the behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.”

8. Imagine a rat in a cage. This is a special cage (called, in fact, a “Skinner box”) that has a bar or pedal on one wall that, when pressed, causes a little mechanism to release a food pellet into the cage. 
The rat is wandering around the cage, doing whatever it is rats do, when it accidentally presses the bar and -- presto! -- a food pellet falls into the cage! The operant is the behavior (pressing the bar) just prior to the reinforcer (the food pellet). 
In no time at all, the rat is furiously peddling away at the bar, hoarding a pile of pellets in the corner of the cage.
A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future.

9. Behavior extinction...
Skinner discovered that if you re-introduced the reinforcer after having removed it, the operant behavior resumed more quickly than it had originally developed.

10. Schedules of reinforcement...
At one point in his experiments, Skinner decided to reduce the number of reinforcements he gave his rats.
The rats kept up their operant behaviors, and at a stable rate.  This is how Skinner discovered schedules of reinforcement!
To encourage or produce a specific behavior, continuous reinforcement must be used initially.
Once the pattern of behavior-followed-by-reinforcement appears quite well established, the reinforcement does not always have to be used. The desired behavior will continue with only intermittent or variable reinforcements.

11. Punishment...Aversive Stimulus
An aversive stimulus is the opposite of a reinforcing stimulus, something we might find unpleasant or painful. An aversive stimulus is commonly referred to as punishment.
A behavior followed by an aversive stimulus results in a decreased probability of the behavior occurring in the future.
Statistics show that behaviors change more quickly with the use of punishment than with the use of reinforcers, BUT more permanently with the use of reinforcers rather than punishment.

13. Negative reinforcement...
The reinforcements we have referred to in previous slides are “positive reinforcements”… in rats this might be a food pellet; in children it might be a desired stimulus such as praise.
There are also “negative reinforcements”. These are not necessarily the same as punishment. The child’s behavior changes in order to stop an existing punishment or aversive stimulus.
Example:
1. The child does not like the parent to nag them about taking out the garbage.
The child takes out the garbage.
The parent stops nagging.

14. Shaping behaviors...
Shaping is a method of “successive approximations.” First, you reinforce a behavior only vaguely similar to the one desired, then you reinforce variations that come a little closer to what you want.
Application: I want my child to help put away groceries when they are brought home every Friday. What steps might I take to “shape this behavior”?
Example: A little boy is afraid to go down a slide.  He gets picked up, put at the end of the slide.  He jumps off and is showered with praise.  He is then picked up and put a foot or so up the slide and slides down: more praise.    Eventually, he can be put at the top of the slide and slide all the way down and jump off.  His behavior has been “shaped”.