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Dillenburger, K. & Keenan, M. (1995). Dealing with child problem behaviours effectively. Child Care in Practice.

Northern Ireland Journal of Multidisciplinary Child Care Practice. 1, 33-38.

Dealing with child probelm behaviours effectively1

Abstract A recent campaign launched by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children aims to prohibit the use of physical punishment as a method to deal with problem behaviours in children. Prohibition alone, however, is not enough. Parents and other educators need alternatives when dealing with difficult and unruly youngsters. On the basis of applied and experimental behaviour analysis a range of alternatives to physical punishment have been developed and prove to be more effective in changing problem behaviours and less damaging to the child. This paper outlines the damaging effects of physical punishment and elaborates on alternative techniques in dealing with problem behaviours.

The debate about how parents or child minders should deal with unruly

or problematic behaviour in children has recently attracted much media

attention in Ireland and England. This debate was initially sparked off

by a court ruling that a child minder should be allowed to smack

children in her care, despite the fact that national child minding

organisations have explicit non-smacking policies. The debate has

evoked highly emotional responses from parents, child minders,

psychologists and other professionals, all of whom can be found on

both sides of the argument. In this paper we approach the issue not

from an emotional, or "rights of parents vs. rights of children" point of

view. Instead we will address the issue of effective child rearing

practices. The question therefore changes from "Are you right to

1An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the International Year of the Family Conference, Violence in the Family, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 13.-15. 10. 1994.

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smack naughty children?" to "What are the most effective methods to

deal with child misbehaviour?"

During childhood (and it does not necessarily stop there)

parents, child minders, teachers and others observe behaviours that

are not desirable either because they could lead to harm for the child

or others or because they do not conform to the norms for

appropriate behaviour set by adults/ society/ culture (Wheeler, 1973).

In such cases the aim of education is usually to change the problematic

behaviour of the child so that it become less frequent or disappears

altogether. For centuries psychologists have searched for explanations

of the processes involved in behavioural change. Some psychologists

propose that "... the experience of [physical] punishment leads to the

development of conscience" and that children refrain from

misbehaviour because "... they experience an attack of conscience"

(Lynn, 1993, 44). In fact, the same psychologists have argued that in

order to develop conscience in their children "sensible parents" should

use techniques such as "... gripping the child's arm ... and

administering a slap" (Lynn, 1993, p. 44). This kind of argument

implies that in order to develop conscience parents/educators should

inflict pain and fear on children. Children then avoid bad behaviour

because they have learnt to fear the consequences. Fear is used as

the instrument of education. The deliberate infliction of pain on

children does, however, cause a lot more than fear and avoidance

behaviour. It has all sorts of unwanted side effects.

PROBLEMS WITH PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT

There are a range of problems with the deliberate induction of pain (let

us be clear that this is exactly what a smack is intended to do) on

human beings. The following list is based on results from behaviour

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analytic studies of human and non-human behaviour (Dillenburger and

Keenan, 1994).

1. Imitation learning.

Recently a mother of a three year old girl relayed the following story.

The mother had on occasions in the past smacked little Lucy for

misbehaviour. Until one day, when she entered the living room, she

saw Lucy smacking her six month old brother. Tim had spilled a glass

of water. The mother was just about to smack Lucy for hurting the

baby when she realised that that was exactly what Lucy had done.

Lucy had imitated the mother's own behaviour, smack, facial

expression and all. Needless to say, Lucy (or her baby brother) have

never been smacked again.

When it comes to imitation learning children are like mirrors

(Bandura, 1973). It can be quite amusing to watch children imitate

anything they see, from granddad smoking his pipe to aunt's hysterical

giggle. Consequently, if children see adults who smack or engage in

other aggressive kinds of behaviour, we should not be surprised when

they imitate this behaviour too.

2. Vigorous responding.

The most usual response to pain is crying, vigorous waving of arms or

leg-kicking and a general increase in muscle tension. Pain causes

vigorous responding (Baldwin and Baldwin, 1986). It is particularly

important to remember this fact, because when pain is caused by

aggressive behaviour (such as a smack), imitation of aggressive

behaviour is often more vigorous than without the induction of pain.

For example, children may play aggressive games after watching a

kung-fu film. However, their aggressive behaviour would be even more

vigorous if they experienced pain at the same time.

3. Temporary response suppression.

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On the other hand, pain can also suppress responding. A smack can

stop the misbehaviour for the moment. This leaves the smacker with

the impression that the smack worked. The smacker is therefore more

likely to use this method again. The problem behaviour, however,

usually comes back again and the next time the smack has to be

harder. Taken to the extreme, Sidman (1989) pointed to the effect of

capital punishment, "Certainly, capital punishment gets rid of

behaviour - it does so quite directly, by exterminating the behaver."

(p. 59)

4. Learning to avoid both the pain and the people who

induce pain.

We have already discussed that children who are smacked may learn

to fear the consequences of certain behaviours and learn to avoid

these behaviours. However, children also learn to avoid the person

who administered the pain. Take for example, the two-year old who is

running towards a busy road. Given a smack, he may learn to avoid

running towards the road, but while the smacker runs after the child to

administer the smack, it is unlikely that the child will stop running and

await the smacker. The child has learnt to avoid the person who

smacks and is therefore more likely to keep running. In other words,

the child learns to avoid the smack as well as the smacker.

5. Negative emotional conditioning.

A similar process is in operation in regard to the emotions that

accompany smacking. A smack is an aversive stimuli that is associated

with negative emotions. Through the process of classical conditioning

similar emotions become associated with the smacker. Negative

emotions can become the corner stone of the relationship between the

smacker and the child. The usually bad atmosphere in the house

following a smack is a reflection of this process.

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6. Generalised response suppression.

Furthermore, smacking can lead to a general response suppression.

Examples of this include, the child that does not join peer play, or

isolates him/herself for others. The loner who does not interact with

others, the shy person. In such cases smacking has not only reduced

the mis-behaviour, but also other, potentially adaptive behaviours.

Given this list of problems with physical punishment (which is by no

means exhaustive), why do some psychologists (and others) still come

to the conclusion that smacking children is a good idea? The real

problem in their psychological argument lies in the fact that they are

looking for the causes of mis-behaviour in the wrong place. They are

looking for the cause of mis-behaviour inside the child, e.g. in the

child's conscience or lack of it. The concept of conscience, however,

is an inference made from behavioural observations. For example, we

observe the little boy who had kicked Dad before, now does not kick

Dad. A traditional explanation sounds like this: "... a little boy might

consider kicking his father, but would experience an attack of

conscience through previous experience that kicking incurs his father's

disapproval and this disapproval is associated with punishment" (Lynn,

1993, p. 44). Both, the boy's conscience and the father's disapproval

are inferences made from a behavioural observation. The behavioural

scientist is not satisfied with this pseudo-explanation. We did not

observe conscience or disapproval. What we did observe, was the

father's and the boy's behaviour. The emotions and thoughts that

accompanied their observable behaviours do not explain it, they are

part of the behaviour and require explanation, too. To talk about

conscience as if it were a thing, a possession, something other than an

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inference from observed behaviours is a misconception. It does not

add to our knowledge about the causes of human behaviour.

Thorough scientific analysis of behaviour does not rely on

inferences drawn from behavioural observations. The scientist who is

interested in what kind of variables influence behaviour, carefully

analyses each variable in turn and thus established how these variable

can be arranged to achieve desired behavioural change. This kind of

thoroughly scientific approach to behaviour has yielded much for the

understanding of behavioural phenomena (Baldwin and Baldwin, 1986;

Catania, 1992). Applying knowledge gained through the analysis of

behaviour to the issues of child rearing means that we are in a position

to identify a vast range of effective alternatives to physical

punishment.

ALTERNATIVES TO PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT

1. Differential reinforcement of other behaviour (DRO).

The most obvious way for changing mis-behaviour is to establish

behaviours in the child that are incompatible with the undesired

behaviour. For example, if we teach a child to help with the shopping

rather than throw a temper-tantrum in the shopping mall and praise (i.

e., reinforce) this co-operative behaviour, the child will very quickly

learn to help rather than shout. This approach demands some

imagination from the adult, but once adopted, this approach results in

improved relations and lack of embarrassment. Furthermore, a parent

who adopts the DRO approach will soon observe the so-called snowball

effect of positive reinforcement. Once a child displays desired

behaviours many natural reinforcers, such as a better relationship with

his/her parents, more time to play, proud grandparents, invitations to

friends, smiles, hugs, etc. will follow.

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2. Extinction.

Behaviour, good or bad, that occurs a lot is maintained by

reinforcement. Often parents/ carers are not aware that they

reinforce a behaviour, however, if the behaviour occurs frequently, it is

being reinforced. If we want to reduce mis-behaviour, we therefore

need to find the responsible reinforcer. Once found we can eliminate

it. In this case we use a natural phenomena of behaviour called

extinction. Extinction occurs when the reinforcer of a behaviour is no

longer available. The behaviour naturally decreases as a result.

While extinction can be very effectively used to deal with

problem behaviours, a word of caution is necessary. The natural

process of extinction follows a path that first leads to an increase in

the behaviour before the decrease occurs (so-called extinction burst).

It gets worse before it gets better. Parents/ carers who are not

prepared for this and "give in" at the height of the extinction burst are

in real trouble. The mis-behaviour has been reinforced at a much

higher level than before and chances are it will be maintained at this

level.

3. Response cost procedures.

A relatively common alternative to smacking is a response cost

procedure (Sulzer-Azaroff and Mayer, 1991). In other words, the child

loses part of a privilege, e.g. pocket money, playtime etc. in cases of

mis-behaviour. This method usually works quite effectively, especially

if resultant good behaviour is reinforced by the care giver.

4. Time-out from positive reinforcement.

A similar procedure involves temporary "time-out from positive

reinforcement". The reinforcer that maintains mis-behaviour is

temporarily removed. For example, if two children fight over a lolly,

the lolly disappears temporarily. However, often the reinforcer is not

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as easily identifiable. In such cases the child can be removed from all

possible reinforcers by being moved into the corner, onto a chair or

even removed from the room altogether. The important point here is

that this time away from the reinforcer must only be terminated when

the mis-behaviour has ceased for a sufficient length of time. If

children are allowed to regain the reinforcer too early, the effect of the

time away from the reinforcer is obviously lost.

5. Stimulus control procedures.

So far we have concentrated on the consequences of mis-behaviour.

By re-arranging contingencies of reinforcement we have been able to

identify a range of alternatives to physical punishment. Consequences

are, however, not the only variable that can be changed in order to

change behaviour. It is a behavioural fact that stimuli can gain control

over behaviour. The most obvious examples of stimulus control can be

observed when we view the same person behaving in different

settings, such as school vs. home, work vs. play.

Stimulus control can be used to prevent mis-behaviour. For

example, a child can be taught to respond to certain key words or a

"code word" can be established. When the child mis-behaves the adult

says the code word and if training was effective the child will cease to

mis-behave. A nice example of the use of stimulus control procedures

is the case of seven year of Sidney, whose nail-biting has reached

serious proportions. A code word was established between him and

the child-minder. Each time he bit his nails the child-minder used the

words and he stopped biting his nails. Obviously positive reinforcers

followed and the problem behaviour ceased very soon.

Stimulus control can also be used by training the unwanted

behaviour in the presence of a particular stimulus (Pryor, 1984). In

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order to decrease the unwanted behaviour after training, the stimulus

is simply not presented.

6. Eliminate an early component of a behavioural chain.

Most mis-behaviours do not occur in isolation. Careful observers can

easily identify a whole sequence of events or chain of behaviours that

lead up to the mis-behaviour. By eliminating an early component of

the behavioural chain the mis-behaviour can be averted Martin and

Pear, 1992). For example, in a restaurant, a child begins to rock the

chair, climb up on the chair, get down from the chair, wander around

the table, wander off to the fish tank, go further to the sweet trolley

etc. If the parents call the child when he or she has reached the sweet

trolley, they can expect a temper tantrum instead of a well-behaved

child. By eliminating an earlier component, e.g. climbing on the chair

the whole scene could have been averted. The behaviour of sitting on

a chair in a restaurant should than be reinforced.

7. Observational learning.

We have already seen earlier that children learn much of their

behavioural repertoire by imitating others. Children will imitate wanted

and unwanted behaviour. Clearly, if parents/carers engage in anti-

social behaviour themselves they need not be surprised if their children

do likewise. However, parents are not the only people that children

imitate and they will inevitably pick up some undesired behaviour, even

long before they start school. Imitation learning can, of course, be

used to prevent mis-behaviour or to teach children how to deal with

others who will entice them to mis-behave. It is important to

remember that children can (and have to) learn social skills and

assertive behaviours that will protect them from peer pressure to mis-

behave.

8. Reasoning and rules.

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One of the most frequent criticisms of people who advocate non-

smacking is that they are too liberal and that not smacking means

letting children away with everything. The argument is that very

young children cannot understand reasoning and therefore a smack

gets the message home. Clearly, appropriate responding to reasoning

is something children (as well as some adults) have to learn. We

cannot expect a child that is used to being hit for mis-behaviour to

respond appropriately to reasoning without teaching the child what to

do. The important point of reasoning is not the age of the child but

that " people who have been raised with reasoning ever since

childhood are most likely to use it and respond quickly when others

use it with them in adulthood. (Baldwin & Baldwin, 1986, p. 261)

Conclusion

Sophisticated methods have been developed to shape child behaviour

in an effective way. This does not only lead to better behaved children

but also to happier and healthier relationships between the adults and

children (Skinner, 1953). Physical punishment can then finally be

exposed as what is really is: an outdated, misguided, abusive form of

relating to others who are smaller and weaker that oneself, that can

only be explained by lack of sophistication and/or education on the

part of the smacker.

References

Baldwin, J. D. & Baldwin, J. I. (1986). Behavior principles in everyday

life (2nd Edition). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Englewood

Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Catania, A. C. (1992). Learning (3rd Edition). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:

Prentice Hall.

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Dillenburger, K. & Keenan, M. (1994). The dangers of misguided and

outdated applications of psychological principles. The Irish

Psychologist, 1, 56-58.

Lynn, R. (1993). The psychology of smacking children. The Irish

Psychologist, 11, 44-45.

Martin G. & Pear J. (1992). Behaviour modification. What it is and how

to do it. USA: Simon & Schuster Company.

Pryor, K. (1984). Don't shoot the dog. The new art of teaching and

training. U.S.A., London: Bantam Books.

Sidman, M. (1989). Coercion and its fallout. Boston: Authors Co-

operative, Inc., Publishers.

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York:

Macmillan.

Sulzer-Azaroff, B. & Mayer, G. R. (1991). Behavior analysis for lasting

change. U.S.A., London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Wheeler, H. (Ed.) (1973). Beyond the punitive society. Operant

conditioning: Social and political aspects. San Francisco: W. H.

Freeman & Co.