Providing Alternative Choices in Order to Change Behavior
Change for the better is hard, but especially for children. Having children can be difficult at times. Trying to get them to stop doing something can be a challenge. Some things parents do to try to correct the behavior and motivate change is by using a scornful tone, or other punishments like a timeout or losing some form of privilege for a time, etc. Why does punishing often not work? Why do the children keep doing the same behavior?
Source: pixabay
Yet even when we get reprimanded for doing a wrong or doing things wrong, incorrectly or improperly, we can persist in repeating the same behavior. With all the pressure to not do things wrong, why do we keep doing it? A study set out to answer why punishment can seemingly produce the opposite effect and keep someone engaging in the same behavior being punished for.
A test was devised to give weak electric shocks for hitting the left or right key depending on the setup. Participants had to choose if a number on a screen was smaller or greater than 5, and hit left for 1 to 4, and right for 6 to 9. Another experiment had two shocks, one weaker and one stronger for each direction. If you got the answer right, you would still get shocked if your setup had the left or right key always giving a shock. This was to see if someone would still choose to engage in behavior despite negative consequences of pain being applied.
In the first test people tended to push the direction for the single weaker shot quickly when the answer was that way. The experimenters thought this was because they wanted to get the pain over with. In the second test they expected people to press the key quickly for the key with the most pain. But people tended to push the key rapidly only when there was the weaker shock, not for the stronger shock.
It seems that punishment alone is not enough to suppress the behavior that is being punished. The punished behavior can even increase in frequency, so that the punishment has the opposite effect on curbing the behavior. What appears to be happening is that the brain (or mind) is using behavioral consequences to determine if an action is agreeable to be engaged in. The negative consequence to the behavior is known beforehand, it is acceptable, and the choice is made to repeat the behavior as desired — despite those consequences.
Even if we know an unpleasant effect or consequence will follow from our causal action, we will keep doing itbecause that’s what we have done and we know the outcome. The outcome — although negative — is acceptable to us in that situation, so we persist in our habits and keep doing what we do. The known is often more preferable to the unknown. As they say, we choose the devil we know. But the key to getting over habits or bad behavior, is in imagining or knowing an alternative choice to make. Bring the unknown into the known as an alternative.
When a child or an adult is locked into a certain behavioral pattern, into certain habits, they are going to stay *stuck doing the same thing unless they understand another way of doing things. This is why for children, it’s especially important to give feedback about their misbehavior along with an alternative better way of doing things so that they can understand why something is not desired.
Even for adults, this is a known way of overcoming habits. If you don’t envision another way of doing something, then you can’t very well choose to do something different and you will continue to do the same thing. So when trying to discipline or punish a child for some form of wrong behavior, there is always a requirement to explain the situation and have them understand why what they did is worse compared to an alternative that is better. This is how they will learn, and how we all keep learning later on in life as well.
Everyone can benefit from being pointed out clear alternatives to their problematic behavior. We often get stuck in habitual, automatic and unconsciously unawarebehavioral patterns. If we self-examine, analyze, introspect, reflect and contemplateon what we do and how it affects others in the short or long-term, we can better tackle many of the problems that befall our modern world. We can get out of being led by our unconscious or subconscious desires and motivations, and take back control of the chessboard of our kingdom of self with our conscious awareness and willpower.
Everything that is happening — right or wrong — is a result of behavior. We are on one spaceship-earth and in the end we all bear some weight for what we allow to persist on this planet. We can change our behavior if we are willing to look at it honestly.
Great post.
This has me thinking… are many examples of things that people do to themselves habitually despite experiencing negative consequences afterwards. For instance, someone who is overweight may continue to overeat despite feeling intense stomach pain after a large meal and needing to buy bigger clothes as time goes on. A person who smokes cigarettes may have experience painful coughs and severe chest pains from years of smoking but continue on anyway. An alcoholic may continue to get wasted day after day despite regularly passing out and vomiting after their binges. All of these consequences result in suffering and the people who engage in these behaviors aren’t consciously trying to bring them about, but as you said, if the consequences are known and predictable these people have a sense of what to expect. Therefore, they may decide to take the consequences for the sake of sustaining the habit hey have grown attached to.
I am a parent and am guilty of making some deeply heart wrenching mistakes when it’s comes to punishment. I’ve never hit or spanked my child, but nonetheless I’ve resorted to other lazy, harmful and shameful ‘methods’ of so-called discipline that I’ve learned from my family growing up. I’ve used the excuse that I’m too busy to sit down, slow down, and thoroughly explain why certain behaviors are not appropriate or moral.
Not too long ago I spoke with a friend of Michael Tsarion, her name is Rebecca Jernigan about children and discipline. She said something along the lines of “they don’t know any different until you teach them differently.” This supports what you are saying, if children aren’t taught another way of going about a situation they aren’t going to magically know the right thing to do them self.
An example of someone doing something repeatedly until they know different is a pre-verbal infant who wants something. The baby sees a cup of water on the table and can’t say “I want water, please”, so the infant whines and whines until he or she is given some. Punishing the baby for whining wouldn’t help him or her learn the language to ask for it quicker, it wouldn’t actually have the opposite effect. The developing child needs to hear the word ‘water’ hundreds, if not thousands of times before he or she can say it them self. In regards to telling a child the appropriate responses to a challenging situation, he or she may need to be talked to about the same issue dozens or hundreds of time. We’re probably all familiar with an exasperated parent yelling the phrase “How many time do I have to tell you this????” Or phrases similar to : “I’ve asked you a thousand times not to throw food on the floor!!!” I’ve said phrase like that my self.
If a parent isn’t getting the desired results, they should begin to question them selves, not the child. They should consider if they’re even giving an adequate, easy to understand explanation of the problem and the correct action to take in regards to it. Sometimes I forget to do this and the results are not good. Most parents assume their young children should quickly grasp things like why food doesn’t belong on the floor, why writing on the walls with markers is inappropriate, why it’s dangerous to play near the stove. Most parents aren’t aware of the meaning of the word nescient, and instead think their children are behaving stupidly or are just purposely being defiant. They don’t consider that a developing child’s brain doesn’t have the full capacity to make certain connections on it’s own, especially not ones involving adult concepts. For example, young children don’t understand the concept of money or value. So if they decide to play with an expensive lamp or other fragile item worth a lot of money it may take a lot of effort for a parent to explain the effects of that object being broken.
As you’ve mentioned, the imagination is important in all of this. In Episode #6 of Mark Passio’s podcasts he talks about the imagination. Here are some things he said:
“Mind Control is the extermination of the Imagination. If you can’t envision a life that could be different than what it is, you’re trapped exactly where you are with no real possibility of changing for the better. It has to be imagined before it can be done.” (I paraphrased this one in my notes)
“The imagination is the greatest power that we possess. To attempt to destroy it is one of the greatest weapons, one of the greatest methodologies used against the human species, by those who seek ever greater control, the sorcerers of the world. The sorcerers of consciousness. People who just want their will to be done, who don’t care who they step on to get that done.”
“The imagination creates everything.”
“Sorcerers always need to suppress and stifle the human imagination. They need to put a lid on what we are capable of imagining is possible.”
“Until you imagine it, you’re not going to bring it into manifestation.”
“The imagination is the greatest power of our thoughts.”
Overall, we need to create visions of the correct, moral response to any situation in life for our selves and for others, especially for the youngest earthlings who need our guidance the most.