Introduction to Parenting

Howard Sloane, Ph.D.

The Mission of this Section of our Web Site

For something this momentous we get surprisingly little help. No one would drive an automobile without training, but often we become parents with little background or preparation. Sometimes the advice we get is so vague that it is useless, or leaves us wondering if we misunderstood it. But bringing up a real, live human being is much more complicated than driving a car! It is amazing how many people do a great job. The instances where someone fails as a parent make the news, while the millions of successes do not.

The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies web site is designed to enrich your life through behavioral science. Intellectual knowledge may make many things more interesting or understandable, or give you a new perspective on them. Practical applications may help you solve everyday dilemmas or merely make things easier and more fun, and, hopefully, may also provide assistance with more serious problems.

These are also our goals in the parenting section. We hope to provide you with new ideas and new approaches to everyday situations and concerns relating to children. We want to stimulate you and entertain you with different perspectives and ways of analyzing parenting issues. We will try very hard to provide you with ways to make the many chores of parenting easier and to help you feel relaxed and confident as a parent. We will suggest ways to resolve problems and where else you can go to get help when there are difficulties.

Providing the materials to reach these goals will take time. Initially we will fall far short of this lofty menu, because we want to carefully evaluate everything we provide so we are sure it is based on solid research and is practical and useful. Check back, and give us feedback to help us improve.

Some Background Ideas

Some people have said that behavior analysis has cut and dried approaches, a sort of "one size fits all" view of behavior, including children’s behavior. The good news and the bad news are both the same ....it ain’t true! In some ways life might be easier if it were true, but whether we would prefer this simplicity or hate its conformity, the facts of the science of behavior are that one size does not fit all.

Why?

The first reason is that everyone differs in their genetic background. No two people are alike in this respect. Further, even identical twins, though genetically alike, show some differences at birth.

“What?”... you say. Are these behavior analysts talking about genetics? Surprise number one – behavior analysis is firmly rooted in and based upon genetics. The “laws” of behavior describe the effects of genetics, mainly, of the genetic inheritance most of us share that affect behavior. No genetics ... no laws of behavior. And remember, although much genetic material is the same from one person to another, some is not. We are all alike in some ways and we are all different in others.

The "laws" of behavior describe common factors from person to person, and, to a lessor but very high degree, animals. What about the differences? Today, nearly everyone is familiar with the statement that a behavior frequently followed by some reinforcing event is likely to occur more often in the future. This is a general law that applies to the behavior of us all, and is due to the fact that we all have inherited a lot of similar structures. There is also a lot of individual variability. How much more often will this reinforced behavior occur in the future? This may vary from individual to individual. How frequent is a “frequent” reinforcing event for any particular person? Events that are reinforcers for one of us may be less so for another, and some of this difference may be genetic. Similarly, amount of reinforcement to produce a significant change may have a wide individual range? The behaviors that are likely to occur at all and thus can be reinforced vary greatly from one person to another, mostly due to experience and learning, but partly due to genetics. How “stable” will any change produced be (we call it learning) if there are no more reinforcers for a while? This may also differ due to what is inherited, and may (we do not know) be related to learning ability. It quickly becomes clear that this general law, which correctly describes the behavior of us all, also allows a lot of person to person individuality, some due to a different genetic background.

So because they all have inherited the basic human characteristics, the behavior of Frankie and Maria and Carlos and Selene are all described accurately by our reinforcement principle. With each, a reinforced behavior will get stronger. Knowing about reinforcement will help us teach them all. But we may have to find out what are effective reinforcers for each, and discover how quickly and how easily each of them will respond.

It is also obvious that inherited gross physical characteristics can affect what behavior will develop. For instance, a child who inherits a small, physically frail general build is less likely to be reinforced for "bullying” others than a bigger kid.

Variability starts with genetic differences, no two of us (except identical twins) inherit the same things. But what happens to each of us, our environment and experience, make for even bigger differences. Research shows that even identical twins are treated differently, and we are now well aware that boy and girl infants are treated differently just about from birth. Little differences tend to become big differences. If adults listen to and respond to Adele’s talking, she will talk more, and others will have more to listen to and respond to, and Adele may talk more and more... and so on. However, in a different family, where kids are smacked for opening their mouths, Adele might have learned to be quiet. In a family where children are generally ignored Adele may talk little, and the opportunities to reinforce speech from Adele will be few. Behavior is another area where “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

Culture, geography and social class also affect behavior. It is hard to learn about the animals in the jungle and become an expert on the jungle without a jungle. If nobody at home likes or makes tortillas, making tortillas may be impossible, or, at least, not reinforced. If there is no printed matter it is hard to learn to read. If there is not a lot of varying snow and ice it is difficult to learn to discriminate the different types of snow from each other. Without a “street” it is tough to learn “street smarts.” If girls are supposed to be submissive, a girl presenting her point-of-view may not be reinforced by others, and a girl may not become fluent in this art. If liking art is a “sissy” activity, Joe’s painting and drawing may be ridiculed. If academics are very important at home, school grades may garner more attention than sports, and vice-versa.

What are considered worthwhile values, goals, activities and aspirations vary from place to place, from family to family, and even for one child compared with another. Thus, the behavior that a child’s social environment will reinforce is different from child to child and from place to place. As a famous scientist said, “different strokes for different folks.”

What’s a parent, let alone a behavior analyst, to do? One size doesn’t fit all... but does anything at all fit? Can we get any guidelines? Is it all a big, buzzing confusion?

There are no cookbook answers, but there is help. Science provides us with many basic principles (not that all is known), but we must have the wisdom and ingenuity to understand how to apply these principles, and when, and with whom. These principles will operate whether or not we do this ... we do not really have the option of deciding we will not influence our children’s development. Whatever we do or do not do, it affects our children’s behavior. Our choice is between having some general idea of where we want to go and how to do it, or doing this without plan and pretending we are doing nothing.

In this section of the web site we will try to present some of these basic principles. There are some specific programs and approaches that people have discovered work fairly well with most children, and over time we will make more and more of these available or indicate where they can be obtained.

Helping Us

Reinforcement principles work with our behavior also! Tell us what you like and you will get more of it. Tell us what you do not like (and, we hope, why) and we will either make it better or drop it. Tell us what we have skipped and we will try to find it.

For your information, 99% of what you see in this and all sections of our web site is the work of unpaid volunteers. Our pay (reinforcement) is in providing useful information that helps and enriches people. Reinforce our efforts by telling us what we are doing right, and what we have to change so it is useful or interesting.

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