This week - behaviourism. Behaviourism suggests we cannot know what is going on inside our heads; the only way to understand child development is to work with is seen – behaviour.
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All behaviours have consequences. If we do something and receive a reward we are more likely to do that something again. If we are punished, we are less likely to do that something again.
Learning is linking our behaviour to the consequence. A baby gurgles. Mum hears the gurgle and responds with glee: “Oh you are talking to me” and cuddles. The baby learns making a sound gets a pretty cool response and so will continue to make sounds.
Gradually mum will start responding to sounds with more meaning and not to other sounds. The first time baby babbles “ma ma ma”, mum is ecstatic, picks baby up, cuddles and tells everyone baby just said her name. When baby hums or makes another sound the reaction is not the same. This difference tells baby some sounds are worth making and others are not.
In the end, you have to decide what it is you want your child to learn.
Mum’s response is gradually “teaching” baby which sounds are useful in the language of her world, and which are not.
Of course nothing remains simple. Probably every time the baby babbles “ma ma ma”, mum is not going to give the same ecstatic response.
How often does mum have to respond to keep the baby babbling in language sounds? It depends on baby and context so part of what baby has to learn is to read the situation – if mum’s voice sounds really stressed, then a "ma ma ma” sound might not get this response, whereas when she sounds happy it probably will. Dad probably will not respond in the same way to “ma ma ma”, but a little experimentation with different sounds will soon identify that dad responds really well to “da da da”.
Learning is happening because people are responding to baby’s behaviour.
Behaviourism is used in managing inappropriate behaviours. Imagine a child who is whinging and driving you nuts. You have several choices. You can respond at the first whinge: “I hear you are unhappy, let’s see if we can work out what will make you feel better.” You are teaching the child that her communications are heard and you are responsive to what she is telling you (you might at a later time suggest other ways of getting your attention instead of a whinge – “use your words” is a useful phrase).
You can ignore the whinge for a while but get progressively more annoyed so that after 10 minutes you finally give in and respond. You are teaching the child whinging for anything less than 10 minutes is not going to work. If you want to use ignoring as a strategy, you must not give in – you have to be prepared to ignore the whinge until the child gives up.
The child might decide if you are not paying attention to the whinge then she will escalate to something else that perhaps you cannot ignore. Perhaps after 10 minutes of ignoring her, the child now comes up to you and hits you. This is something you probably do not want to ignore so you will have to respond.
What you are then teaching the child is forget the 10 minutes whinging, go straight to the hit – it will get attention every time.
In the end, you have to decide what it is you want your child to learn. If you want your child to learn she is important to you, and encourage her to use words to tell you what is bothering her, then an immediate response is likely to be most effective.
When she learns to trust that you will respond, you will be able to teach her to accept a little delay: “I see that you are upset. How about you come and sit here with me – I need to finish this job and as soon as I have done this we can figure out what to do to make you feel better. Here, let’s have a cuddle while I do this – see what I have to finish here.”
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