Operant Conditioning

The article titled, “To Condition the Child” by Jacob Lee and Matthew Snodgress discusses the use of operant conditioning in parenting. Lee and Snodgress address both positive and negative reinforcement and punishment when disciplining their children as well as encouraging desirable behavior. First, Lee and Snodgress explain that positive punishment, such as corporal punishment, to stop undesirable behaviors is not effective. In the moment, this approach may work, but it becomes a danger in the future because children feel misunderstood and disconnected with their parents. The authors also explain that this causes classical conditioning because the children begin to expect this punishment when misbehaving causing the child emotional and physical damage. Additionally, this punishment may cause the child to develop unhealthy relationships in the future. Furthermore, the authors discuss that when disciplining a child through reinforcement and punishments the techniques
The authors provided a great understanding of how to incorporate reinforcement and punishment in parenting to create the best results. The two could take the concept of operant conditioning and relate it to an everyday use. As we learned in class operant conditioning is great in not only teaching animals, but also humans through positive and negative reinforcements and punishments to make them do a certain behavior. Therefore, Lee and Snodgress explain that if you want a child to put their plates in the sink after eating, giving them a simple “good job” after they do it can accomplish this. This action must be consistent so the child gets an understand that what he/she is doing is desirable. It is for this reason I though Lee and Snodgress did an excellent job in their article. They could explain previous articles, but also discuss the importance of consistency to parents to fully achieve operant conditioning with their