Reinforcements are vital in the development of children because they often help in eliminating or strengthening behaviors. Reinforcement often provides two main techniques that help in increasing or decreasing specific conducts. The techniques include positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement means encouraging a desirable desire through the application of rewards. Negative reinforcements are known for taking away the rewards in cases where undesirable desires have been performed. In this case scenario, the mother is trying to increase the consumption of peas among her children. She is using sticker chart as a way of monitoring their progress and rewards them depending on the number of stickers that they have earned. This is evidently a form of positive reinforcement that takes advantage of giving rewards so as to reinforce specific behaviors.
The Behaviors That the Mother Is Trying To Reinforce
As indicated above, the reinforcement theory includes a combination of punishments and rewards that are applied in reinforcing specified behaviors or discourage unwanted behaviors ( Allen, 2013) . In this case scenario, the behavior which the mother is trying to reinforce is to have her two children eat more peace. She is doing this through the process of monitoring their intake and them rewarding them at the end of every week so that they can be encouraged to adapt to the new behavior. In this case, she is using reinforcement stickers as rewards every time the children showed desirable behavior in the form of eating more peas. The mother in the case scenario is trying to reinforce what she assumes to be good behavior with the hope that the behavior will be repeated. Through the provision of immediate reinforcement in the form of stickers, she hopes that the children would continue to consume more peas to get more stickers for the reward that they would get at the end of the week. However, from the case, it is evident that the mom is experiencing difficulty in getting her children to eat more peas and the reinforcement process only works for one child.
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Possible Functions of the Behaviors
According to the case scenario, each child has had a different reaction to the reinforcement that has been applied by the mother the main function of the reinforcement was to help them to increase their intake of peas. However, it is evident that the function of their behaviors has served them in a different manner. In this case, one of the children chose to eat the peas consistently so as to collect more stickers, and thus was given a bigger reward when the week ended. The behavior is attributed to the fact that the child wanted to get the tangible item in the form of stickers. On the other hand, the other child’s behavior can be compared to be that of someone who wants to avoid or escape from something. The child is likely to have wanted to avoid tasting the peas. Therefore, through their behaviors, the children are able to communicate their feelings regarding the new behavior to their mother.
Method of Reinforcement used
The form of reinforcement that has been used in this case is the positive reinforcement which takes advantage of the reward framework. The reward framework is often considered to be a combination of cerebrum structures whose aim is to control and manage conduct through the process of encouraging positive results. In this case, the mom is trying to take advantage of the stickers as a form of reward when her children each their peas. However, the use of rewards may not result in the expected behavior or impact as is the case in this situation where only one child has been able to embrace the new behavior even though the reward is expected to motivate the individual to display the desirable behavior. It indicates that the reinforcement needs to be persuaded to the individuals involved.
Reasons why the Method is working for one Child
In this case, there are various reasons why the strategy worked in one child and not the other child. It is a combination of the technique that was used, self-stimulation, and avoidance. Initially, the strategy was not effective on one child because they were more reluctant to increase their intake because they concentrated on the smell and taste of the peas as opposed to the extrinsic gratification which in this case is the reward given.
The next reason why the strategy only worked for one child is related to the behavior of the child. Avoidance or escape is also a stimulating factor because the conduct of the child wasn’t towards getting anything but, to abstain from consuming the peas. In addition, people are generally different and thus observe and also value things in different ways. This means that the sticker chart may have been valuable to one of the children but not the other one. It could be because of several reasons that include the manner in which the reinforcement was delivered. For example, the child might have not been motivated by the reward being provided or could have expected a certain number of stickers to have been given in a day.
The other reason could have been the effects of the delivery time of the reinforcement. Considering the fact that the mother was waiting for the week to end so as to remunerate the children, the youngster might have lost patience in the process ( Corey, 2009) . This might have then decreased the possibility of succeeding in the initiative. If the mother is to ensure that there is a success in the process then the reward or reinforcement response needs to be immediate. In this case, there is a high likelihood that one of the children did not learn that through the process of eating more peas and gathering more stickers, they would be able to get the reward. The time that they were getting the reward was too long for the youngster to relate the reward to the action taken.
Lastly, the method might be effective on one child as opposed to the other because the child lost interest or motivation with the sticker method. In this case, the mother needs to think of another motivation method for the child who is not responding to the current method.
Possible Ideas to Increase Consumption among The children
To increase the consumption of pea, the mother can reward the children with a tangible item which they would like such as sweets and toys every time they eat peas. This is a form of positive reinforcement which will motivate the children ( Flora, 2004) .
The other idea is to reward the children immediately as opposed to waiting for a week to pass so that they can relate the reward to the action of eating peas.
The last strategy is implementing the negative reinforcement in which case the mother can give the children chores and remove the responsibility from them if they eat peas.
Conclusion
From the analysis of this case, it is evident that reinforcement procedures are vital in increasing or decreasing specific conducts. In this case, the mother has used positive reinforcement to motivate her children to eat peas. However, from the analysis, it is evident that there is the risk of such reinforcement not working because of factors that include the timing of giving rewards, the reinforcement procedure given, and the personality of the child.
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References
Allen, E. (2013). Exceptional child - inclusion in early childhood education . Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, Inc .
Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy . Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole .
Flora, S. R. (2004). The power of reinforcement . Albany: State University of New York Press.
