Fostering Emotions and Behaviors

            During early childhood a child is developing emotionally and beginning to form a patter of behavior that may stay with them far into the future. During this time a parent or caregiver can help positively shape the child’s development. Two common practices that can be used to shape a child’s emotional and behavioral development are operant conditioning and emotion coaching. While these practices can greatly help development, a caregiver’s emotional competence and their reactions to the child’s emotions also play a major factor.

            The concept of operant conditioning goes off of the idea that learning certain behaviors is a result of the relationship of that behavior and the reward or punishment that results (Sewell & Higgins, 2014). B. F. Skinner theorized that “through operant conditioning the consequences of a behavior produce changes in the probability of the behavior’s recurrence” (Santrock, 2016, p. 21). Giving a rewarding stimulus to a behavior will make that behavior more likely to recur while a negative stimulus will make it less likely to recur. Some parents and guardians choose to ignore negative behavior thinking that their lack of interest will deter the child from doing said action.  However ignoring negative behaviors does not help to modify that behavior. According to Baumrind (2003) “parent’s nonaction signifies to the child approval of his behavior, not neutrality”. By using operant conditioning parents and caregiver can influence the behaviors that their children engage in and exhibit.

Parents and caregiver need to be vigilant when using operant conditioning with young children. In these cases the caregiver’s response to a behavior has to occur soon after the behavior is exhibited in order for the child to make a clear association between the behavior and the response (Sewell & Higgins, 2014). If the response come to late the child may not recognize what they are being rewarded or punished for. When using operant conditioning it is also important to be consistent with your reinforcement or punishment of certain behaviors. According to Sewell and Higgins, (2014) “intermittent reinforcement can be confusing for the child and is ultimately ineffective for the parents because it makes bad behaviors much harder to extinguish”. While it may be overwhelming guardians have to have the same rules for all children present. They must be consistent in rewarding and punishing the same behaviors for all of them. If a child witnesses another child under the same care perform an unacceptable behavior that goes unpunished that child is likely to exhibit the same behavior (Sewell & Higgins, 2014).

            The second practices used to shape a child’s emotional and behavioral development is emotion coaching. According to Santrock (2016), parents who are emotion coaching monitor their child’s emotions, use negative emotions as opportunities to teach their children, assist their children in labeling emotions and teach them how to deal with their emotions (p. 165). There are parents who use a contrasting coaching style called emotion dismissing. According to Lunkenheimer, Shields, and Cortina (2007), “an emotion-dismissing philosophy is present when parents are unaware of low-intensity emotions, view negative emotions as toxic or overwhelming, invalidate or criticize their children’s emotions and want to avoid or protect their child or themselves from negative emotions”. This style of coaching emotions is not recommended and can lead to issues in the child. Children of emotion dismissing parents can be more subdued, sadder, and more fearful. They can also suppress showing their true feelings lack the skills necessary to remedy their emotions and may not know how to respond to others emotions (Denham, Bassett, & Zinsser, 2012). Due to these reasons and many more emotion coaching is more widely used and recommended.

Emotion coaching can hold multiple benefits for the children according to Denham et al. (2012), “Children of emotion coaching parents formulate coherent knowledge about emotional expressions, situations, and causes”. Most emotion coaching takes place when negative emotions cause negative behaviors. It is thought that the coaching of negative emotions offers greater opportunity for learning and intimacy than does the socialization of positive emotions” (Lunkenheimer et al., 2007). The approach to emotion coaching can be done in many ways but often follow the same pattern. Carter (2009) broke it up into three different steps: first label and validate feelings, second deal with the bad behavior, and third problem solve with the child. In the first step the caregiver empathizes with the child in order work through what the child is feeling (Carter, 2009). “Parents may highlight, validate, or clarify children’s emotions, helping them to express emotions authentically, in a regulated manner” (Denham et al., 2012). This step is the most crucial and has to be completed. This is how children work through their emotions and learn to label what they are feeling. “Research has shown that frequent parent–child emotion talk is essential to young children’s emerging emotional competencies” (Lunkenheimer et al., 2007). Next it is important to address the negative behavior. Do not be afraid to punish the child for their negative behavior, no matter how strong of a negative emotion they felt. Mild punishment by a loved and respected caregiver may have beneficial side effects on the child (Baumrind, 2003). After the child has had to pay a consequence for their action it is important to talk through the issue that may have caused the negative behavior and see what can be done to prevent it from happening again.

References

Baumrind, D. (2003). Effects of Authoritative Parental Control on Child Behavior. (892-900). Ipswich, MA:  EBSCO Publishing. Retrieved from http://persweb.wabash.edu/facstaff/hortonr/articles%20for%20class/baumrind.pdf

Carter, C. (2009). Emotion Coaching: One of the Most Important Parenting Practices in the History of the Universe. Greater Good. Retrieved from http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/emotion_coaching_one_of_the_most_important_parenting_practices_in_the_histo

Denham, S. A., Bassett, H. H., & Zinsser. K. (2012). Early Childhood Teachers as Socializers of Young Children’s Emotional Competence. ResearchGate.  Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katherine_Zinsser/publication/233755854_Early_Childhood_Teachers_as_Socializers_of_Young_Children's_Emotional_Competence/links/0fcfd50b3926f77e3c000000.pdf

Lunkenheimer, E. S., Shields, A. M. & Cortina, K S. (2007). Parental Emotion Coaching and Dismissing in Family Interaction. ResearchGate. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Erika_Lunkenheimer/publication/227874430_Parental_Emotion_Coaching_and_Dismissing_in_Family_Interaction/links/54adaf870cf24aca1c6f6adc.pdf

Santrock, J.W. (2016). Essentials of Lifespan Development (4^th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill

Sewell, A. & Higgins, P. (2014). Recognizing The Importance of Parental Influince in Social and Behavioral Development. Developmental Physiology at Vanderbilt. Retrieved from https://my.vanderbilt.edu/developmentalpsychologyblog/2014/04/recognizing-the-importance-of-parental-influence-in-social-and-behavioral-development/