Many years ago at a training for how to de-escalate emotionally disturbed teenagers, my instructor illustrated the concepts of negative and positive reinforcement with the following example:

You take your child to the grocery store.  After gathering all your items, your three-year-old inquires “Mom, can I have this candy bar?”

“No Honey, I already got you those cookies you wanted, remember?”

“But I want this!”

The exchange continues until your child is crying and screaming.  Just before you complete your errand and move on to the next item on an impossibly long list of chores, this embarrassing scene arises.  You can feel the eyes of other customers bearing down on you, judging you and your impotent parenting.  

With things to do and resentful glares upon you, you grab the candy bar with an indignant huff from your child’s hand and present it to the cashier.  

“And this too,” you utter in defeat.  

Your child’s wailing ceases and you are back on schedule–all for a paltry sum of a buck fifty.

In this episode, both you and your child have just been taught something by the other.  You have learned through negative reinforcement. By purchasing the candy bar, you have learned that the way to make the pain stop is by appeasing your child.  According to behavioral principles, you are now much more likely to engage in similar acts of capitulation with your child in the future.

Your child on the other hand, has just received positive reinforcement.  For the histrionic display, your child has obtained the coveted reward. Do you think tantruming will become a more or less frequent behavior in the future?  This question is of course rhetorical.

“The tension and struggle between your child’s will and this reality is what eventually leads to the development of more advanced, sophisticated adaptations to the world.”

Inevitably, disappointed children will learn how well you tolerate this nuclear option of child protest.  Leading up to the tantrum of course, there are various stages of escalating rebellion and discontent. The leverage children have here of course is your anxiety, time demands, unhappiness, and concerns about what others think about your approach to parenting.  Never lose sight of what these tantrums are–bully tactics. While your children are not mustache-twirling villains, they are an immature mammalian species with primitive affects and reptilian survival instincts. The helplessness and vulnerability you see in your child is certainly present during tantrums, but isn’t that the case with all bullies? Children are simply wrapped in a much cuter package than the schoolyard punk.  Give the bully your lunch money once and you’re officially a mark.  

Let me phrase this in the most concise manner I can:  Children learn to regulate their emotions by both how and how well you regulate yours.  If your coping strategies and capacities to tolerate negative emotions break down in moments of stress, so will theirs.  

A critical point to remember when you are confronting your diminutive bully is that the more effective you are, the higher your child raises the stakes.  Many parents make the mistake of assuming that a child who continues to escalate their tantrum is evidence of a failed method of dealing with their child’s discontent.  Quite the opposite.  The tantrum increases in intensity because it is not working.  Stay the course and you’ll have saved yourself and your child many future moments of suffering.  

Now, I have stressed here the importance of being tough and firm.  Let me be clear about what I am not saying: mocking, insulting, dismissing, teasing, or any other form of humiliating provocation is extremely harmful.  Parents must be firm, but also warm and kind. In my view, this is the most difficult part of the job of parenting. Consider saying to your child something in the tone of: “I know you’re mad.  Sometimes I have to say no even though you get mad.”  

How you say this is equally important as what you say.  You are not appeasing or apologizing. You are stating a fact about reality–a fact about which neither of you need to be happy.  Your tone and demeanor should convey that you do not relish your child’s suffering, but you are resolute and speak authoritatively about what social reality dictates.  You are saying through your actions that tantrums do not lead to rewards. The tension and struggle between your child’s will and this reality is what eventually leads to the development of more advanced, sophisticated adaptations to the world.  Out of this comes humor, and redirecting of destructive impulses into creative pursuits. It is through this struggle that your child becomes a resourceful adult.

The emotional pain tolerance required in these moments is exactly why effective and well-adjusted adults have successful children.* Buy the candy bar and it will cost you and your child a lot more than a buck fifty.

* I will cover effective discipline in a future post, but many of the strategies I recommend can be found in 1-2-3 Magic, by Thomas Phelan.