So, “Don’t Shoot the Dog” is a collection of parenting advice based solely on the principle of reinforcement learning, i.e., the idea that kids do things more if they are rewarded and less if they’re punished. It gets a lot out of this, including things that many parents do wrong. And the nicest thing is that, because everything is based on such a simple idea, most of the advice is self-evident. Pretty good, considering that learning tips are often controversial.
For example, say you ask your kid to clean her room, but she procrastinates on the task. When she finally does it, it’s probably a bad idea to scold her for taking so long since that would primarily discourage the act of cleaning (which you want) rather than the delay (which you don’t want) -- because the cleaning is what directly preceded your reaction. Pretty self-evident, right? But it’s also something parents do wrong all the time.
The post is good enough to make me feel like I don’t have to read the book myself. Since none of the concepts are difficult, this requires nothing fancy; the post just goes through all the advice sequentially and gives a straightforward explanation, usually with a quote from the book. It’s super simple, but it works well.
My only complaint is the introduction; I think the post should (a) define behaviorism and (b) tell me why I should care about the book.
So, “Don’t Shoot the Dog” is a collection of parenting advice based solely on the principle of reinforcement learning, i.e., the idea that kids do things more if they are rewarded and less if they’re punished. It gets a lot out of this, including things that many parents do wrong. And the nicest thing is that, because everything is based on such a simple idea, most of the advice is self-evident. Pretty good, considering that learning tips are often controversial.
For example, say you ask your kid to clean her room, but she procrastinates on the task. When she finally does it, it’s probably a bad idea to scold her for taking so long since that would primarily discourage the act of cleaning (which you want) rather than the delay (which you don’t want) -- because the cleaning is what directly preceded your reaction. Pretty self-evident, right? But it’s also something parents do wrong all the time.
The post is good enough to make me feel like I don’t have to read the book myself. Since none of the concepts are difficult, this requires nothing fancy; the post just goes through all the advice sequentially and gives a straightforward explanation, usually with a quote from the book. It’s super simple, but it works well.
My only complaint is the introduction; I think the post should (a) define behaviorism and (b) tell me why I should care about the book.