When Children Continue to say No!

Before we move past the rhetoric to the practical, a few more pertinent tenets have to be delineated. Behavior management must be differentiated from behavior modification. Our own moral code, the many spoken and unspoken social contracts that we enter daily, and the conventions of our society are designed to manage our behavior. For children and adolescents, parents are the moral code, they enforce the spoken and unspoken social contracts and they provide all conventions that will impinge on their children. For example, children will be able to know the difference between just and unjust behaviors towards others by observing their parents. Once they are old enough, adolescents will be able to keep a job and expect financial compensation for their “professional” efforts by mowing the lawn. And lastly, adolescents expect and are expected to remain on correct side of the road when they drive to ensure our collective safety when they travel car. An executor system composed of, among others, their parents, teachers, security guards at malls and even the police will manage their behavior, should they fail in their self-management efforts. As children develop physically, cognitively, emotionally and morally, they also learn to control or manage their own behavior, and therefore, require less external management. All through this process, children and adolescents do not refuse any external management their behavior may require. Even though they make a mistake, they abide by the consequences of their actions with the hope that they will not repeat that behavior. The word “No!” has, as yet, not been uttered. For children of any age, this suffices to aid in self-management of behavior. Behavior modification is an intervention that takes place when behavior management proves futile. Despite all the specific or natural consequences, the detrimental behavior continues and the word “No!” is now uttered freely and with reckless abandon.

Behavior modification requires commitment, energy, consistency, effort and a great deal of knowledge to implement successfully. Once initiated, it must be seen through to the end. It will be more detrimental to initiate a behavior modification plan and fail than to do nothing. Once a child or adolescent perseveres with a detrimental behavior despite a behavior modification plan, then the detrimental behavior is cemented even further and becomes that much more engrained in the behavioral repertoire of the child or adolescent. A successful behavior modification plan is very specific. Typically, one behavior is targeted to be extinguished. This can be done in a few different ways.