Punishment and Children

I am a Psychology major , and I was doing a paper on the differences between Negative Reinforcement and Punishment.I happened along this part of my book that I feel may be helpful to some moms out there. So here it is…

Making Punishment More Effective

Apply Punishment Swiftly: A delay in delivering punishment tends to undermine it’s impact. It’s the same thing as trying to punish the family pet for pooping on the floor an hour earlier. You can rub his nose in it, but all it teaches him is not to poop on his nose.

Use Punishment Just Severe Enough To Be Effective: Sever punishments are usually more effective in weakening unwanted responses, however they also increase the likeyhood of undesirable effects. It is best to use the least severe punishment that seems likely to have the neccasary impact.

Make Punishment Consistant:If you want to eliminate a response (bad behavior),  you should punish the response everytime it occurs.

Explain The Punishment:The reasons for the punishment should be completely explained, given the contraints oftheir age. Punishment combined with reasoning is more effective than either alone. The more they understand why they are being punished the more effective it will be.

Use Non Corporal Punishments Such As Withdrawl of Privileges: A spanking, although, sometimes effective, is not going to hurt in an hour. Removal of valued a give the child hours to contemplate the bahavior that got them into trouble.

Source: Psychology: Themes and Variations 7th Addition Wayne Weiten

I Loathe Wally World and This Is Still Funny…

A very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman walks into Wal-Mart with her two kids in tow. She was screaming obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

The Wal-Mart Greeter says, “Good morning and welcome to Wal-Mart. Nice children you’ve got there – are they twins?”

The ugly woman stops screaming long enough to say, “Hell no they ain’t, the
oldest one, he’s 9 and the younger one, she’s 7. Why the hell would you think they’re twins? Do you really think they look alike?”

“No,” replies the greeter. “I just couldn’t believe that someone would have
slept with you twice. You have a nice day now.”

(would you believe my mom sent me this?)

Whoa Lady, Calm Down…

So I’m at the local “dollar store” today, grabbing some juice and Munchos, and I happen upon what appears to be a perfectly normal lady. Mid twenties, blonde, clean looking, dressed very American Eagle. I think nothing of this lady, only excusing myself as I walk past her down the tight isles. I stop, eyeballing the candy when a little boy walks down the isle. He’s about 3 yrs old, meek little blonde boy, moping towards the lady who is obviously his mom. Out of the blue, with nothing more than a “mommy” this lady starts screaming. And I mean it, she was very agressive and frightening.

“I TOLD YOU NO! YOU AINT GETTING SHIT!”

So the little boy, pulls back a bit, and says, “but..”

and then she grabs him by the arm, hard, and yanks him to the side then procedes to whoop his behind quite enthusiasticly, several times. The boy doesnt even cry. It seems he may be used to this kind of scene.

I look over at the lady with utter disbelief, speechless, my arms in the air, palms up, to my sides like, “What the crap you crazy bitch”

The psycho woman returns my look, with a similar, but more agressive gesture. At this point under normal circumstances it’s on…but I thought to myself…how much shit would be taken out on this boy if I further irritated his wacko mother. Besides, I have three kids of my own and who knows where her agression would have lead to. I do not desire imprisonment. So I simply let it go and she walked away in a huff.

I could hear her throughout the store thereafter, fragmented torments to her son…

“…don’t touch that or the cops will take you away…”

 ”…get back here or I’ll leave you here by yourself…”

I tried to tune it out, and I must have because finally I was at the register and she was no where in sight. It was one of the most redneck, ghetto, wacked out episode I’ve encountered with another parent in public in a while.

It’s unconscionable.

Dirty Jobs…or maybe just Gross Ass Jobs

Did anyone catch the “Dirty Jobs, with Mike Rowe” yesterday around 4pm? I’m sure it was a repeat, but I was the first time I had seen this particular episode.

Ok if you don’t know the premise of “Dirty Jobs” its a dude, who shadows the folks who have nasty and dirty jobs (trash men, exterminators stuff like that).  Well yesterday he was in the bayou in a trailer park with an exterminator. The trailer in question had So many cockroaches, I almost turned it off. If it werent for the complete gross out factor that my men folk love, I would have. These people didnt just have roaches, they had about 270,000 of them according the the exterminators estimate. They were visible, crawling over the floors, counters, the inside of these folks drawers were nothing but blankets of black bugs.

Seriously folks.

How does one let their bug problem get that bad? I mean these folks had to have been actualy living this way for quite a while. I’m just guessing that a roach population doesnt surge like that overnite. How disgusting. How frikin’ disgusting. I may never watch dirty jobs again, or visit the bayou, or trailerparks….

…and I grew up in a trailor, seriously, the worst critter we had was my old guinea pig.

Knowing not what I’m doing on here…

Well I’m blogging again. Partly due to the infiltration of my family on my myspace, and Flickr accounts, partly due to the my best friend, who has started a blog here too. So I’m here. Here I am. I might as well say something.

First let me say that it’s absolutely raining cats and dogs which puts a damper on taking the kids ( I have three of them) outside to burn up some energy. Tough deal. I now have one jumping from the couch to the table, one hiding behind the recliner pooping in his diaper, and one making silly words that sometimes sound vulgar.

I’m pretty upset about a grade I got in Psychology. I was really expecting an A but I fell just short and came out with a B. What a bunch of shit. I’m super disappointed in myself and now my GPA is all crapped-up. So much for the deans list.

SO happy it’s friday. No classes on the weekend, no work for the husband, and no school for the kids. I’m hoping this weekend I can get them to all agree to go somewhere. I’m thinking the Zoo. We’ll see what the tribe thinks is fun.

Okay my official first entry on this blog.

woo hoo.