Temper tantrums -- positive reinforcement opportunity

There are many different ways of training dogs and just as many (if not more) to raising kids.  I am always excited/pleased to find correlations between the two.  When I was training dogs, I preferred the positive reinforcement method.

Positive reinforcement involves paying attention to positive behaviors while not paying attention to the negative behaviors.  The thought process on this is even negative attention (telling child no, telling dog no etc) is still attention.  Often dogs and kids will want attention and the easiest way (or only way) they know is to misbehave.  Most bad behavior is caused by boredom and is attention seeking. 

With dogs, the way to work with this method is to praise when the dog is doing something right and ignore the bad behavior.  Teach the dog that the bad behavior will get him no attention.  To stop the bad behavior, it is as easy as redirecting the behavior.  You redirect the dog to do something you can praise him for.  For example, if your dog barks when the doorbell rings, instead of telling him to stop, redirect to something you can praise (sitting, down, stay). This gives your dog a way to handle the situation and gives him a  way to earn attention.

This same principle works with children also.  If the only way your child knows to get your attention is to yell, they will.  If it doesn't immediately work, they will escalate.  This is how temper tantrums are made.  The child learns if they yell loud enough and long enough they will get your attention or what they want because it has worked in the past.  I can't even count how many times I have seen children in a store trying to get their Mom's attention and they only time she pays attention is when they yell or do another bad behavior. 

This morning I read a report about a new way of dealing with temper tantrums.  I was pleased that the method they suggest is the same method I use with my dogs and my children.  Positive reinforcement really does work, although it is hard sometimes to ignore bad behaviors and redirect into positive ones.