This interested me, and then I realized that something similar had happened with my pet.
I have a cat and, although I did not mean for this to happen, she has associated certain things with getting food. For example, whenever my cat hears my closet door open, she thinks I am feeding her (because I keep her food in the closet and usually I put food in her bowl when I open it). Whenever my dad walks into the kitchen she thinks she is getting food, because he usually gives her food. Even though we might not be feeding her, she thinks that he means food and my closet means food.
Additionally, if I would allow it, we would use positive punishment to train the cat not to sit on the table. Every time she jumps on the table, we spray her with water to teacher her not to jump on.
This week Mrs. Perl sent us an article about a woman who conditioned her husband, which was really funny. That led me to wonder about conditioning children, and then I wanted to know:
Do you think it is better to use reinforcement or punishment with children? Why?
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This is a lovely comparison that you have made Zahava! I think that both reinforcement and punishment are needed when raising children. Punishment does not have to be something so severe as hitting one's child, but taking things away in order to teach one's child a lesson is okay. Reinforcement seems better, but as we learned, children might begin to constantly expect to be reinforced for everything that they do. I definitely think that more reinforcement should be used than punishment because it will teach the child how to behave in a more positive manner instead of constantly taking things away from the child.
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