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30 AUGUST 2010

NO 1621

Punishment and reward

In describing their programs, most staff people report that good behaviors are rewarded and bad behaviors are punished. An objective and astute observer might see something quite different. He or she would observe that youngsters who are unobtrusively doing what they "should" (waiting patiently, listening, thinking, showing initiative) are more often ignored than rewarded. On the other hand, acting-out children and youth monopolize staff attention (albeit negative). Rather than making an effort to "catch them being good," staff are constantly vigilant for opportunities to punish (Buckholdt and Gubrium, 1980; VanderVen, 1995). There is a clear message that the way to get staff attention (often a reinforcer in residential group care environments) is to act up.

What happens next? In an us-against-them, negative subculture environment (Polsky, 1962), youth who rebel are admired by their peers as heroes and when they are caught and punished, as martyrs. Children who are behaving well are viewed by peers as "teacher’s pets" and socially ostracized or sabotaged. VanderVen (1995), for example, reports that a child on a lower level may specifically try to get a peer on a higher level into trouble.

Then what? Misbehavior escalates and so do the negative consequences that follow. When a simplistic system of rewards and punishments fails to produce desired results, staff resort to overcontrol (Small, 1994). VanderVen (1993) has described the rigidity, punitiveness and "implicit hostility towards children" that thus evolves in many point and level systems. Often all positives (including both routine and therapeutic activities) are withheld. Staff retreat to their offices to devise increasingly severe and longer-lasting punishments. Opportunities to learn and grow (and to be reinforced for positive behaviors) evaporate. The children and youth in care observe further evidence that "adults are depriving, punitive, and uncaring" and they give up in despair (VanderVen, 1995, p. 357-358).

In the face of seemingly endless negative consequences, residents are now presented with a new situation that is quite different from what the staff intended. Because they have nothing left to lose, the children are free to do whatever they want. Because there is no apparent hope of success, they do what they have learned to do so well in their long history of repeated out-of-home placements—they get themselves thrown out (Finkelstein, 1980).

Finding alternatives to this common and discouraging scenario in- volves two changes: first, understanding and applying reinforcement theory more appropriately, and second, applying techniques derived from theories that take into consideration the perceived realities of the children and youth in care.

MIRIAM MCNOWN JOHNSON

Johnson, M.M. (1999). Managing perceptions: A new paradigm for residential group care. Child and Youth Care Forum, 28, 3. pp. 167-168.

REFERENCES

Buckholdt, D.R. and Gubrium, J.F. (1980). The underlife of behavior modification. American Journal of Orthospsychiatry, 50. pp. 279-290.

Finkelstein, N.E. (1980). Children in limbo. Social Work, 25. pp. 100-105.

Polsky, H.W. (1962). Cottage Six: The social system of delinquent boys in residential treatment. New York. Rusell Sage Foundation.

Small, R. (1994). Improve-don't dismiss – behavioral techniques in group care. R & E: Research and Evaluation in Group Care, 4, 1. p. 25.

VanderVen, K. (1993). Point and level systems: Do they have a place in the group care milieu? R & E: Research and Evaluation in Group Care, 3. pp. 20-23.

VanderVen, K. (1995). "Point and level systems': Another way to fail children and youth. Child and Youth Care Forum, 66. pp. 292-333.

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