Tag: positive negative

When you reward bad behavior, you literally wire your child’s brain to repeat the bad behavior. No parent intends to do that, but it happens so easily. When you know how, you will reward only good behavior, and give your child a good start.

Imagine that your child grabs a cookie from someone. You tell them it’s not nice, but you let them keep the cookie. "Just this once."

A young brain learns from the cookie more than your words. Cookies trigger dopamine, the brain’s reward chemical. Dopamine paves a neural pathway that turns on more of the good feeling in similar future circumstances. That wires a brain to expect grabbing to get rewards. Each reward strengthens the pathway.