These are notes from a Coursera lecture series entitled Everyday Parenting – The ABCs of Child Rearing.
Lecture one: Praise
Doctor Kazdin suggests using effusive (his word) praise immediately after a child’s behavior in order to reinforce that behavior. For instance, I should say M, great job putting on your outside clothes quickly! While having tone of voice rise with excitement and gesturing with my hands. This should be followed by a light, kind touch like a hug, kiss, high five or whatever. (I am not good at effusive praise because I think praise should match the task completed. Effusive praise for getting on outside clothes seems condescending.)
Lecture two: AntecedentsÂ
Doctor Kazdin suggests that using antecedents can make behavior either more or less likely to occur depending on the content of the antecedent. For instance, if you started a sentence with “If you really loved me…” it makes the child less likely to obey. Antecedents should be used strategically. There are three types of antecedent that change behavior.
The first type he names “prompts.” They are instructions that ask or tell someone to do something. Often, it’s best for that prompt to be specific. For instance the verbal prompt “I want you to brush your teeth,” could then be followed up with a physical prompt of leading the child to her toothbrush.
The second type of antecedent he calls “positive setting events,” and the third “negative setting events.” Following a positive antecedent a child is more likely to behave and she is less likely to behave after a negative antecedent. These can be subtle like tone of voice or facial expression. Ordering a child to do something with a frown on your face is a negative antecedent. Whenever possible, use a gentle tone of voice. If you are far away, come closer so that you don’t have to yell across a room.
Providing a child a choice may also help the child to behave. For instance, a choice of what to wear when you tell them to get dressed. “Please put on one of these two shirts.”
Dr. Kazdin suggests using the word “please” as an antecedent, though he says many parents don’t like using “please” with their children. (I’m not sure why parents would feel that way, but ok.)
Another way of encouraging a child to behave is to offer help. Once the behavior is started, help can be slowly withdrawn and praise can be given to the child for starting the behavior on her own.
He also suggests challenging a child by saying “I bet you can’t do that again. No child could do that until they’re all grown up.” (This, like the effusive praise, seems a bit too condescending to me and I would feel fake doing it.)
Synopsis: Alexandria leaves her home in America to travel Bulgaria and teach. But on her first day there, she runs into a mysterious family, whose bag she accidentally “steals.” When she discovers how valuable the contents are, she feels she has to find the family and return the bag personally. However, the family is difficult to find and she is led on a wild goose chase looking for them. All the while, strange people are following and threatening her.
Synopsis:Â This is the epic story following the lineage of Kunta Kinte, who was kidnapped as a teenager from his home in Africa to be a slave in the US. His family is dramatically followed down the line to Alex Haley, the author. In fact, this turned out to be false – the story was plagiarized (including some of the characters) from a lesser known book, and Alex Haley apparently didn’t know much about his African ancestors.
The third set of lectures, Tools of Authoritarianism, begins with a set of lectures by Juan Cole, a Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He speaks about the Arab Spring of the 2010s. The Arab Spring took place because the post-colonial Arab world was ruled mainly by presidents-for-life. The Millennials became angry and scared because the colonial times that these presidents had saved their countries from had been long before the Millennials were born – the Millennials couldn’t remember and therefore couldn’t relate. Some of these presidents-for-life were setting up their children to take over for them, and the Millennials wanted a democratic vote. They mobilized by word-of-mouth and social media and managed to overthrow their governments. However, the presidents who were voted in during the Arab Spring also had authoritarian tendencies, such as arresting dissenters and suppressing gatherings using military force. These presidents had learned their lessons about social media and began to monitor it. Professor Cole warns against ignoring such prying into our private documents here in the US.
The third set of lectures continues with a commentary by Brian Porter-Szucs, a Profesor of History at the University of Michigan. He talks about everyday authoritarianism in today’s Poland. Poland is ruled by the party that is in control, rather than by the President or Prime Minister per se. That means the leader of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is the authoritarian ruler of Poland. Porter-Szucs points out that in any political argument, someone always gets compared to Stalin or Hitler, and says that this is usually an overstatement. However, he also points out that to MOST people during Stalin or Hitler’s regimes, life went on like normal. They went to work, fell in love, hung out with their friends, dreamed their dreams. It was the minorities targeted by these regimes that mainly suffered. Porter-Szucs’ point is that it is easy to ignore what is going on around you, and to not even realize that an authoritarian regime is being built.
Pauline Jones, the Director of the University of Michigan’s International Institute and a Professor of Political Science, completes the third set of lectures by describing Putin’s Russia. He came to power through what seems to be a fair democratic vote, but soon started changing the laws so that the country became an autocracy. For instance, he increased the length of time he could be in power before another vote. He also indirectly supported assaults against, and assassinations of, journalists who disagreed with his regime. Professor Jones’ main point was how easy and often legal it is for a person in power to begin the first steps to create an autocracy.
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