Parents should focus on the carrot, not the stick

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If I had a child with Asperger's syndrome or Autism I would do everything I could to overcompensate for their disability by teaching them to be daring and get ahead.

When I was a kid I ate nothing but fries, rice and ham for years. I was ridiculously unhealthy. My parents were clueless as to how to change me.

I've found with my nephew who struggles to eat new foods bribery works. I got him to eat spaghetti he thought was worms - he'd never eaten wholewheat spaghetti so the colour freaked him out.

A bribe of a pound (the British equivalent of 1 and a half US dollars) eventually enticed him. Parents need to think outside the box. Instead of assuming the answers will always come from doctors or teachers or textbooks, use your imagination and think of human nature.

Everybody has a selfish instinct in them that can be used to their advantage.

When I dropped out of school and stopped going, I was getting bullied terribly. But looking back I might have been able to have been persuaded to keep going had I been bribed with a financial reward for doing so. I think parents too often forget that the carrot works better than the stick. My dad punched me, I got shouted at daily and punished in many ways but I never went back to school. I think many Autistic children are very sensitive and the carrot is even more likely to work with them than other children.

My parents took this approach from when I was really little. While I didn't get a diagnosis until last year, we'd known there was something physically different about me from the difficulties I was having compared to other kids. They indulged my special interests and saw them as a starting point to me making friends and they indeed helped me make the few friends I've been able to keep over various moves.

Adding to the carrot vs the stick idea, they've often used the promise of something like an item related to one of my special interests or seeing a movie as a reward for doing as I was told to if the task was above the usual pitching in.

The problem with bribary or even positive reinforcement ABA is thal while it "works" in the short or median term you are teaching the child to never do anything just because it is the right thing to do or for his or her own enjoyment, but to do everything for the reward from other people.

Another words you create

My parents were overwhelmingly on the side of the stick.

If god forbid I got a B in an exam, I was in trouble. Which really hurt when my studies required too much independence and executive willpower from me and my grades began to drop as a consequence (I went from perfect grades in my yr9 SATs to decent but imperfect GCSEs to poor A levels to failing University). And every little mistake I made at home earned me a slap (before it was considered wrong to do) or being confined to my room or grounded. I wouldn't say my parents were horrible people, but they were unforgiving in a manner that was completely at odds with the issues I went through because of autism.

It was annoying, because my brother was treated like some sort of angel - I don't believe I was exactly a bad-behaved child, but I was made to feel like one when compared with my brother. It was like he could do no wrong, because he understood the social stuff and displayed empathy that I struggled to grasp early on in life. Sometimes I was quite cruel to my brother, but I suppose I was jealous of his treatment, and couldn't understand why I wasn't treated as well.

I believe the best course of action is to balance positive and negative reinforcement, but it seems to me that the frustration in dealing with an autistic child can lead to overuse of the latter in cases where a diagnosis is not made until later in life; and the awareness and overcompensation of dealing with a child with a known neurological condition can lead to overuse of the former, except in those who believe more in the "cruel to be kind" concept.

My parents learned as much as they could about how to positively motivate me try new things, have a healthy diet and to fend for myself as much as practically possible. None of it was easy and none of it happened right away. But they stuck with positive reinforcement.

It's a heckuva lot better than negative reinforcement.

Why not use both?

I got negative reinforcement. It did no good. My parents didn't know that I had autism. I tried to have good behavior, but I didn't understand how to behave and had too much energy.

When I got older I was an outcast, got bullied, and started acting out on purpose. I needed someone to understand what was going on, but I couldn't explain it to anyone. There was no positive reinforcement there, either.

Negative reinforcement doesn't help a person with no control over his/her behavior.

Positive reinforcement would have helped some things, but not others. The times that I was bribed, the change only happened as long as I was being bribed. And it took enormous effort on my part. Bribery wouldn't have helped me to go to school when I was too afraid to go, however.

This thread is about a proposal for positive bribery not about reinforcement in general. Negative bribary/punishment teaches people to to do things not because it is the right thing or for self enjoyment but to avoid punishment and thus creates "sheep" also

I mostly agree that kids should be bribed (forced, failing all else) to try things like an unfamiliar food. I say "mostly" because if the kid is already stressed out, it's kinda mean to pile anything else on them. So stuff like that has to happen when the kid is having a good day.

I don't think it should be a big deal, because as someone said, it approaches ABA therapy if it's too frequent. But it does help to start the kid out with how to work things out for him/herself. Maybe the kid will have to go on a date with a person he's really into when he's 16 and they are serving spaghetti. It might be useful to be able to suck it up and just eat it. Or if he has to go to a work luncheon and appear to be eating food that he considers horrible.

I think it's also good to have non parental authorities (like you, OP) in a kids life showing them how to learn and cope with things. Then if your parents' way doesn't work for you, you have other resources.