Using Rewards Can be Natural in Child Therapy

Hey, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we're talking about why rewards can be natural in child therapy. So I get this a lot. You know, like if you're watching this on Facebook, this is very apparent, especially in America and western countries is more and more people are coming out saying, oh, like rewarding communication is unnatural. You know, ABA therapy is not good because it's abusive, something like that. And I'm not here to, to care about whether I disagree or not. Yeah. So I'm just here to tell you what worked for me, what worked for other parents and the whole topic about ABA abusiveness. We have a video about that. So you can watch that if you search for it inside of our channel or page. Okay, so let's get that out of the way. All right, so that's a disclaimer. Now the next part is that children don't communicate because it's not rewarding. So what do I mean by that? Some parents will get pretty upset. They'll say, no, they love talking to me. They come up to me, you know, and we cuddle. That's communication, right? That's, you know, like that's showing affection. Yes, that is. And that is rewarding. But during that interaction, have you made it rewarding for them to actually speak, to actually use gestures and look at you and so on? And how are you going to evolve that communication towards speaking? Right. If you're always stuck in a place where you're very physical and it's all about physical touch and so on, like that is rewarding, but it's not going to help you ascend to the next level. Right. So what do I mean that it's not rewarding? Okay. And this is where I have to be very careful. And that's because there's no incentive to be social, especially for children who are on the spectrum. Okay. Autistic people, in fact, they don't really know what, what we're thinking, don't know what we want, so on, so forth. They don't see a point in being social. They don't understand the reason behind that. If you and I have a good relationship, anything that I do later on can be easily, you know, like we, if we have a good relationship, anything is possible. You know, you'll help me on this, I'll help you on that. It's rewarding to have a good community around you when you're down so and so for these things are too far fetched. And that starts off with just playing with each other, having a Chat, you know, like talking about your day. And all those are problems that autistic people have, you know, and no matter what age they are, I mean, we're talking about toddlers here, so we'll stick to toddlers. Right? So no incentive to be social means that your child basically doesn't know why being social is more fun than running around and doing self stimulatory activities, of which I've talked about before. We all do. It is a hallmark for autism. But at the same time, we all do self stimulative activities, okay? So it's just that doing those are more fun than being social. So let me give you an example. For me, I self stimulate by shaking my legs, playing with my nails all the time. All right? I do that a lot. But the problem is when I put socializing with people higher than those behaviors, therefore I will stop whenever I need to. And because I know the reason and the purpose behind it, and therefore I will do that. Right? But children don't. So let's get that away first. Okay? The next point is you need to reward behaviors that you want to happen over and over and over again. So given that children cannot be sat down because they're young, you cannot sit down and tell them, look, you got to talk to me. You, you got to use words, you got to play nicely, you got to line up, you got to, you know, like, be good to, to people around you. Because later down, when you are a teenager or an adult, you're going to need people to give you what you want and what you need, right? Children don't get that. So you cannot use words to teach, Right? It's a paradox, right? So what do you do instead is to reward that behavior. Take the things that the child cares about and use it as a reward so that the child knows, oh, this thing is correct. Because the more I do this, the more rewards I get. Right? And we have that mechanism in ourselves as well. We know what is a social reward, but the child doesn't. And therefore, if you want something to happen over and over again, you reward those behaviors and that entails. Looks like a lot of therapy in the beginning is like training a pet, right? I'm just going to say it flat out here. It will happen. But you know, like it's therapy is all about getting rid of those training wheels so that it will be more naturalistic later. Right? Rewards can be naturalistic, can be natural, as long as you get rid of those systematically fade out the rewards and pair those rewards with your presence. And therefore it brings me to the next point, is to have a better relationship with your child. So a lot of times when parents come to me, I will always say, looks like that your child is treating you like a vending machine because they come over to kick you. They press some buttons, something falls out. But that's not communication. If they're pressing buttons and trying to. And you're a means to an end. Right. So what do you have to do is to better your relationship with your child is that you become the provider. And that's why a lot of times parents who come to me physically, before, not anymore, all my work is online now is that they will say, how come my child doesn't hit you? How come my child smiles at you? How come they want to share things with me, watch videos together and. Whereas when I go over, I get slapped. Right. Or, you know, like they will throw tantrums or whatever. The reason is because I have a better relationship with them in terms of work. Right. I would never have the same kinship as between you and your child. That's impossible. But what I'm trying to say is it's because I reward the things that I deem to be good. Right. And therefore, the kid knows if they consistently do things this way, they will get rewarded more and more. And therefore, that behavior will keep on going. So without getting too conceptual, what I mean is, when you want your child to play, you teach to play, and you reward it. Right. If you want your child to sit nicely, you put your child on the seat and you reward them and tell them the longer they stay, the more they get rewarded. Yeah. If you want your child to pee, which we cover inside of the potty training video. Right. Is that the moment that they pee or they poop inside of the potty, we reward. Yeah. So that therefore, it's gonna keep on happening. Okay. And why is it that your child is hitting, you know, like pushing buttons on you, trying to squeeze you whenever they don't get something? It is because most. Sometimes they give in, you give in, you give in, and then you reward them, and you reward everything before the reward. Like all behaviors leading to the reward gets rewarded. Okay. And that's the same for you? Same for me. Same for the child. Especially true for young minds because their habits are just starting to build. And because if you do that, they take a straight line approach and they think, oh, I know what to do. You know, mom, I want something. I hold mom's hand, I put it on top of the thing. Mom asked me what I want. I don't say anything. Mom asked me like five more times, and then I throw a tantrum and then she'll give in, right? So therefore, in the child's mind, it's like, oh, I have to go through all this thing. I have to throw a tantrum. I listen to mom say, what do you want five times? Or like, say, cookie five times. And then I throw a tantrum. I get what I want, right? So you see, a young mind is like that. They cannot think of a better way. They don't know any better. Okay? So rewards is natural. In fact, it's supernatural. Why is it supernatural? You ask me? It's because if a child doesn't feel social or, you know, communicating as rewarding, then you're actually punishing the child by giving them too much social and trying to communicate with the kid because they don't understand it. Right? It's just like as if. If your spouse. Most people watching are women. So, you know, like, if your. If your husband starts talking about, like, how the game went last night to you in every detail, what would you tell your husband to say? Shut up. Right? The same thing as I would listen to my wife talk about, you know, Sephora, don't know anything about it. You know, don't. Don't talk to me. Don't ask me. Don't ask me about my opinion. It's a punishment. I don't care. Right? So that's the same as for your child. So therefore, you should pair the things that you want to happen with the reward that they really do care about. And most of the time, it might be snacks, it might be a certain point, it might be screen time, even. Okay? That's why it's natural that we work for the things we want and we pair the things that we don't like with the things we like, and we learn to like the things we don't like. Okay, that's a. That's a huge sentence, but think about it. All right, so that's it for today. If you haven't, Please go to agentsofspeech.com checklist to grab a list of tools and toys that we recommend parents to get when they start home therapy. All right, so that's it for today. I'll see you guys next time. Bye. Bye.