The Behavior Modification Gospel
March 18th, 2010 § 17 Comments
by Matthew Raley
"Puppet and Child," Sueo Serisawa, 1950, Metropolitan Museum of Art
So, I’m watching the ads on “mute” and I notice the repetitive cycling of images. One public service spot against smoking goes like this: parent takes a drag from a cigarette, kid puffs on his asthma inhaler, parent with smoke, kid with inhaler, smoke, inhaler, smoke, inhaler.
Soon, I’m fighting for breath myself.
This is the state of California spending yet more money it doesn’t have to change the behavior of its citizenry, and using the time-honored marketing tactic of repetition. It will probably work. I feel guilty by the end it and I’ve never smoked a cigarette.
Our society is mad about behavior modification. It works.
B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) became one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century by applying a simple discovery. He observed that, if you wanted a rat to press a bar, prodding him with stimuli was less effective than rewarding him after he pressed it. Skinner taught how positive and negative reinforcement could change behavior.
The applications go well beyond marketing and management.
On June 25, 2006, the New York Times published an article called, “What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage.” Author Amy Sutherland related that, in the course of researching a book about animal trainers, she had an epiphany. “I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.”
Could she get her husband to pick his dirty shirts off the floor and put them in the hamper? By rewarding small steps toward the desired outcome, she found that, lo, she could.
Her article was on the most-emailed list for a long while.
Evangelical parents are keen to train their kids in the right behaviors, and their focus is overwhelmingly on modification strategies. Here is some advice on how to deal “creatively” with lying:
Draw up a contract with your child. After everyone agrees that lying, for example, is a cause for correction, establish and transcribe a reasonable punishment. Have you and your child sign and date the document. Then, whenever a situation comes up that would invite lying, gently remind him about the contract. Knowing that you will follow through on the penalty may be the extra incentive your child needs to choose to tell the truth.
Notice that the decision about lying is incentivized. The child makes a voluntary agreement about the punishment, and is reminded of it under temptation. If this scheme works, the child is not being taught to tell the truth, but to negotiate and weigh consequences. If I wanted to nurture a little pragmatist, this is exactly what I would do.
More from the same article:
Last week we ran into a few “heart” issues with Haven. It all came to a head when we caught her lying. Her correction has been to listen to the New Testament on tape. She usually gets to listen to an Adventures in Odyssey tape, but for the next 20 nights she will be filling her heart with the Truth.
Not the New Testament, Mom! Anything but that! Sentimentalizing the consequence with the words “filling her heart with Truth” doesn’t cover up the fact that the Bible is being used as negative reinforcement.
Locally, we are dealing with the dark side of behavior modification in the killing of a 7-year-old girl. Michael Pearl’s teaching on parenting is now under deserved scrutiny, not because he advocates child abuse (which he does not) but because of his extreme views about training children.
Pearl repeatedly compares children with animals, and uses the words training and conditioning interchangeably, as here (To Train Up a Child, p 12):
If the dog learns through conditioning (consistent behavior on the part of the trainer) that he will never be allowed to violate his master’s command, he will always obey. If parents carefully and consistently train up a child, his or her performance will be as consistently satisfying as that rendered by a well trained seeing-eye dog.
“Performance.” “Consistently satisfying.” Even if that expansive claim were true, I wouldn’t want my sons to obey like dogs. I want them to obey as respectful human beings.
Pearl makes an easy target, with this kind of irresponsible comparison and with his outlandish doctrine. But our culture as a whole is fixated on behavior modification. From marketing to management to relationships, we are profoundly manipulative. And evangelical Christians are little different.
I believe Christian parenting can demonstrate the power of Jesus Christ. Christ does not condition children for performance; he raises them up in new life. A parent’s job is to guide a unique little person, made in the image of God, to his or her Savior.
This starts with recognizing that the child’s soul and conscience are able to relate to God directly, apart from our control (Luke 1.39-45; Matthew 18.1-4; Mark 10.13-16). Further, a wise parent does not frame behavioral issues in terms of giving a satisfactory performance, but in terms of the new life Christ gives (Colossians 3.1-17).
Our parenting should be about Christ, not about us.
It’s time to reject the degrading puppetry of behavior modification, regardless of whether the puppeteer is a fundamentalist or a psychologist. We need to engage firmly, humbly, and humanely with children’s souls.
I couldn’t agree more!
um, no. it is child abuse. training children with whips is child abuse. whipping children, even if done without anger is child abuse. you’re apologetics are more dangerous than the blatant psychos who openly support this man. your defense is insidious and deceptive. you mix truth with lies, just like michael pearl. maybe you need a time out where you can think about your words and attitudes. that’s what i would do with my child. but then again, my child already knows better.
B. F. Skinner also said,
“Mind is myth, with all the power of myths” and, concerning his theory of behaviorism, “I have written the autobiography of a nonperson”.
I agree with Charlotte Mason who said that children are born persons. They have souls. They are made by their Father in Heaven for relationships, not reinforcements.
The children most at risk for the tragedy of behaviorism are those with autism. Some spend at least forty hours a week getting drilled, prompted, and reinforced. While there are ways to address autism that value personhood, too many parents fall for what everyone else is doing.
I love what Tim Keller alluded to about behaviorism and Christianity in his book The Prodigal God, which I blogged in a post about my autistic daughter’s growing ability to relate to people:
“What makes you faithful or generous is not just a redoubled effort to follow moral rules. Rather, all change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out of the changes that understanding creates in your heart. Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting.”
Tammy,
Thanks so much for your perspective on this, and for the link to your blog! The vulnerability of children with autism to behaviorist approaches needs a lot more attention. Thanks also for the Keller quote. He hits the nail on head!
[...] The Behavior Modification Gospel by Matthew Raley Share and Enjoy: [...]
Lottie has a point. He may not openly advocate abuse, but nobody can really follow his advice without abusing their children. He is telling people to hit babies with switches. He admits to pushing a toddler into a pond. He advocates hitting children with 1/4 inch plumbing supply line. Do you really not consider those things abuse?
Linda,
Pearl’s system is completely dangerous and should not be used. I am arguing in all of my posts that his teachings do not have to be twisted to be dangerous, but are inherently wrong doctrinally and practically.
The details you mention are further reasons why. I am telling people to trash the plumbing line if they have it, and that spanking has only a narrow role in disciplining children for willful wrongdoing. I am telling them spanking should have no role whatsoever in training children to gain new skills.
I have also written that Pearl doesn’t advocate or teach child abuse. I say this in recognition of his own condemnation of it, and for no other reason. I certainly am not going to trust Michael Pearl to define what child abuse is. But it is right to acknowledge his stated abhorrence. Not to do so is defamation.
Let’s make a focused, narrow argument against Pearl. We need to change his readers’ minds, as many as possible, not make accusations against them.
You write that “nobody can really follow his advice without abusing their children.” That’s a sweeping statement that indicts many, many people of violent crime. “Nobody”? Define “follow.” Which parts of his advice — all or some?
Over the years, the aspect of Pearl’s book I heard about most from his readers is his point that fathers need to connect with their children. These people followed his advice there, but on little else. They have considered themselves Pearl’s admirers. I don’t think it is just to implicate them in child abuse.
Our goal should be — and my goal is — to persuade Pearl’s readers to dump him. Most readers I know personally are doing exactly that. I hear stories of many more whom I do not know personally rejecting his teaching because of the case all of us are making.
That’s progress. Let’s build on it, not imply that innocent people are abusers.
Mr. Raley,
Thank you for clarifying. Now I understand what you mean. I appreciate all you have done. Thank you.
uh, ok, but whatever. not satisfied. as long as we are afraid to call abuse abuse, and not let the abusers define what is and isn’t abuse, then things will just continue on the way they have been. it’s sophistry, not anti-defamation, to create some circular argument about “good parents” whipping their kids.
Wow, Lottie “whatever?” Really? Is that your idea of a compelling arguement? Coming at this as a stranger I find Matthew Raley’s points much more logical than anything you have said in either post.
If someone advocates abusive things, yet at the same time tells them not to abuse, are they advocating abuse or not? I think the whole thing boils down to semantics. I suppose that people can follow much of Pearls advice without being abusive, depending how how you define abuse.
“If someone advocates abusive things, yet at the same time tells them not to abuse, are they advocating abuse or not?”
I think the problem is, as I look through Pearls’ materials, Lydia Schatz’s death can in fact be reconstructed from their various instructions, if taken a certain way. At the same time, by looking at it another way, one could construct the anecdotal scenarios they provide and reproduce those in one’s life instead.
The question to look at is, what does God say? Because at times, Christian child-raising materials are quite adamant about what God says, and the sinfulness of not following God.
To my mind, the whole question of accepting or rejecting Christian parenting advice revolves around the theology, which generally carries greater weight in crisis times than anecdotes. We’re taught to lean on God and trust Him when trouble comes. If a parent’s life story doesn’t line up with someone else’s, particularly if they’re promised that certain theological premises will give them good anecdotes of their own, those seeking to be faithful and obedient Christians will likely lean in favour of the theologically-linked admonitions rather than the anecdotes.
It is true that Pearl does not advocate spanking a child into oblivion, etc. At the same time, he advocates his interpretation of the rod as the biblical pattern, and tends to deride anyone who might see differently as emotionally weak or compromised by modern philosophy, disobedient to God, and set to wreck their children’s lives, perhaps even causing them to be reprobate and rejecting of Christ. Mothers who raise objections are called “lesbians,” “cowards,” and “possessed damsels” on Pearl’s website.
http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/articles/general-view/archive/2005/march/07/our-own-set-of-possessed-damsels/
http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/articles/general-view/archive/2007/october/10/answering-the-critics/
Yet the Scripture commands us to put aside all abusive speech from our mouths. (Col. 3:8)
Hm.
“I think the problem is, as I look through Pearls’ materials, Lydia Schatz’s death can in fact be reconstructed from their various instructions, if taken a certain way. At the same time, by looking at it another way, one could construct the anecdotal scenarios they provide and reproduce those in one’s life instead.”
Good point, C.L. Dyck! It is the way Pearl has evaded responsibility for his teachings. It is illustrative of the two-sided duplicity of Pearl that I point out in my own blog post about this tragedy, http://thenface2face.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/whose-heart-failure/. He is on the record saying that he believes in sinless perfectionism, and then later denies it. He is clearly teaching spank until submission, and making no provision for the severity of communication issues involved in attachment disorders, hence there is logically no way to “chastise” without frustration and then abuse. But he says he doesn’t advocate abuse. Cute.
I am sympathetic to your arguments regarding incremental progress in the fight to change opinion about the Pearls teachings. But Lydia died because horrible ideas have horrible consequences. She died because her parents believed sincerely in the Operant Conditioning methods taught them by Michael Pearl, who tells parents they must spank until the child submits or they have “lost that child’s heart forever”. This kind of thinking is rife in the Christian community, and I was guilted into it myself, albeit unsucessfully. I recovered my senses. But I did enough damage. Pearl teaches that good parents spank until there is not, in the Pearl’s perverted words, “breath in her to cry ‘huggie’,…”no, that is inaccurate, he teaches the child should not have any breath left in him to cry at anything, there should not be “breath left in them to complain.” They are to spank until the parent hears that “wounded, submissive whimper.” For then the “admonition is complete.” Lydia,who was probably suffering from attachment disorders, must never have whimpered. Lydia’s death is the logical outcome of such teachings. I do not think there is any more room for incrementalism, for I fear there will be more deaths. The Pearls and those who practice their teachings must be marginalized and shunned.
I also agree with you to a point about Behavior Mod. I was trained in behavioral therapies when I worked with autistic children before I was married. I was able to spot the repellent Operant Conditioning techniques the Pearls espouse, and reject them–things such as setting up a “training session” for a toddler engrossed in play, interrupting him with a friendly call to come to Mommy and Daddy, and spanking him if he does not come immediately. Or putting his favorite food in front of him, and spanking his hand when he touches it, until he learns to obey your command, “no, don’t touch.” So, like you I agree this is a teaching more compatible with BF Skinner than the God of the Bible. But the way I was able to reconcile the behavior modification I was doing with the children I worked with was to observe the Father’s own dealings with his stubborn children through History–didn’t He demonstrate, through terrible consequences, that He would teach them to obey with the Blessings for compliance, and curses for transgression? Yet certainly He entreated with his prodigals first. I was discussing this with Tammy on this thread of my blog, http://thenface2face.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/whose-heart-failure/#comments, and because of your clear and cogent thinking on these issues, I brought the discussion here. I hope you will comment on both of these points.
One big difference I see is that God sees into our hearts and He knows when we need an immediate reinforcement (which is what operant conditioning requires) and when we would learn more of His nature by Him stepping aside and letting the natural consequences set in motion by sin. He knows our motives and intentions and He knows when to show mercy and when to let the consequence be a teachable moment.
Going back to Lydia, there may be many factors about her that her parents did not see that God sees. Her native language is not English. She may have underlying neurological issues not obvious to the parents and perhaps a learning disability that takes years to diagnose. Her time prior to the adoption might have caused attachment challenges which do not respond well to negative reinforcements. Having raised an autistic child to adulthood, there are so many things that lie underneath the surface that appear as noncompliance that have a biological, neurological, or developmental cause. That does not mean we cannot train them out of them. We can! There are many ways to address these issues outside of the rigid principles of behaviorism.
Operant conditioning is more effective with immediacy–the consequence happening immediately to build automaticity in the desired response. But, I do not see God operating with immediacy. Does God punish us immediately when we sin? Does He continue to punish until we submit? If so, wouldn’t there be fewer sinners? Wouldn’t there be fewer fallen Christians?
“He is clearly teaching spank until submission, and making no provision for the severity of communication issues involved in attachment disorders, hence there is logically no way to “chastise” without frustration and then abuse. But he says he doesn’t advocate abuse. Cute.”
Karen, with respect to attachment disorders, or even children who panic and lose control under severe and sustained discipline, Pearl makes no accommodation except to spank more, as you quoted. I read that article on the website and the first thing that came to mind was RAD.
http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/articles/general-view/archive/2000/september/01/the-will-to-dominate/
However, since then, I’ve read further commentary discussing parallels of this incident involving otherwise neurotypical/”normal” children reacting the same way. My personal opinion would be that it’s to the harsh treatment. I thought it was very telling in the NGJ article that the child in question went to bed fine if there was NOT a spanking battle beforehand, then cried through the night for various substitute comforts if one had occurred.
I greatly, greatly appreciated your contrasting article on “Frog and Toad,” btw.
Unfortunately, Pastor Raley is absolutely right in calling NGJ’s doctrine a behaviour modification gospel. In researching for our articles at Scienda, what we’re seeing emerge is exactly nothing less than that. The gospel itself is minimized to meaninglessness in Pearl’s underlying theology, and the emphasis on “training up a child…when he is old he will not depart from it” reflects this.
Horrible ideas do indeed have horrible consequences. I believe that extends to the adults who are sincerely trying to live by this philosophy, not only in what they’re inflicting on their children but on themselves in attempting to follow this non-biblical system.
We’re posting on Tuesdays with what we find. I’m glad to also see someone doing an overview of the women’s theology in “Preparing to be His Helpmeet”, and another examining Pearl’s “Jumping Ship,” which I have heard attempts to defend NGJ methods against the concerns of those whose teens/young adults have left the faith altogether after being raised Pearl-style. Linda is compiling info very effectively at whynottrainachild.com.
[...] Michael Pearl Responsible For a Girl’s Death? Pearl Of Too Great a Price and The Behavior Modification Gospel by Matthew Raley, a pastor who uses Tedd Tripp’s teachings in his [...]
[...] See Pastor Matthew Raley’s article summarizing the toxicity of using Behaviourism to promote religion. Further expansion of the topic [...]