Alternative to Behavior Modification - The Stress Model instead of "Consequences"

Alternative to Behavior Modification

* need to find this again. Check who wrote it.

It says a lot of the things that we at EQI say - for example, there is a difference between natural and fabricated or "parent formulated" consequences, as this article calls them.

Interestingly, the article never uses the words punish or punishment.

It basically says not to use punishment, because the child's behavior is a result of stress. So the parent needs to set the example on how to deal with the stress in a healthy way. Then when the stress is dealt with or removed the behavior won't be a problem.

Quote

Unfortunately too many parents themselves lack the mature
regulatory system to be effective regulatory teachers to their children.

---------------

Towards a New Alternative to Behavior Modification and Understanding Why Consequences is
Not an Effective Tool

(This paper is adapted from the forthcoming books The Stress Model™ and Family-Centered
Regulatory Parenting)

Parents find it difficult to not use consequences as a tool for detouring negative
behavior in their children. This paper will discuss a new alternative to parenting and
behavior modification with expanded emphasis on why parent formulated consequences are not
an effective tool for short term altering of behavior demonstrated by children and not
ultimately not effective for long term developmental change.

"Natural" Consequences versus Parent Formulated Consequences

A number of leading mental health professionals in the field today as well as in the past
have advocated for the child to take responsibility for her actions. This has implied that
if the child does not take responsibility there will be a resultant consequence. Indeed
this is perhaps the most commonly recommended course of action for parents to take in
working to overcome their children's problem behavior. This is most commonly mislabeled as
a "natural" consequence. Wherein upon making a mistake or the wrong choice the child is
forced with the outcome of their inappropriate behavior having to deal with the parent
imposed consequences. These parent imposed consequences related to the misbehavior have
been mistakenly labeled "natural."

Natural consequences do exist. They are apart of experiential life for everyone. The form
of consequences advocated by mental health professionals are not at all natural but in
fact parent formulated. The parent is instructed to engineer a consequence for the
demonstrated behavior that in turn is to become a learning experience for the child and
future detour to behavior. Natural consequences are not engineered, they occur whether we
like it or not. If we miss work as adults we do not get paid. If a child trips while
running, the natural consequence to the running is to fall. If the electric bill doesn't
get paid, it gets turned off. These are real life natural consequences. Natural
consequences are not engineered by others, they are a naturally occurring part of life.

* Not getting paid and having the electricity turned off are not "natural." They are the
result of a conscious human decision or design. - SH

The difference between a natural consequence and a parent formulated one is that one is
natural and the other is not. Parent formulated consequences attempt to teach a child a
lesson he is generally unequipped to handle and will seldom understand. The parents first
response is that of, "If I don't teach them consequences how will they learn?" What we
fail to understand is that in our obsession to teach our children consequences and
responsibility, we are also failing to teach them genuine empathy, responsibility, and
obedience.

? obedience? why do we want to teach them obedience? - SH

One commonly recommended approach by mental health professionals to parents to help
overcome a child that seems unwilling to think, answer, or verbalize the appropriate
response by continually saying, "I don't know," is to give jumping jacks as a consequence.
! wow

In this example a very insensitive interaction is occurring. First, the parent has
determined that this child willingly is not responding or answering the question asked. In
other words, this child has full conscious ability to answer when spoken too! This is a
common misconception. Findings from the field of neuroscience have quite clearly been able
to demonstrate that during times of overwhelming stress the normal cognitive functioning
aspects of the brain become overwhelmed by the hormonal stress outpourings created in the
brain. In this capacity the emotional neurophysiological response far exceeds the ability
for cognitive-rational decision making and processing. In this manner, when a child with a
history of trauma is exposed with the threatening situation of having to respond to a
question, she may become overwhelmed with her own neurophysiological stress response,
therefore "literally" rendered unable to answer in the "appropriate" manner. Hence, the
response, "I don't know."

This particular point is also discussed by Martha Welch, M.D. in her series on Welch
Method Regulatory Bonding. Welch refers to this child as being unable to respond in the
appropriate manner due to the presence of unexpressed feelings being blocked on a level
which prevents the appropriate responses. To this point, Dr. Welch exclaims, "He can't
respond he's blocked."

* interesting ^

The Stress Model relates this behavior more directly to the actual neurophysiological
stress presence preventing the appropriate response. Therefore, to force the child to do
jumping jacks to "get the blood to his brain" is to ignore and neglect not only the
emotional presence of the child, but more importantly the stress being demonstrated.

We have been led to believe that children that have suffered trauma and generally have
been labeled as Reactive Attachment Disorder are inherently difficult children without a
conscience or empathetic development for others.

? reactive attachment disorder? lol How many are they going to come up with?

How does a child, made to do jumping jacks because of not being able to answer
appropriately, be expected to develop any degree of empathy for others? He cannot, it is
physiologically impossible. The very eloquent Stephen Covey stated, "Unexpressed feelings
never die. They are buried alive and come back later in ugly ways." In other words, the
battle is won at the expense of the war! The battle being the often repeated and varying
behavior and the war of course is the stress. This paper explores and expands on the The
Stress Model Theory and how it is the center of focus in the Family-Centered Regulatory
Parenting approach.

zz stopped reading carefully. now just skimming

Understanding The Stress Model

Family-Centered Regulatory Parenting is a model of parenting based on The Stress Model
theory of behavior that attempts to explain the underlying causes of behavior in children.
In order to thoroughly explain this new alternative to parenting and why parent formulated
consequences are not effective, a theoretical foundation for The Stress Model must be
presented initially.

The Stress Model states, "All behavior stems from a neurophysiological state of stress
(dysregulation) and in between stress and behavior there lies the presence of emotions. It
is through the expression of emotions that we gain access into both behavior and stress.
Through emphasis on the effective expression of emotions, parents can foster the
environment necessary to calm or regulate the neurophysiological state of stress and
diminish the demonstrated behavior."

What we must understand is that it is our early socio-emotional environment and
interaction with significant caregivers that establishes our future self-regulatory
capacities. Regulatory capacities are our ability to successfully navigate emotional
states such as anger, sadness, fear, or hurt, and furthermore, our ability to establish
and maintain relationships. This is done through the successful maintenance of stress
within a safe operating range. For example, the race car driver who becomes angry in the
midst of a race because he has been cut off by a lead driver causing him to miss an
opportunity to take first place, becomes overwhelmed with anger, stomps on the gas pedal
and rams the lead car out of the way. However, through successful emotional regulation,
the driver maintains his focused emotional state and waits for the next opportunity to
take the lead while being fully aware that the lead driver may once again attempt to cut
him off.

During vital interaction with caregivers and the nurturing environment primarily from
conception to age 33 months, the developing system is directed towards effective self-
regulatory ability. For instance, in the classroom setting, the kindergarten student
embarking on his first school/social learning experience is directed through his
experience primarily through the teacher and secondarily, by the students of which he will
interact. If the teacher is a miserable incompetent who demonstrates little concern for
the education of the students and lack of control of the classroom environment, the
student will fail to meet his educational needs. To the point of this paper, if a child is
the recipient of inconsistent and ineffective care, i.e. unmet needs, provided by the
parent, the child will not develop the necessary skills for effective emotional
regulation. Fundamentally, The Stress Model assumes that a child witness to chronic
ineffective care of a primary caregiver is also the direct recipient of ineffective
teaching of the regulatory system. Primarily because an ineffective parent with minimal
ability to provide the necessary parental ingredients such as attention, affection, and
attunement, is generally overwhelmed with their own chronic state of stress. For example,
the drug-exposed infant is the recipient of exposure due to the mother's attempt to
alleviate her dysregulation via drug consumption. It is not the intent of the mother to
damage the developing fetus but rather her attempt to deal with the stress in her own
physiological system. The abused wife's lack of concern for the proper care of her
children is not intentional, it is her chronic state of stress induced fear and depression
related to the looming threat of the abusive husband returning for yet another violent
episode. With the stress of this constant threat the mother is rendered near helpless in
consistently meeting the needs of her own children because she lacks the internal state to
function successfully.

Relevant Theoretical Considerations

It is yet to be fully understood how the developing regulatory system processes the input
that it receives. The Pavlovian school of thought states that through repetitive
interaction the body is conditioned to respond in a certain manner, however, the Control
system school of thought expounds the idea that the brain/body system has a memory and
natural drive towards pleasurable states and in some manner forms pictures or cognitive
and physiological associations to what is and is not pleasant. The Stress Model assumes
that to a degree both schools of thought have some validity. We now have evidence that
suggest that over a period of time we become accustomed to respond to certain stimulus in
a set manner with minimal cognitive control. This suggest both pavlovian conditioning and
pleasure seeking. Not only does the body become conditioned to respond in a certain
manner, but there may also be a degree of remembrance of experience from which the
physiological system calls forth and seeks a relationship between present and past
experience. For example, the small toddler, when unattended, immediately runs to the
kitchen, devours half the frozen pizza sitting on the counter top prior to lunch and
quickly takes the remaining portion and strategically places it under the rug next to the
lamp. In this situation the toddler, suddenly triggered into a state of stress, stuffs
unpleasant food in his mouth due to a conditioned learning of not having food needs met in
a timely and consistent manner. Furthermore, the directed attempt to hide the food is
based on the remembrance of hunger appearing and food not being present, therefore the
picture of pleasure is one where food has been successfully stored waiting for the hunger
to reappear. In any instance, the fundamental trigger is the stress and through the
triggering all manner of associations occur which lead to the eventual behavior.

For the child who has suffered a history of trauma, this is of specific importance because
this child has not nearly developed the necessary regulatory tools for navigating the
emotional states which subsequently lead to the problem behaviors demonstrated. As stated
earlier, it is the environment of attention, affection, and attunement that leads to a
positive regulatory learning experience for the child. In other words, it is the
environment with well regulated and modulated stress occurrences that will communicate to
the child the lessons for his own future emotional navigating abilities. The number of
factors contributing to exposure to chronic stress is too immense to list. Each individual
brain responds and reacts to trauma and stress in a different way, however, common causes
to chronic stress are abuse, exposure to drugs, neglect, abandonment, inconsistent care,
adoption, frequent foster placements, or any other highly stressful event as common as
birth trauma, automobile accident, or loss of a parent figure. In this regard, the
exposure to chronic stress does not allow one the capacity to develop effective regulatory
processes. Generally, as stated previously, this has occurred during the first 33 months
of life and has become an engrained and firmly established pattern in the child's
regulatory system. Rather than having assimilated positive learning experiences, he has
assimilated negative experiences. Therefore, in later social and emotional interaction
such as with the toddler, the actions demonstrated are negative rather than positive.

Making the Necessary Connection

The two areas of significance we have failed to understand until recently concern the
connection between the neurophysiological (brain/body) system and its interaction with the
rational/ cognitive (psychological) functioning of the brain and how this interplay
ultimately leads to one center having more impact on behavioral outcome than does another.
The two control systems in the brain, the left and right hemisphere, though connected, are
responsible for two very different duties. The left brain is our center for
rational/cognitive processing and functioning, our right brain controls our social and
emotional functioning. In other words, the regulatory capacities demonstrated by a child
are not engrained patterns set in stone from which he is able to make fully rational and
cognitive decisions. Though the two centers work in conjunction with one another, it is
ultimately the right brain which determines the manner in which the left brain will act.
For example, in a state of fear, a student generally very capable at answering a
mathematics question will blunder the question due to the presence of dysregulation from
the right brain. Or, in times of extreme anger and shame, the bullied teen goes on a
shooting spree killing twelve students in a school and then turning the gun on him self.
In this example there is no healthy rational/cognitive process at work but rather a
reaction based on the stressed communication of the right brain. In the presence of stress
the failure to effectively navigate emotions leads to minimal ability to navigate
cognitively or rationally.

Contrary to the adult, the child will continue to demonstrate an immature regulatory state
throughout their development. It is the constant interaction with the primary caregiver
and the nurturing environment that leads to a successful outcome for self-regulatory
ability. In further investigation and recent findings it has been demonstrated that the
right brain control system responsible for effective self-regulation is also an area of
the brain which remains open to change throughout the lifespan. However, in order to
effect the change, the key ailment, stress or dysregulation, must be alleviated.

Therefore, when The Stress Model states that all behavior stems from stress; the use of
consequences is not an effective tool for short term altering of behavior and long term
development, it is essentially reiterating the fact that children, primarily children of
trauma, are reacting from a neurophysiological state of which they only have the power to
demonstrate the most minimal degree of control imaginable. If a child is behaving
inappropriately, he is not merely behaving inappropriatly but rather is behaving out of a
state of neurophysiological upset or stress. In order for parenting intervention to be
effective for long term developmental change and immediate behavior alteration the parent
must approach the behavior from the perspective of The Stress Model in that

the emotions
must be expressed in order to calm the stress and diminish the behavior.

*^

Otherwise, to
give consequences for behavior is merely consequencing behavior and is not addressing the
underlying developmental ailment and cause of the behavior. In many ways this alternative
approach is a preventive approach because it is working to create the necessary
environment for the emotional regulation of stress. Setting the neurophysiological stage
to correct what the child's regulatory system has learned and experienced.

Previously, Family-Centered Regulatory Parenting states, " The use of consequences is not
an option in the Family-Centered approach due to the principle that the primary caregiver
must take responsibility for the developing child. In doing so, inappropriate behavior is
a warning sign that the child is exhibiting a conditioned stress response and it is the
responsibility of the care giver to initiate a learning and safe environment for the at
risk child via containment. Within the application of the Family-Centered Regulatory
treatment model a system of application is geared towards prevention of upset emotional
stress and behavioral acting out rather than intervention. Through the overall process of
the Family-Centered approach, the very act of parental responsibility begins to initiate
the most valuable behavior modifying technique available. The dyadic transactions, which
occur between the caregiver and child, create the environment for restoring the lost
nurturing and attunement, which created the child's overly, sensitized stress response
system in the beginning. In this manner the parent offers the most advanced system for
child intervention available because the overall schema of treatment is not merely geared
toward behavioral intervention, but towards the neurophysiological underpinnings of
behavior itself and the parent-child dynamics that create stress."

Successful Formula for Stress

To this point it is now appropriate to introduce The Stress Equation which is yet another
vital tool and aspect of the Family-Centered approach which is often overlooked in past
and present parenting approaches.

The Stress Equation:

A+B+C1=D1 (Regulation)

A+B+C2=D2 (Dysregulation)

Variables:
A Parent
B Child

(C1) Calm

(C2) Stress

(D1) Regulation

(D2) Dyregulation

In continuation of The Stress Model within the Family-Centered Parenting approach, it must
be understood that the entire family can be and is affected by the stress of another
family member. Remembering that the parent is the primary responsible party for the
effective teaching and regulation of stress, it must therefore be understood that the
parent(s) are always a part of the final family regulatory state. When implementing The
Stress Equation, we can utilize the following situation as a classic example. A father
comes home from work stressed out after having been fired. This physiological state is
immediately intrudes upon that of the wife and ultimately the child. Being that a child is
immature to the parent in all areas, he will generally be the one participant in the home
and variable in the equation that acts out the stress through behavior more so than anyone
else. In this manner, the child generally becomes the stress target for the rest of the
family. In a family of more than one child, the child with the least independent
regulatory ability will become the target because he will be the one individual in the
midst of the environment the least capable of regulating the stress therefore causing him
to act out the most. For this reason, it is generally the child that brings the parent(s)
into treatment. On various occasions, it is not only the child in need of the treatment it
is the parent(s) as well. In this regard, successful treatment outcome is impossible
without the inclusion of the entire family. When we implement these variable into The
Stress Equation the following occurs:

A(parent)+B(child)+C2(stress) =D2 (dysregulation); The family and specifically the child
are in a state of dysregulation. In this instance the child is screaming and very hyper,
therefore the father immediately imposes a very harsh consequence onto the child.

Subtract B (child) from the equation and you are still left with both C2 (stress) and D2
(dysregulation). Not only has the underlying cause of the behavior not been dealt with but
it has been forced upon the child as the problem.

In this same situation in order for the outcome to be positive, the stress (C2) must be
subtracted in order for the family to restore their systems to a positive state:

The father comes home and says to the wife, "I've been fired." Undoubtedly the stress will
remain high within the family unit but when the child begins to act out the parents will
be attuned to what could possibly be the first cause of the behavior. In doing so the
parent(s) will first address stress (C2) before immediately eliminating the child (B)
because of the demonstrated behavior. In doing so, the parent(s) are first, taking
responsibility, and second, eliminating the stress (C2) from the family equation so that
the underlying cause is acknowledged and effectively dealt with. When The Stress Equation
is completed with a positive outcome, the underlying ailment in the family setting is
contained as a unit, the family is restored to regulation, and the child with the immature
regulatory system is modeled yet another positive experience in which to begin to
establish the needed self regulatory ability.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ultimately it is the regulatory ability that leads to our success as
individuals in society. Unfortunately

too many parents themselves lack the mature
regulatory system to be effective regulatory teachers to their children.

* true ^

The parents
therefore seek professional help and the professional often times enhances the state of
dysregulation by being child behavior-centered. When this is occurring the child is often
blamed, labeled, and the behavior given repeated consequences, in worse case scenarios,
the behavior is medicated or the child begins to act out to such a degree that he is
placed in residential treatment. As long as there is not a parent willing to take the
responsibility to communicate the necessary regulatory lessons, the child will not develop
the necessary effective regulatory skills.

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