Hear the strategy working for me to change behaviors I do not like from my dogs and child into actions I do like which eliminates the desire for me to yell, correct, discipline, and criticize. What I share is based on an understanding of positive and negative reinforcement loops. Most behavior begins as a harmless exploration of the world. From a dog, one bark or from a child picking up one item to play with it. When I provide loving attention in the form of praise, the behavior is likely to be repeated. The problem is that most of us want any attention so much that we are willing to behave badly to get it. We want to be seen even if it is in a bad way. At almost a year and a half old, my daughter plays with most of what she sees. She picks things up, pokes them, and sees what they can do. If I decide I do not want her to play with a certain thing and I try to fix that with any kind of negative verbal feedback, even if it is sweetly delivered Dolores Umbridge style rather than yelling, then the message I really send to my daughter is that "Daddy will notice you if you do that." This same message happens with my dogs when I used to yell at them to stop doing one thing or another. They hear "Hi I am seeing you right now" and for them this is better than going unnoticed. It used to drive me crazy to see how nearly everyone I saw had dogs that they had completely ineffective relationships with in terms of bad behavior. Now I understand that it only bothered me to see others yelling at their dogs pointlessly to stop barking only to have the dog do it again 30 more times within 10 minutes because I was using the same system to interact with my dogs even if it involved less yelling and more silent resentment on my part. Today I have freedom to see how to reward good behavior and replace what I do not like with positive attention to behavior I do like! Thank you for reading this and I hope it is helpful for you!
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