1Parents often feel discouraged because they can’t be consistent. They feel like fail- ures. It’s time to rethink some of the underlying assumptions proposed in many parenting approaches. In fact, the reality is that . . . CONSISTENCY IS OVERRATED “MY BIGGEST PROBLEM IS THAT I FEEL GUILTY WHEN I can’t be consistent. Every par- enting book I’ve read talks about the importance of consistency, but I’m running from here to there, getting things done, and my husband parents differently than I do. I feel like I’m failing because I can’t be as consistent as I would like to be.”
Charlotte has three children, ages eleven, seven, and four. For the most part, she’s doing quite well, but she’s plagued with an over-arching sense of guilt when …show more content…
Behavior modification as a science began in the early 1900s. Ivan Pavlov made some exciting discoveries as he worked with dogs. If he consistently rang a bell just before he fed the dogs, he could eventually get the dogs to salivate by simply ring- ing the bell. This discovery of how to motivate a dog was picked up by John B. Wat- son in the 1920s, and he began to apply behavior modification to people. In fact, it wasn’t long before behavior modification became a primary way to help people stop smoking, lose weight, and deal with a host of other behavioral issues.
In time, behavior modification influenced the classroom as well, and teachers used it to help children learn. By the 1950s behavior modification had also become the primary tool for parenting. Giving rewards and punishment to children worked quite well to modify their behavior. And one of the things parents and teachers all learned was that the key to behavior modification is consistency. The more consis- tent you are, the faster you’ll see change. The problem is that behavior modification embraces humanistic thinking, the belief that people are just a higher form of ani- mal. The Bible teaches something very