Now that we have introduced you to escape and attention-maintained behaviors it’s time to go over behaviors that are caused by access to tangibles. Tangibles are any items or activities that are highly preferred by a child.

A common example of this that you may have experienced once or twice is when you’re in a store and your child really wants a new toy, but you tell them no. In response to hearing you say this, the child may fall to the ground and start crying to try to get access to the toy. If you or someone else eventually gives in and gets your child the toy you are reinforcing their unwanted behaviors, or making it more likely to occur again in the future.

Another example of this type of behavior is a child who hits anyone that tries to take away her iPad. The child wants to keep playing, but you are trying to fight off their physical aggression and may even give in and just let her play for a bit longer. This once again, is reinforcing the behavior of hitting in order to get more iPad time. These behaviors can be tough to deal with at times, but there are some strategies that we have to help.

The purpose of any of these behaviors is to gain access to a preferred item or activity, which may or may not be something they already have access to regularly. The more you give the child access to the items they want or give in to their behaviors the more likely it is that they will continue to behave in ways that you don’t want them to. Follow us on Facebook to find out next week what you can do to prevent and react to these behaviors!