p.

Dr. Alan E. Kazdin

David Cutler: I thoroughly enjoyed your book.

Dr. Alan Kazdin: Well, it was nice of you to read it.

David: My favorite point that you make early on is this. When it comes to parenting, the
first thing to bear in mind is that most of us rely too heavily on consequences.
Punishments especially, but also rewards, when we're trying to change a child's behavior
or mindset. That really stuck out to me. I was wondering if you could speak to that more,
as to why is that the case and what can parents do to change that mentality?

Dr. Kazdin: The point that you've selected I think is the most important point. Then I
think somewhere down after that, maybe number five or somewhere far down, there's
another one that's very frustrating in parenting, but also in human behavior, which is this.
We have a tendency to think that if we tell someone something and they know it, that
that's going to change what they do. Parents, "My child knows how to do it, he's just
being manipulative." It turns out that's a misunderstanding of how human behavior
works. Maybe that's not relevant, or of interest to you and I'm happy to let it go.

But just between us, when you tell another person something so they know, everyone
nods. But what psychology shows is -- from research -- that has nothing to do with
changing behavior. Knowing and doing, we all wish it were related and it isn't.

David: Why do we insist on punishing when we know it doesn't work?

Dr. Kazdin: This is just a superb question about punishment, and there's a few ways to
answer that. The first one is it looks like our brain is hardwired to pick up negative things
in the environment. If we see all kinds of good things going on in our children's behavior,
in their classroom, but we see one thing that's negative, it's perfectly normal, natural and
our brains are prepared to go right after that negative one because that's how we're
programmed.

The view has been that it's an evolutionary adaptation. You're wandering in the jungles.
Everything looks fine, but you see that one bush move and those beautiful, but scary tiger
eyes staring at you, you better know that before you're looking at the sunset.

Two children are sitting, watching TV, and they start to argue. The parent naturally runs
in, and says, "Why can't you two get along? You never behave. I'm going to turn off TV."

We have to train parents to practice actually, that they run in and they say to the children,
"Look at you two. You're getting along so nicely. That's totally terrific." That will get rid
of the fighting.

The first answer to your fabulous question is that there's a natural tendency to respond to
the negative. That's there.
 p.2

A second answer to that is something called, "The Punishment Trap." It is a formal name.
What happens is that there's a way punishment gets locked into a person's, parent's or
teacher's repertoire this way. You scream at your child, you reprimand your child, you hit
your child, you shake your child, whatever you do to punish, leads to an instantaneous
stopping of that behavior. Whatever it is, they just stop.

What the research shows, is that after that stops, it doesn't change the rate of that
behavior for the week, for the month, for the year. It has no really enduring effect beyond
that moment.

What that does, because it changed the moment, it very much works the same way in the
brain as if one received an injection of an illicit drug. It goes right to the reward center
that controls the parent's behavior. "I hit you, and you stopped." Now, the parent never
has to think that. It's a connection that builds it in the parents.

For example, I deal with parents who abuse their children. Every one of them comes to
me, and they know it's not working. But that doesn't change what they do. These habits
get locked in through this "Punishment Trap."

The last one is, when parents and teachers punish, they have a huge agenda. Sometimes
they want to teach justice that this isn't fair, and that's a reasonable thing. They want to
have a rule. They want to send messages. They have a whole, big agenda.

When I want to use punishment, professionally, and ask parents to use punishment,
there's only one agenda. To change behavior. If you have it that way, you focus on very
brief punishment, timeouts of a minute or two. Once you get past that, there's no reason
to do them.

Some parenting books say, "Give your child four hours of timeout." That violates what
the research shows.

Punishment has a very small role. It can have one role, but it's a cleaner role. That is to
say, we're not trying to teach the child justice, or morality.

You explain all that to your child, that's great to explain. It changes the child's IQ. It
teaches reason. It's wonderful, but it won't change behavior. You want to change
behavior, it's not going to be through punishment.

There are these forces, so to speak, about how we're wired. How we learn, how we
behave. What we want to accomplish leads to a punishment that actually isn't very
helpful, when it comes to changing child behavior.

David: You have such a great step by step guide here, on how to change behavior
effectively, without utilizing punishment. One of the things that you mention, that I had
never thought about...mind you, I'm not a parent. But even as a teacher, I think there are
some commonalities that are shared...

Dr. Kazdin: Absolutely.

 p.3

David: ...are what you call antecedents, how you get good behavior going, and I'm
wondering if you could talk about how effective is that in and of itself without having to
rely on other methodologies?

Dr. Kazdin: The antecedent behaviors and consequences, one of them is dangerous to
use because it's not likely to work. For example, almost everybody on the planet seems to
have used a reward program with their child that fails. Well, reward programs with your
child should fail. They shouldn't work at all, because you need these other parts, these
antecedents and the behaviors and the consequences. But, yes, antecedents can make a
huge difference, sometimes all by themselves. The way parents talk to children
sometimes accidentally fosters non-compliant behavior. For example, when you point the
finger and say to your child, "We're going to go outside now. Put on your coat," the tone
of voice and the finger pointing is likely to increase non-compliance.

Now you might have this wonderful angelic child that they're going to be compliant no
matter what, and then you might have the other child that's non-compliant no matter
what, but for most children, they're in the middle, and how you present...What you do is
you do two things.

You say, "Please," not to be polite, but, "Please." Then you give a choice, and you go like
this, "Please put your coat on or your sweater on. We're going to go outside now." Now
the, "please" is not to be polite or to teach manners. That died decades ago.

David: [laughs]

Dr. Kazdin: What the please does is it changes your tone of voice, and it suggests
choice. Then you say, "your jacket or your sweater." You actually give a choice. What do
we know from research? When humans feel that there is a choice, they're much more
likely to do what you ask. That's not having a real choice, that's perceiving a choice.
When you tell them that they have no choice, they fold their arms, and they say, "No."
Now this is adults and children. "We're going out. Get ready now." "No, I'm not going
out." Well, you can't blame the parent for being normal, but the way it was done made it
more likely the child's going to say, "No." You don't do authoritarian things with people.

"You do this, because I say so. I'm your father. You do it because I'm your father. When
you have children, you can do it that way." Oh, no. That's going to lead to all kinds of
problems. You might win that battle, but you're going to lose all the other ones, and so
choice and, "please," as antecedents are good examples of things that control behavior.

David: You give a great example, and I was actually thinking of myself. When I was a
little kid, I didn't like brushing my teeth, as a lot of little kids don't. In your book, you
mentioned you were working with a parent. "How can I get my child to brush his teeth?"
Towards the latter end of the anecdote of the story, the parent tells the kid, "OK, you
don't have to brush your teeth, but that's what normal five-year-olds do, mature
five-year-olds, or six-year-olds do." Then, gradually, the child began to change his
behavior.
 p.4

Dr. Kazdin: That's a wonderful antecedent. One of the best human antecedents -- this
applies to all ages but it's in there with children, of course -- is a challenge. You say,
"We're going to...let's brush our teeth together, but you're a little too young. Let's go in
the bathroom together. You don't have to brush, but be with me. You're a little too young
to brush. Actually, I bet you can't your brush your teeth because you're so young." What
the child does then is he smiles and says, "I can brush my teeth. I can..." "No, no, you
don't have to. Wait until you're bigger. When you're bigger child, when you're bigger, a
little more grownup, you'll be able to." "No, no, I can do it. I can do it." "OK, let's just try
it once, but I don't think so."

That's a wonderful...that challenge is marvelous as an antecedent, and it gets the child

motivated to try it, and this whole approach is not motivating, it's practicing the behavior,
build the habit, and then dump the program. The antecedents there are just great
with...For example, at dinner, half the parents I'm seeing are just dying to get their
children to eat vegetables.

They just, "Are you kidding me?" And so, you say, "Tonight, we're going to have an
adult-only course, and only the adults at the table can eat it." Now if there's only one
child there, who are you talking to? We put this nice little cheesy vegetable on the side of
your plate. You taste it, and you say, "Oh, that's really good." You do a couple nights of
that.

Long, long time ago captains were trying to get people to eat things because sailors were
dying of scurvy, and Captain Cook wanted his men to eat sauerkraut. He ordered the men
to eat sauerkraut, and they refused. It's a bad antecedent.

He said, "OK, no sauerkraut," and he told his officers, "We are going to eat sauerkraut,
and the crew can't have any." "You guys can't have any sauerkraut." That's a beautiful
antecedent. What did Captain Cook do? He caused everyone to say, "Are you kidding?
We can have...we want...the sauerkraut's for us, too. You guys just can't have all the
sauerkraut."

David: [laughs]

Dr. Kazdin: The problem was solved. It's low-grade cheap psychology of the time
supported now by massive research. Great antecedent, Captain Cook.

David: That's interesting. Going back to the vegetable story, I know that you mentioned
that in your book as well, and it's almost like a point system where I think you were
working with a family, a mother or a father of a child that wouldn't eat his or her
vegetables, and slowly but surely, he or she would get a point if they touched it, and then
another point if they put it to their lips, and another point if they actually tried it, and
then, eventually, the child ate the vegetables and the then program was dumped.

Dr. Kazdin: We dump the program. Now, you'll appreciate this with your experience in
the classroom. We use point programs once in a while, but we really only use them for
the parents, and the children don't need them. If you do the praise correctly, a very special
praise that you read about, if you do the praise, you don't need points at all. But we use
 p.5

points because it helps the parents structure it better. It makes the parents behave more
consistently. It's not needed at all. You don't need point systems. But when the parents do
it that way, they're praising a little bitter, they've more serious about doing it, and the
point kind of forces them to do the praise as well.

But, yes, the systems...The critical point in the examples you give also is the behavior
part. It's shaping. Most parents normally want their child to just dig into a set of broccoli,
start chewing it, and swallowing it. That's not going to happen, but we can get you there.

Most parents want their child to do an hour of homework. That's not going to happen, but
we can get you there. And so, the problem is that parents often want chunks of behavior
that are too big to get there.

David: You also talk a little bit about simulation, and I'm wondering, can you give
examples of when that works best?

Dr. Kazdin: Sure. We've done this a thousand times. A parent will come to us and say,
"My child has a horrible tantrum," and we say, "Well, what does that mean?" "Well, he
gets on the floor then he hits me. He screams. He throws things. Sometimes, he breaks
things." We would do the obvious thing there and say, "OK, does he ever have a decent
tantrum, something that's not so bad?" Then, they usually say, "Doctor, I wouldn't be here
if he had a decent tantrum, Doctor."

David: [laughs]

Dr. Kazdin: I said, "OK, we can help. We can really help with this. What you're going
to do, we're going to practice a few times ourselves here. But tomorrow morning or the
next morning, when everyone's calm, go to your child and say, 'We're going to play a
new game called a tantrum game, and here's how it works. I'm going to pretend that you
can't do something. We're just pretending. I'm going to say, 'No, you can't do it.' And you
can have a pretend tantrum, and when you have your pretend tantrum, you're not going to
hit Mommy or throw anything. You're just going to say, 'No!' and get mad, and it's all
pretend. And we're just going to practice one. If you do this, I'm going to give you a little
point on this chart.'" Now, again, we don't need the points, but it helps the parent.

David: Sure.

Dr. Kazdin: "Let's just practice one. OK." So now you lean over, and you smile. All
those are antecedents. You say, "Billy, you can't watch TV tonight. Billy, we're just
pretending. You really can. OK, Billy, you can't watch TV tonight" Now, you prompt.
"OK, give me a tantrum. Remember, no hitting Mommy and no throwing things." "No, I
want..." Billy has this decent tantrum because everyone's calm, and now, you have to
praise it with three things. It's got to be there. It's got to be effusive. "Hey, Billy, that was
great!" Now you've got to say, "What it was, it was great. I told you, 'No,' and you did
this and this, and you didn't hit anybody. That's fabulous."

Now, you have to touch. You go over and you touch in an affectionate way. Now the
whole secret to this approach is no secret. You need practice trails. We want to get it
 p.6

again. We give Billy a point, and then we, "Billy, no child in the world could do this
twice in a row." "I can do it twice in a row." "Billy, it's just too hard. I don't think
anybody can do this." "I can do it." "Well, OK, Billy. We'll try it again, but I don't know,
Billy. It's pretty hard."

"OK, Billy, you cannot play with your little video game tonight because of what you did.
OK, Billy, another tantrum." Now, Billy does it again, and you go, "Oh, my god, Billy
that was fabulous. You did this again and that again." Then you rub the back of Billy's
head or whatever you do.

Now, we've had two practice trials, and here's how it works. You do this maybe once a
day, no more, for a couple weeks. Here's the part we can't tell - between one and three
weeks. As you do that, two things happen. One is, the regular tantrums become more like
the simulated ones. Billy has a real tantrum, and you run over to Billy and say, "Billy, I
can't believe it. We weren't even playing the tantrum game and look what you did. Billy,
that's fabulous."

Now, the regular tantrums are taking over to be like the simulated ones. Now, on the
practice ones, if you need to you change them more, you say, "OK, now, Billy, don't hit,
don't throw things, and don't give Mommy the obscene gesture." You can change that if
you need to craft it a little bit more. In a little while, the regular tantrums take over, and
you just drop the game completely, and it's over.

The interesting thing, there's a way in which every parent knows this is true outside of
parenting, and that is this. The best way to train commercial airline pilots for emergencies
is in simulation. We have them practice under fake circumstances. We would not do that
if the fake circumstances didn't carry over to real situations.

We practice our surgeons when they're in medical school in fake situations, not even real
human bodies. The idea being that we know that the fake transfers over to the real. When
someone says this child never does it, we say that's not a problem. We can get there.

David: It's interesting, too, in your book you really say that this doesn't happen
overnight, right, that shaping and stimulation and behavior modification, it takes time.
But I'm wondering, in your experience, are parents ever impatient?

Dr. Kazdin: Well, they are impatient and, again, the technical word for that among
parents is called, "normal." They're impatient because of the frustration I've mentioned
before, and that is, "My child knows how to do homework. My child knows how to use
the toilet. My child knows how to set the table. Yet, he never does it." That's frustrating
because the assumption that we know now not to be true is still in most of our minds
every day. That is, if you know it and you don't do it, something's really wrong with you,
and I'm frustrated by that. The truth is there's nothing wrong with you. It's called normal.

Again, there's another example. There's not a cigarette smoker anywhere who doesn't
know that this is killing them, but you would never say to a smoker, "Now, you know
about this. Why didn't you do it?"
 p.7

We've had presidents that have had odd behaviors that were sometimes immoral, and the
public sometimes says -- I'm public. I say it, too -- "That person is so bright. How could
they ever do that?" In psychology, that's no surprise because we know knowing and high
IQ has not much relation to controlling one's behavior.

David: That's so interesting. I just wanted to switch gears a little bit. You mentioned that
this toolkit, this behavior toolkit, none of it will work if there's not a nurturing home, if
there's not really much emotion or positive emotion in the household. I'm wondering to
what extent are you seeing that as a problem that kids, they might be misbehaving, but
they're also missing that nurturing environment?

Dr. Kazdin: We can make this work in non-nurturing environments. We have done this
endlessly with the most violent children that you could imagine, and sometimes from
very non-nurturing homes. You can make it work. But it turns out that there are these
conditions that you mentioned that if you put them in place, they make the task easier. It's
like if you want to engage in a sport, you don't have to have all the right equipment, but it
helps if you do. You want a hockey stick rather than a stick from the street. You want
skates rather than just going around and using your shoes.

Here we are, some of the equipment to make things right for the child consists of having
family activities and rituals that can be totally ridiculous and lame. Every Friday
afternoon, we go to the store and pick up some food. They can be parallel play. The
nurturing home, talk to your child and make sure they're not in an environment with too
much stress.

And so, some of these things will make it so the child's behavior, the level of the
behavior, is already down to such that you're not creating problems, and when you want
to change something, it'll just be so much easier. It's kind of the nurturing home, to quote
an old film, would be the, "spoon full of sugar that makes the medicine go down."

David: [laughs] "Mary Poppins."

Dr. Kazdin: It's not the medicine, but it makes the medicine go down, and so it's really
good to have that. Children these days are very stressed, and the children have two kinds
of stressors. Ones that they experience at school, bullying and classroom, and the peer
pressure, that's just really bad. But the other one, they also experience the parents' stress,
and parents aren't aware of this, and parents usually aren't aware of the children's stress.
They don't know about bullying most of the time, for example. What happens is the
children could already be more stressed than parents think. All the more to have the home
as more of a comforting place to the extent that one can.

David: I'm wondering, do you think that parents or prospective parents, should, I guess,
go to courses before having children? Do people see you before and after, or do you seek
a combination of the both?

Dr. Kazdin: We have three things we would like to do, and we only do one of them. We
do not see the people before they have their child. We would love to, and what stops us is
only the matter of having the funds to do that. We just can't, but that would be just
 p.8

wonderful, because we could practice things, and it would take away much of their
anxiety. Early before the child has any problems, maybe one before the birth, one, one
year old, two years old, we could have such huge help. What the goal is here is to make
parenting just so much less challenging. That would be good. Then we have parents who
have children now, and that's the groups we work with.

Then we get many, many requests -- we haven't accommodated any of these -- from
grandparents. They have two challenges. One is getting their adult children to do things
with their grandchildren, and then they have more and more time with their grandchildren
who are out of control, and they want help on what they should do. The demand has been
rather extensive.

David: Can you talk more about the Yale Parenting Center, and, I guess, your role and
all the great work that you do there?

Dr. Kazdin: We have a center on campus, and one can access it just by typing in, "Yale
Parenting Center," and what we have done there for a long time now is have developed
these techniques and have done studies on them with parents to make sure we know how
they work, what to do, how to make them a little better. We've been studying this for a
long time. In the process of that, we felt a little frustrated saying, "Much of the
information that's out there is wrong, and we don't want to do this at Yale. We want this
out there. I don't want this. I don't want to do this. I want everyone else to do this." Then
we came under pressure from all over the country and from some other places outside the
country. "Listen, I can't come to New Haven. Can you do any of this? Can you help me?"

Now most of what we do is we train parents individually, live, face-to-face, an hour a

week online. Someone in Australia late in the evening or at dinnertime clicks on her
computer, and we're there either the next day or the day before -- I forget -- and we turn
on our computer and we say, "Hi, Mrs. Johnson. Are you ready?" "Yes, I'm all ready."
We do this now -- that's from the Yale Parenting Center -- all over the world to try to help
parents. That's what we do now.

Also, we have to manage demands from therapists, teachers, psychiatrist, psychologists,

social workers, to train to do these techniques, so much of what we do is also training.

David: That is amazing. Can I ask what kind of program? Is it Skype, or do you use
certain...your own software?

Dr. Kazdin: It's very much like Skype, but it can't be Skype, because it has to be a
version that's completely encrypted so no one can see and no one can interpret. We have
a special program that everyone can use. It's easy to use. It works just like Skype, but it's
not Skype because we need to have it completely protected for privacy.

David: That is amazing. That is so cool. You guys are quite busy, not just with people in
New Haven, but around the country and around the world.

Dr. Kazdin: Yes, and we often don't know how they hear about us, but so someone in
Peru, and someone in Ecuador, someone in Poland, someone in Luxembourg, someone in
 p.9

France, and so on, and it just comes in...some in Hawaii. The only thing that is awkward
is we have to be a little cool on how we accommodate the time difference. But we work
around that. It's weekly. The nice thing for a parent is that they're in their home. Usually
when you are a parent and you have treatment, you go...or training of some kind, you
have to get a babysitter or lug all your children there. Oh, no, no, no, this is at home. Sit
at your computer, and we'll work with you right there. If you can have no interruptions,
that'd be great, but you're living at home so that's fine.

You don't have to go anywhere so you don't have to miss a session or whatever. The
parents stand up and they practice these things, and we want to get the parents' praise to
be great. We practice it. This is not a program in which you just talk to people and get
them to nod, "I understand. Oh, no, no, no. you have to practice it."

We say, "Now we're going to practice the praise. Let me do it first." Then you practice,
and they do it. They get a little better and better and better. The whole thing is very much
like learning to play a musical instrument. You start out simply, get a little bit more
complex, learn the scales, play a couple of melodies, and, now, pretty soon, you've got,
"Clair du Lune" down and you're doing the heavy stuff. We do this all online.

David: That's amazing. Doctor, what is the most important thing that you think parents
could be doing that they aren't doing now, or many of them aren't?

Dr. Kazdin: Parents have this very effective tool that they're not using as well as they
could, and that is modeling. We know so much about modeling now. We know that when
you model things, it changes the child's brain. We know it changes not just the child's
brains, but it's been studied in other animals. Here's what I would like a parent to do, two
parents, one parent. Sit down and say to each other, we want our child to have these three
characteristics. It might be kindness, it might be...It doesn't matter what they are. Then
now just make that explicit. Then, now, tell yourselves you're going to model those
things, and you're going to point them out whenever you see them in the world.

If you like children talking nicely to parents so now you're at a food court, and you say,
"Look how nicely the child and father are talking." You point those things out in the
world. Those are modeling episodes. You model in your interactions in the home.
Modeling is so effective, and it's just not used strategically.

It's a very powerful tool parents have, and they kind of carry a hammer around not
realizing it's a hammer. "Oh, that's what that is in my pocket. It's a tool. Hey, I can use
this." Modeling is really one thing, and if I could add one more thing...

David: Of course.

Dr. Kazdin: The biggest thing, the biggest challenge is something we call, "positive
opposites." Parents come and they want to get rid of behavior, and we can do that. We do
what the parents want, but we don't do it the way the parents want. We ask parents to be
skilled at thinking of the positive opposite. You want your child to stop being
disrespectful? OK, we can't do that. We can do it this way, though. "You want your child
 p.10

to be respectful. What does that mean?" "I want my child to talk to me this way or that
way." OK, once we have that opposite, we can get rid of the other one.

We praise this other one, we point it out, and we feature it for maybe a week or two or
three, and then we build that up and the disrespect goes away, but the parent's normal
inclination is to punish the disrespect. "You can never talk to me like that. I'm your
mother. After all I've done for you all these years, I don't deserve that kind of treatment"

It's fine that you said that. It's not going to help at all, and you're going to be so frustrated
as a parent, because you think that now that you've taken a stand, that your child will get
the message. Getting messages does not change behavior. It's a myth, OK?

There are a bunch of myths. One of these is teaching moment -- it's a myth. Three strikes
and you're out -- the effectiveness is a myth. All these things don't change behavior. I
wish they did. I would love it if they did.

David: Because it's just in the moment, right? It changes in the immediate moment.

Dr. Kazdin: The sending message one doesn't even do that, but, yes, it's the best you
might get for the moment. And nothing...We don't want things for the moment most of
the time. We want children to...I don't want you to do your homework now by me sitting
over there with a paddle. I want you to do your homework without me ever asking you to
do it. We can get that. That's not such rocket science. We can do that, but not by nagging.