Is Behavior Science Harmful?

The short answer - it can be. This knowledge is powerful and anything with power can be used in ways that hurt, intentional or otherwise.

Like fire.

We can all understand someone traumatized by a house fire being wary of fire. Maybe even hating it. But does that mean that everyone should toss their lighters and close their grills? Would they?

Hard right turn into a different example: Should we not drive cars because people can die in them? Mmmm, pretty sure that's a no. Should people be trained to use them and follow safety guidelines? Yes. And if they think safety is only for suckers, should they lose their license to drive?

Absolutely.

You might wonder why I'm bringing this up now. In my last post, I talked about giving more attention to the things your child is doing that you want to see more of. Which raises the obvious question: What about the things you want to see less of?

There are a lot of ways to reduce your child's challenging behavior by, in part, adjusting your attention. Your attention, especially when guided by what we know about human behavior, is very powerful. We need to respect that power by following guidelines that ensure a child's safety. Anything less is irresponsible. Anything less makes it harder for the rest of us to use the power in a positive way.

This is also why trying to explain how to use behavior change science to reduce behaviors like aggression to strangers in a blog post is unwise. I won't be doing that. What I can do is share ways caregivers can perhaps stop innocently making things worse and create positive change with general strategies that don't require individualized professional guidance.

No danger of something burning.