Page 23 - How Children Learn to Hate Their Parents

Contributing Factor Eight: Escape and Avoidance Also Called "Negative Reinforcement"
We all know, through taking even the most elementary psychology course or by training a puppy how powerful "positive reinforcement" is. When behavior is reinforced it happens more frequently. That is the definition of reinforcement. Something that increases the probability of a behavior happening again.
Let's take the behavior of rejecting a parent in the following scenario:
A child decides he does not want to transition to the other parent's parenting time. His excuse is it is boring. He does not like the other home. He has more time in his current home. He is at his preferrd parent's home. He convinces the preferred parent to tell the other parent he isn't feeling well and the visitation is cancelled
The next access period comes around. This time the child starts complaining from the night before. He doesn't want to go. He is frightened and cannot say why. The preferred parent has never heard this before. The preferred parent is certain there must be something to it because why would the child lie.
Are you hit?
Are you yelled at? Are you touched? Are you frightened? Are you left alone?
The answer to all of these questions is "yes." The preferred parent launches int full protective mode. This next visitation is missed.
The lawyers start firing missives at one another. The preferred parent will not allow the child to visit until there is an "investigation." Third, fourth, fifth and sixth visits are missed.
What has just happened?
Hypothesis One: The preferred parent is merely protecting the child.
Hypothesis Two: The child is being rewarded for avoiding visitation, not positively as if the preferred parent were giving him cookies to refuse visitation but negatively by being allowed to avoid contact.
Negative reinforcement is reinforcement that comes from being able to escape or avoid an unpleasant situation. The refusal started because the child does not like it as much at the other parents house and just wants the added comfort of the preferred house. The more visits are avoided, the greater the resistance becomes. Other factors intervene. The child knows that when he does to the non preferred parents house he is going to have to answer a lot of questions including:
Why don't you like it here?
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