GOOD JOB! Dr. Becky and Salient Reinforcement Effort

ABA on Tap has discussed the ever ubiquitous 'Do This!' as a discriminative stimulus. And of course, once the child imitates correctly, you say "GOOD JOB!" as the standard, overly used and potentially ineffective consequence, dare we say 'reinforcement.' 

In this episode, Mike and Dan brew over an article from Dr. Becky Kennedy (see link below). Dr. Becky advises parents to reconsider the use of 'good job' as a response to indicate satisfaction with a child's behavior. She provides great insight that is applicable to any parent and child dynamic, as well any RBT looking to differentiate their vocal responses toward positive and informative reinforcement. This brew is light, easy, and refreshing--pour, pour more and enjoy. 

And always analyze responsibly.

As aforementioned, ABA on Tap brews go well with cerebration. Find your peak mental performance, as well as the rest you need with Magic Mind. Click on the link below and get 45% off the Magic Mind Bundle.

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ABA on Tap is excited to appear as the #3 best ABA podcast to check out in 2025! THANK YOU FEEDSPOT! https://podcast.feedspot.com/applied_behavior_analysis_podcasts/ 

Link to Dr. Becky's article: https://www.upworthy.com/ivy-league-expert-shares-why-parents-should-stop-saying-good-job-and-do-this-instead

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:58 Introduce New Partner: Suzanne Juzwik from Innovation Moon

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:11

Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tap. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk, and the recommended pairings to bring to the table. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

All right, all right, man. Mr. Dan, welcome back to yet another installment of ABA on Tap. This is episode two, season six, my friend.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07

Man, looking forward. This is going to be our biggest season yet.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11

We've got so many things brewing for you guys out there that are listening. We appreciate your loyalty through five seasons. We are seeing the feedback, getting the feedback. It's exciting. It's exciting. So we thank you out there for listening, for continuing to listen, for all the feedback you're sending, all the show ideas. The questions, please keep it coming. Again, we've got some really good stuff prepared for the rest of Season 6. A little shout-out to our new partner, perhaps? Absolutely. Suzanne Jeswick. Thank you. Innovationmoon.com if you want to check out what she does outside of ABA on Tap. We are one of many projects that she is hoping to improve. Yeah, thanks. Already having a nice show meeting, which you and I do informally, but she's changing the whole game for us. So again, What that means is you guys are gonna get a bunch of exciting guests, a bunch of exciting show topics. She's really gonna clean up our act and make sure that we're giving you our best ABA on tap.

SPEAKER_01: 2:12

Yeah, on the back end. It's not gonna water it down at all. We're still very excited. Speaking of feedback... Just a shout-out to you, and I believe his name is Anuj from Feedspot. Oh, Feedspot. But you're talking to the number three ranked ABA podcast right now, Mike.

SPEAKER_00: 2:32

Yes, yes, you are listening to, indeed. We are talking into the microphones, and you out there are listening to the number three in the top 15 ABA podcast to check out in 2025. per the Feedspot website. We are very grateful to have gotten that news. We look forward to collaborating with Feedspot, whatever that means in the future. Suzanne will help us out with that. But yeah, but thank you. Now, we have to take a minute. We would be remiss if we didn't talk about number one and number two, right?

SPEAKER_01: 3:07

Well, that's by the end of this year with Suzanne, we got to be at least number one or number two. We have done zero marketing over five years. We got to beat the behavior bitches. And I say that literally because that's number two, is the behavior bitches. That is not a derogatory term.

SPEAKER_00: 3:24

Now, am I going to have to click that little box now as we publish this episode where it says explicit? This episode is now explicit. I was just trying

SPEAKER_01: 3:34

to promote another podcast,

SPEAKER_00: 3:35

Mike. Oh, oh, the behavior bitches. Yes. Oh, good. If Pop Pop is out there listening, we apologize to Pop Pop and his mom. That's really the name of the podcast. Really cool, just as an aside about that particular podcast, they're not specific to ABA treatment for autism. I think they expand their reach a lot more in terms of applications of applied behavior. So that's exciting. And if they happen to be listening, number one. Number two? Let's do some show swapping. Let's be on each other's shows. What do you guys say? It's time to network. Time to cast a wide net, man. This is exciting. Absolutely. Speaking of a wide net, what we have today is a little article review. It's an article written by Dr. Becky Kennedy. Pretty popular child psychologist out in the world. She's been on the Huberman Lab podcast. Maybe she will make a stop on ABA on tap in some future. Yeah. So Dr. Becky Kennedy has been putting out a lot of cool parenting advice. I don't. I think you've got the title of her book there. I don't remember the title of her book right offhand. I'm sure we'll come across it in a minute. Admittedly, I don't know her book. I heard her on Huberman Lab. I've read a few articles. You got the title?

SPEAKER_01: 4:59

Yep. So Dr. Becky is a child psychologist, the best-selling author of Good Inside, a practical guide to resilient parenting, prioritizing connection over correction.

SPEAKER_00: 5:11

Connection over correction. Man, that is a mantra right there. We could probably expand on that for, I don't know, a good hour. Absolutely. It's what we'll be doing today and kind of exploring, I guess. Well, let's jump right into it. What is the title of the article? And this has gone, I guess you say viral these days. This has gone into national publication. I've seen this article pop up on, I think the New York Post picked it up. I forget what. website we're looking at it on. Upworthy.com. Upworthy.com. I know that Good Parenting Magazine. So this got picked up nationally. I've seen it on different fronts. I wonder if the title has changed because what's the title that you're reading out there?

SPEAKER_01: 5:52

Ivy League Expert Shares Why Parents Should Stop

SPEAKER_00: 5:55

Saying Good

SPEAKER_01: 5:55

Job and Do This Instead.

SPEAKER_00: 5:57

Okay. So right there, I'm just going to say that I think that title is a complete hook. And the article doesn't actually say what the title implies, although I do think Dr. Kennedy is a Harvard grad. You know, hey, not everybody can get into Stanford. You know what

SPEAKER_01: 6:16

I'm saying? Anyway. UCSD, I got that public school education.

SPEAKER_00: 6:18

Hey, it's a UC. I guess it's public, but it's still a UC. It's not just... public. It's like San Diego State or something. Anyway. Shout out to the Ferb. Hey, shout out to everybody. Shout out to all the schools. Listen, this is the way I like to say it, right? Come on, we're all reading the same textbooks, right? How different can it be? We're

SPEAKER_01: 6:35

all punching in the same AI.

SPEAKER_00: 6:36

We're all punching in the same AI. We're all reading the same textbooks. It just so happens that my professors wrote the textbooks and developed the... Oh, all right. I'll get off my high horse. All right, we got to get back to it.

SPEAKER_01: 6:47

Because that thing around Mahandran was UCSD. But we'll go

SPEAKER_00: 6:50

back to the article. I'm wearing the Stanford shirt today, too, my T-shirt here. So I'm completely enveloped and self-engrossed in my own self-absorption. Anyway, Dr. Becky, I don't think the title of the article actually says that, but it's a good hook, right? Yes. And that's what we're going to spend time talking about. And in a more general way, what we're talking about here is reinforcing consequences, right? The idea of... Ensuring that what you're doing is a consequence after a desired behavior or a behavior of interest in terms of trying to promote that class of behavior ongoing, right? Dr. Becky makes some interesting points that we'll get into that maybe are outside of our scope behaviorally. So when talking about building self-confidence and self-esteem, and again, we won't dismiss those things as much as try to give it a behavioral feel. Absolutely. So Dan, why don't you kick us off here? You do a really good job for us kind of reading parts of the article when we do this, and then we get to discuss and digress and go on our tangents before we bring ourselves back. So why don't you give us a little snippet to chew on here?

SPEAKER_01: 7:53

Absolutely. And again, I'm super excited to start the year off with a with an article review. We've had a lot of guests on, which have always been wonderful, but it's wonderful to just sit back and riff with you, Mike, and be able to expand on an article and add it to our repertoire.

SPEAKER_00: 8:09

Yeah, it's going to be a commodity in the future here. We're going to have to enjoy these solo sessions, Dan, because we're going to have a lot of guests in the future.

SPEAKER_01: 8:17

2025 is going to be pretty booked up. Very, very excited to have a lot of... That's what we set out for, honestly. We set out to have as many guests as possible.

SPEAKER_00: 8:25

And what that means, just really quickly before I keep I keep interrupting you. What that means is if you're interested, you got something to say, please reach out to us. Few things are as exciting for us on ABA on tap than when we open up that email and somebody's listened to our show and they're saying, hey, I've got something to say. So we have probably a good two seasons lined up already prospectively. So again, don't be daunted by that because it doesn't mean that everybody shows up or that all the slots are filled. You got something to say, you want to be on the podcast, please do reach out ABA on tap at gmail.com. All right, Dan, without further ado.

SPEAKER_01: 8:59

All right. And Susan, Suzanne will probably get back to you. She's been moderating the email. So if you get an email back from Suzanne, she's part of the team now. And then, yeah, we will all connect. So the first part, when you're a parent, few things feel better than telling your kids good job or well done when they complete an art project, get a good grade or make their bed correctly. So what could be wrong with a little positive reinforcement? Or it says positive enforcement. According to Dr. Becky Kennedy, good job is a conversation ender that can prevent kids from getting the full confidence-building benefits of their accomplishments.

SPEAKER_00: 9:38

Okay, so that's a lot to unpack there very quickly. So positive enforcement, you think that's a typo, or did they mean positive reinforcement? That is a good question. Probably that's what they meant. Okay. And again, just to kind of get technical here in terms of our technology would only be positive reinforcement if good job actually promotes the emission of that behavior again right yep uh just to just to get technical there um and i the other thing that it says really quickly and i'll pass it to you dan to see your thoughts is that it's also important so reinforcement we deliver reinforcement and delivering reinforcement per that opening paragraph is reinforcing in and of itself or reinforcing can be. And if it is, then that means you'll be providing more reinforcement in the future in response to those desired behaviors. So I think that's the point I want to kind of lay down for now, see how it develops the rest of the show. Sure. But for our RBTs, for us as BCBAs, delivering intervention, delivering reinforcement should in and of itself be reinforcing to us as much as possible. Sure. Right. And that's what I think to make this point. As a parent, it feels good to do that, which is why I'll start right now. I don't think she's saying don't do it. She's saying do it a small percentage of the time. Or better yet, expand on what that means to have done a good job. Mr. Dan, what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01: 11:05

Yeah, I totally agree that from the parenting perspective, it has to be reinforcing as well for parents to continue to do it. So good job certainly is an acknowledgement of something that was done correctly per the parent's expectation. So that is useful. I do remember, I don't know if you remember this, Mike, but in my trainings and especially my trainings early on in my ABA field when I was conducting them and actually receiving some of them, there was a very popular, it was just like a page that 101 ways to praise a client

SPEAKER_00: 11:40

without saying good job. Sure, sure. Well, and it's interesting because that sort of started that discussion. What that tells me is we've been after, in ABA, we've been after this premise that Dr. Kennedy presents here for a long time. Now, if I remember that list, that list was a bunch of synonymous variations of good job. Yep. Which... would be about one percent of what dr kennedy is saying here so we're not going to poo-poo that list as much as we're going to say you're on the right track the idea is variation and then dr kennedy's talking about something different here she's saying expand on it now she talks about asking affirming questions or questions that allow the child to zoom in into I guess their accomplishment? Am I getting that right? Dan, help me out here.

SPEAKER_01: 12:32

Yeah, it says that Dr. Becky adds that when parents say good job and leave it at that, we are teaching them to gaze out for acceptance from others instead of gazing in on the process they use to accomplish their task. By conditioning kids to look to others for acceptance, whether it's their parents, teachers, or future boss or spouse, we create a world where they're looking for external validation. This leads to anxiety and makes you feel very empty and very fragile and very, very anxious.

SPEAKER_00: 13:05

Okay, that's a lot. Let's see, maybe we can get around to the anxiety part. We're going to stick to the things that you and I know how to best measure observably, right? So the idea here, let me see. I'm trying to gather my thoughts. You got something?

SPEAKER_01: 13:25

Yeah, it seems like what she's saying, and it makes sense, is it kind of creates a transactional relationship.

SPEAKER_00: 13:31

Transactional. So it's truncated. There's no ability to develop that interaction. That's it. It's here's your product. Here's your currency. It's over.

SPEAKER_01: 13:44

Yeah, I've done it for you, right? And that's how a lot of, I guess a lot of workforce is set up. And that's why she was saying, or future boss. is that the boss comes in and tells you to do something and you do it for them. I mean, you get paid for it. So that is one's currency. That could be the good job is the money, but it's still done kind of for the boss and not necessarily you. And so it's a transactional kind of thing, right? Like, good job, you did that, thanks.

SPEAKER_00: 14:12

So

SPEAKER_01: 14:13

you're doing it for the other person, not for your enjoyment.

SPEAKER_00: 14:17

I hope this isn't too much of a stretch, but an analogy that we face is, new business owners that we will continue to face as aba business owners is sort of the balance between providing an intervention and then counting hours of service yeah yeah fair if all you focus is on the hours then that's your transaction you exactly do the session you convert your time you get paid somewhere in that transaction if you haven't infused quality intervention. And that's what Dr. Becky is talking about here. She's talking about the quality of your statement, the quality of your verbal behavior. And I say verbal behavior to include vocal, meaning you're saying certain words. As a parent, maybe you have a certain facial expression on your face. Maybe you're also pointing out to the child so that you allow them to zoom in, but you're also zooming out to see what other consequences, collateral consequences, their behavior had in terms of an impact on the rest of their environment. So the idea that, yes, you're not doing this just to please me as a parent, but guess what? I am pleased with your behavior. And why am I pleased? Because now we're going to be on time because look at how happy your little sister is about what you did. And look, your little sister, I mean, again, so now we're to your point, it's no longer transactional. Now it's interactional. Now it's an interaction.

SPEAKER_01: 15:38

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it definitely does become a robotic interaction. A lot of times with the good job, I think what it can be broken down to sometimes is I'm asking you to do something. You did it at the way that I expected. Now I'm saying, good job. Now do it again. Now do it again. Now do it again. And that becomes kind of habitual sometimes. Um, there runs some issues of, again, motivation. So oftentimes money, money is motivating. Hopefully people are fortunate enough to work in a field where their actual work and process of their work is motivating. Um, I don't think everybody or even necessarily a lot of people are able to do that. I think a lot of people just go, uh, I don't know. put a plunger end on a stick and that's their job. They do that however many thousand times a day or they put a wheel on a car and maybe they really enjoy the final product of the car and I absolutely hope they do. But the good job just becomes like, yeah, it becomes very robotic and very transactional and doesn't really lead to a lot of generality either outside of that skill because you were praised on one example of that skill and And without breaking down what you're getting praised for, reinforcement would say that if you got reinforced for doing said skill, you're going to continue to do that exact behavior over and over and over and over again if good job is reinforcing.

SPEAKER_00: 17:03

In fact, reinforcing. Well, and that's what we have to ask ourselves here, right? So we assume that good job is reinforcing. Now, what could be, in all fairness, what could... What are the reinforcing elements, prospectively reinforcing elements of good job? There's a semantic meaning, right? And then there's also a prosodic meaning, right? So if you do something good for me and I'm like, hey, Dan, good job, bro. That misses a little bit. That only has a semantic feeling. But I'm like, hey, man, good job. Good looking out. That's a phrase you like to use, which I think has a lot of meaning. Beyond good job, good looking out. What did I look out for? But you did this and that. And you reminded me of this before I... thought of it and thank you man the good looking out so i think that's what we're getting at here is it's not to say don't say good job i i'm going to go back to my 80 20 rule here try to make it 10 to 20 percent of the time you're saying good job 80 to 90 percent of the time try to describe that good job now dr kennedy says something different than described so let's talk about what she says and then i'll talk about why maybe i agree with what she's saying and then where I might disagree with what she's saying, but more particular to, say, our RBTs and the people that provide the intervention that we do.

SPEAKER_01: 18:16

And just expanding one thing before I get to the next part that you are asking about is in order for a good job to be reinforcing, like you said, there has to be some sort of motivation behind it. So it can be the reverence to the person, maybe a child and the parent. So maybe that's where it could be. It could be. hey, we're buddies, so if you say good job, I want to please you because we're friends. But there has to be some sort of reverence to that person or desire to please where the good job becomes motivating. Or if your boss says good job, that kind of infers that you are going to continue to have a job and therefore continue to get paid. So there's like comfort in that as well. So there has to be reverence, respect, something, some sort of currency, whether it's friendship currency, monetary currency, something that that person that's saying good job to you is giving you or that you seek out from that person to make good job reinforcing.

SPEAKER_00: 19:08

So there's got to be a reinforcement history to begin with. which is another reason why establishing a good foundation of what it means when you say good job might be of value toward those future 10% to 20% emissions.

SPEAKER_01: 19:20

Absolutely. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 19:21

that makes sense. It makes total sense.

SPEAKER_01: 19:22

But it also becomes very truncated in the interaction. It becomes very almost egocentric in some way from the person saying good job, saying that my... My praise of you should be motivating enough for you to continue to do that. You think highly enough of me that me saying good job should be motivating enough to you. There's almost like an inferred egocentricity there, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00: 19:48

Yeah. And again, that wouldn't make sense for, say, a younger child. Yeah. And then to your greater point and Dr. Kennedy's point. We have to expand on that. So it's, yes, a child might start with wanting to please their mom. And then we would want that to generalize. We love that word in ABA. We would want that to generalize across that child's environment. And to your point, not just in terms of being ready to please somebody else, but being ready to feel efficacious enough to have utility in your environment such that you can zoom in and go, yeah i did that cool

SPEAKER_01: 20:19

yeah yeah and i mean like we would even talk about with the podcast right we'd very rarely we probably do maybe 10 to 20 percent say hey good job with that but we'd probably say like man you killed it with that episode or or that that was awesome but unless we expand and expound on what you did that isn't going to generalize so maybe you did a really nice job interviewing somebody but if we're riffing on a on an article you can't replicate that to another one so unless we expand on what you did a good job of that's not really of much utility and that's what she's arguing as well

SPEAKER_00: 20:53

and we're talking about enriching the environment of good job too right so whether we're looking at this from a language um a language acquisition uh perspective or uh you know whether expressive or community or receptive the idea is that we're creating a more enriched environment what does it mean to have done a good job in terms of your actions, in terms of how you've impacted your environment in a way that, if I'm saying good job, is presumably positive or impactful in a useful or utilitarian way. And yeah, we want that full enrichment of reinforcement, right? The idea that you're getting the full bag, man. Hey, and again, I don't know if Dr. Kennedy is saying you do this every time, because this could be a time constraint, which is why, again, I would look at the 10 to 20%. Once in a while, hey, man, good job, really quickly. And then make sure that when you're saying good job, you're paying attention. Yes. Let the person know that you're paying attention. You're not just being passive and dismissive. Hey, good job, man. Because if you just say good job, you don't have to pay attention to what it is. If you're doing what Dr. Kennedy is asking, now you have to be an active participant jointly attending in providing this reinforcement.

SPEAKER_01: 22:00

So... Quick little tangent on that because... I like it. I was prompting you. Yes. So this actually recently came up in a discussion that we had over at Proact, the Moravian study. We've referenced that a lot. You know the Moravian study. The communication is 55% body language, 38% tone, 7%. Is that UCLA, right? Yeah, UCLA. 69, I think is when. there's actually been some rebutts to that, including Bob Morabian himself saying that that's not the point of the study. And that the individuals that were done, it was a small sample size, that the point of the study and what he showed was that if what you're saying doesn't match your body language, then people are going to look at your body language over then what you're saying. Now, if everything is matched, then people are really going to believe you. But the good job, for example. So, if you're saying, good job, but your body language is very dismissive and you're not even really paying attention, that is going to appear fraudulent, which is kind of interpreted as that 55%. But it was more a study of... honesty and fraudulent messages and how body language goes with that. So I think, again, I just want to reiterate what you said in that tangent. Sure, we could say good job, but unless we're showing active and engaged interest in that, we're going to appear fraudulent and then that's going to carry less weight down the road because it's going to seem like I spent so much energy and effort doing whatever this task is that you reinforced with good job that you couldn't even spend five seconds to sit down and really talk Well, and I

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

think you're making a super important point sort of on the other end of things, right? So you're looking at it from the child kind of saying, you didn't give me enough value or reinforcement value for my task perhaps. And then on the parent's perspective is you need to– we talk about picking your battles. Pick your value, right? If a child did something really desirable– it's worth those five seconds to stop yourself and go, hey, man, I'm paying attention, right? Back to the Moravian study, that's fascinating new... that you mentioned there. And I mentioned porosity earlier. I'm thinking back. I wish I had the reference in mind. I'll try to find it. I'm sure you guys out there in listener land can Google it. But Dr. Anne Fernald, as somebody who I mentioned the enriched environments, I had the pleasure of seeing her speak many years ago. And she was presenting some research on studies of porosity with maybe toddlers, you know, maybe teenagers, So maybe like 12 months and younger. And to your point, so now we're talking about body language, porosity, and the actual words. What do you mean by porosity? Tone. So it's the difference between... Yeah, I said it earlier, right? Me going, hey, good job, versus, yeah, good job, man. There's a difference in the meaning of those two. Or if I said, oh, yeah, real good job, man. Now that's sarcasm, right? So not that 12-month-olds understand that, but she had this really interesting study where they set up these infant studies, and they've got the parents, the child sitting on the parent's lap, and they've got this cover so that the child can't see the parent's face. And they would put an interesting object that they knew the child was going to reach for out in front of the table, right? And if the child, they would do these discordant prosodic cues. And what I mean by that is they would start mixing up the language and the prosody, the semantics and the prosody. So the child's reaching for the toy and a voice would start going, yes, yes, reach for that toy. Reach for that toy now. Kind of punishing voice, right? And you would see the child like, reach and then they would hear the tone it was like they were confused because it's saying yes but the tone is saying no as opposed to the yeah get the toy sure get the toy uh or the idea that it was no no don't get that toy at all and you start seeing to my point is you start seeing the development of semantic language because now they're using prosody as well as the meaning of it and they're like it's so funny to see these 12 menthols like confused like wait what are you telling me yes are you telling me no but to dr kennedy's So you outlined these things inadvertently, but I think there's at least three cues. We're talking about tone of voice or prosody. We're talking about your body language and then the actual words that you say. And if those three things come together, you could provide the strongest reinforcement possible, presumably. And

SPEAKER_01: 26:41

that third thing that you said is probably the only value of that 101 pieces, right? Is that... I'm going to spend enough mental energy to at least think of a different word and not just regurgitate the same thing that I've said, which shows you that I'm not even willing to put that much brain power. I'm just going to regurgitate the same thing I say over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_00: 27:04

Right, right. So to your point, it's almost like the words are third in line there.

SPEAKER_01: 27:09

They

SPEAKER_00: 27:09

are. They're an important part. They're an important variable, but they're, I would argue, I would agree with you, they're the third part. So the idea that now your body language, your tone, We could probably even put more variables in there in terms of your intent. Now your word choice and then maybe the words by themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 27:27

That would be an interesting study. You should have somebody do it in Chinese to somebody that doesn't speak to Chinese. They're going to say good job quickly in English or they're going to sit down and engage but speak Chinese. The learner has no idea what Chinese is and I don't know the answer of it but to show whether the words or the actual engagement have more meaning.

SPEAKER_00: 27:47

That's interesting too because I do know I'm trying out into unknown land here, but I do know that prosody varies from language to language. So what seems harsh to us in some Asiatic languages specifically is actually elation, excitement, happiness. We talk about that with

SPEAKER_01: 28:06

cultural bias training.

SPEAKER_00: 28:07

I don't know enough about that, so I won't go on. I won't continue. All right, let's talk about what else Dr. Becky has

SPEAKER_01: 28:13

here. Instead, Dr. Becky... And this goes from where we talked about the good job and the increase of anxiety. Instead, Dr. Becky suggests that parents lean in and ask their child about the process that it took to create that piece of art or clean their room. This helps the child develop greater self-confidence and focus more on their process next time they put... Next time they put their mind to accomplishing something. So again, process versus outcome oriented. Nice, dude. She says a great place to start is to ask process questions such as, oh, how did you come up with that topic? Oh, what made it start that way? Or, oh, what was it like writing that? The child psychologist says initially it may feel uncomfortable to ask probing questions. Once you get started, it's easier, Dr. Becky said. And yes, it actually focuses on what's more in a kid's control. And then setting up your kids to feel good about themselves, even if they're not always getting 100, is just a massive privilege. That's actually interesting. And it actually makes them work harder because they're focused on their effort and process instead of just the result. One more paragraph. Go ahead. A great way to think about how we praise children is how we would like to be treated as... Actually, no. That'll be the next one. The next one. All right. So process versus outcome oriented.

SPEAKER_00: 29:31

So I love talking about... Process versus product. We've talked about that here, right? ABA can be very product oriented with good reason. And what Dr. Becky here is saying is that might be at the expense of the process. Now, I'm going to expand on this and then pass it over to you because I know you got some good things to say. Particularly at ABA, I might not push back, but I might present a variation on the questions, right? So now what I think Dr. Becky's saying here is the questions allow you to demonstrate that you're paying attention. The only reason I am weary about the questions is that I think that ABA intervention is already so question intensive. We love our interrogatives, and again, with good reason. So the only thing I would add to that paragraph, and I wonder if Dr. Becky would agree or disagree, especially if your child suddenly stops answering your questions, because all kids can sometimes get a little, you know, hey, how was your day at school? It was good. So now to her point, you would want to ask more probing, more specific questions. Now, that doesn't mean that your child is going to answer those questions. So what do you do when your child stops answering? You go into commenting, right? Thinking back into your linguistic mapping. I use the example, which you've always been very fond of, of looking at a child paint at an easel. You've got a three-year-old painting at an easel. And it would be a lot of our immediate habit to go, oh, what is that, a car? Oh, it's a house. what dr becky is saying here right she's saying ask questions but what i would shift that into is now oh you're using the red paint oh you're moving the paintbrush from left to right oh now top to bottom oh now you're using two brushes so getting into that comment again the idea that you can look at your child's worksheet or their work of art whatever it is you can ask questions you can make comments both of those things now make you pay attention which huh Is that one of our functions of behavior? You mean you could derive reinforcement from having your parent pay attention to you and moreover add some really attractively prosodic phrasings about how well you did and looking at your process? I think that's the full package we're looking at here is you're paying attention, you're asking questions, you're making comments. To your point, you're taking the time to increase the reinforcement value.

SPEAKER_01: 31:49

So let me ask you this, Mike, and I totally agree with what you're saying. The commenting piece can be so valuable. Historically, in Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 32:17

Oh, that's a fantastic question, sir. So yes to your latter question. I think that this is where joint attention is valuable. And then I would have to say we have to go back to our simple technology and affirm the consequent. Because yes, you're right. The commenting, the questions, if... We have to look at what's reinforcing. Just because Dr. Becky says the questions might be reinforcing doesn't mean they will be. Now, I'm not saying she's wrong in what she's saying, but she's giving us an inkling, a hint as to the fact that, hey, don't just say good job, expand on that. And then you're making a damn good point, which is if expanding on that doesn't necessarily prove reinforcing to your particular learner, then what is your version of it, right? So it might mean that instead of saying good job, which is nice and quick and easy, and it's a nice time-saving way to... I'll let you give the example here because you can look at a mom who's super busy and, oh, honey, good job. I need to go tend to the, you know, there's a million things going on in the stove. And I've got, ooh, that's a bad, that's a no-no. So dad is at the stove. You get my point. You're running around busy. So you stop and you pay attention. So it's a nice one. So you might consider then, okay, it is good job, good for me, yes. And then what am I trying to do is just expand on what the good job is. Hey, you finished your painting. So now your prosody along with your joint attention, your gaze shift, your pointing, the idea that you're paying attention and providing something more expansive, more detail-oriented than just good job. Now, back to your very excellent question. It could be that you find yourself and your learner just wants good job because not as it only positive reinforcement, it's negative reinforcement. It gets you off their back right away. They've pleased you. They're moving on. Now they're getting access to their extrinsic motivator. But that's the question we've always asked here on ABA on Tap. That balance between extrinsic and intrinsic, and that's what Dr. Becky's talking about here. The more you can find some level of intrinsic motivation in your achievement, knowing that you've also impacted somebody else in a way that's been official to them that's now a sense of self-efficacy i can do for me and therefore i can do for others and i think that's what we're getting here in this sort of total rate raise a decent human being kind of parenting advice

SPEAKER_01: 34:29

yep i really like the the process versus the outcome piece because at the end of the day potentially process does control outcome it certainly does to an extent but I could work on my basketball skills for the next five years. I'm not going to be LeBron James. So it does to an extent, but it doesn't always control outcome because there are certain outcomes that no matter what processes I put in place, I'm not going to be able to achieve. So it does, I really like the fact that it focuses on that because it does build that self-efficacy because like she said, at the end of the day, that is what we have control over. We do have control over the processes, how many free throws I put up, how many wind sprints I do. I have control over that and I can see myself potentially getting better. The outcome's kind of interesting because also when we say good job, it's kind of unclear and I think that's what she's saying is we're saying good job to the outcome, right? But that's weird because who knows how we came about. That dismisses the rest of it. Who knows, right? We used to have two dogs, right? And we would throw the ball out. One dog would go to the water, get the ball. The other dog would wait at the shore, steal the ball from the dog and bring it to us. If we didn't see that, we would compliment the dog that, brought it to us right like you don't know if you're not observing the process presumably you might not be because you're just saying good job so you're just looking at the outcome you don't know how that came about maybe the person cheated to get the grade but they got an a we see they got an a we say good job so i guess this kind of goes back to what you're saying too is the attentiveness in order for us to expand on our we have to be more aware of how they came about those affirmations. So it kind of goes both ways. It does give more credibility to the client, but it also makes sure that we're paying attention more.

SPEAKER_00: 36:19

Man, you just packed up a lot in that, and it's making me think, and I know I've caught your attention over here with what's sitting on my desk, but what I want to say really quickly is what Dr. Kennedy is talking about here, I think, is that what we need to potentiate the idea of chaining affirmations or shaping and or differential reinforcement. Because without speaking to process, I don't think there's any way you can do those things.

SPEAKER_01: 36:47

That's a good point. You can differentially reinforce without that.

SPEAKER_00: 36:50

I mean, because otherwise, because you have to reinforce successive approximations to shape, which means that if all you're doing is focusing on the end product with good job, you have missed that entire behavior sequence towards shaping that new skill. I didn't think about that when I first went over that article, but there

SPEAKER_01: 37:09

you go. Now, Dan, you got something else? But there's another bottle that's brown. I hope that's not just a green bottle that's gone bad of magic.

SPEAKER_00: 37:35

No, Dan. I am glad you asked, my friend.

SPEAKER_01: 37:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 37:38

Yes. I am fully immersed in magic. for my mind almost on a daily basis now, man. I gotta say, I'm super happy. So I've talked about magic mind and my flow state, right? In fact, you see the empty green bottle, you see the traces at the bottom. I'm flowing right now with the magic, my friend. I've been using it for a couple of years now. And this morning I woke up, I got my coffee brewing, and more importantly, took a peek in my fridge and saw that beautiful little green performance shot chilling, waiting for me. On Friday, I started taking my shot and prep for ABA on tap today. Now, perhaps more importantly, my friend, is this little pinkish-brownish bottle you see here, which I can't take now because that's nighttime elixir. See? That's Magic Mind Sleep Elixir, and it's magical indeed. Let me tell you. You have been telling us, by the way. I now have magic 24 hours a day, Mr. Dan. Magic Mind Performance Shot 24. Insights, exhilarates, motivates my flow state. And in those moments where I need to ensure I drift to sleep calmly and beautifully, there is now Magic Mind Sleep Elixir. I can start my day and end my day magically. I'm stoked, man. So what this begins to define and build, we talk a lot about mental health. We'll be right back. All right. So this means you're investing in your sleep, diet, exercise, stress management, and exogenous compounds. By exogenous compounds, what I mean is Magic Mind, the unofficial extrinsic motivator of ABA on tap. The market is full of ads and products. I will save you time and energy and point you right to Magic Mind, a simple elixir with adaptogens, nootropics, matcha, and a little natural sweetness. Not a load of harmful sugar like in energy drinks that do nothing for your mental acuity and just amp you up. That's not productivity and certainly not the alertness you seek to be at your mental best. Let me explain a little bit about how Magic Mind works, all right? You know I love my coffee. That's also sitting here on my desk. And I do love what it does for me physiologically. But caffeine doesn't actually give you energy. Do you know that? I do not. It blocks the adenosine neuroreceptor in your brain, the neuroreceptors that tell you you're tired. When the receptors unlock, one to three hours later, you experience a sudden drop in energy or what people call the caffeine crash. What Magic Mind does, alternatively, is the formula uses 12 active ingredients to help support your body's energy engine. That's the ATP instead, the adenosine triphosphate, day after day. Magic Mind is not a fleeting charge-up. It's an enhancement for a brilliant today and an even better tomorrow. All right, man. So to boost your brain performance, your memory, mental acuity, alertness, and awareness, add Magic Mind Performance Shot to your day today. And now, when you need a little soothing and relaxation to help you achieve a good night's sleep, that first pillar of mental wealth, you now have Magic Mind Sleep Elixir. You can enjoy magic all day and all night. Start the year off right now by surrounding yourself with magic. Please see the link in our show description. Click it and get 45% off the Magic Mind bundle with our link, https://www.magicmind.com/. All caps, A-B-A-J-A-N. So ABA January. ABAJAN. That's www.magicmind.com slash ABAJAN in all caps to get 45% off the bundle. Good job. Thanks, sir. Let's get back into it. So. Talking again. Oh, good job. Oh, man, you didn't even acknowledge my process, dude. You went straight to the product.

SPEAKER_01: 41:47

Well, you used a whole lot of Stanford words in that. I'm not sure. Again, I just went to UC. I went to public school. So those are way over my head. But I noticed you have been sleeping better. And

SPEAKER_00: 41:56

I know you've been raving about it. Genesine triphosphate. Yes, I have been raving about it. And I also do the other sleep cocktail that you know about. The Huberman one? Yep. I think after this, I need to compare the product ingredients. I do know Althea. Theanine plays a really good role in both mental flow state and alertness as well as soothing, which points to these sort of generic physiological constructs, right, that depend on context, just like good job and porosity, for example. So you have another snippet to read for us?

SPEAKER_01: 42:29

I do. Before I do, anything you wanted to add on my two cents before the magic mind discussion or move on?

SPEAKER_00: 42:35

No, I think we're good there. Let's see if we can expand, though, on that idea of– So I ended up with talking about the idea of process and you can't, you can't differentiate or reinforce or shape unless you're reinforcing some successive approximation toward a final target, I guess. Right. So, so you have to do it. I mean, what she's saying fits right into our model of reinforcement.

SPEAKER_01: 42:57

And it just depends on what you're trying to teach, right? Are you trying to teach you do whatever you can to come out with a certain outcome or are you trying to teach the process of how to go about said outcome as well?

SPEAKER_00: 43:06

So the idea that, um making creme brulee might have very specific steps that that you can't necessarily vary and then there's the idea that yes you might arrive at a cake even though you don't follow the exact recipe yep okay that's fair i think that's really fair and i would say that an aba Traditionally, historically, we have erred on the side of there's one cake recipe and one cake recipe only.

SPEAKER_01: 43:30

And one SD.

SPEAKER_00: 43:31

And one SD only, and only one person that can deliver the SD. And what we're talking about here is expanding on that model.

SPEAKER_01: 43:37

Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting because you always used to say, and this is long before we've read this article, is you always used to say, if you're going to say good job, tell them good job with what? So what did they do a good job with? Elaborate on that. And then we would notice that once... People started doing that. The good job started to fade a little bit. People still used it, I'd say more than 50% of the time. But instead of saying, you know, just good job, they would say good job with what? Like, good job painting the yellow school bus that really looks like the one outside. Then people could just fade the good job. painting and then wow that yellow school now they're commenting like you said earlier so it was kind of like a three-step process went from good job to good job with what to fading the good job and now it became a comment

SPEAKER_00: 44:25

yeah well and what you've delineated there is at least three ways to do this knowing that if you're keeping the good job to 10 to 20 percent again and i don't think i can't say this enough the title hooked you to say don't do this but what we're saying is don't do it solely and don't do it the majority of the time

SPEAKER_01: 44:43

So what's interesting is you just explained what I did a good job of. You said I did a good job delineating it. Think of how weird that would have been in that interaction if you would have just said, good job. I would have had no idea what I did a good job with.

SPEAKER_00: 44:59

I guess context helps a little bit, but again, we can't stress it enough. You're really making a stronger connection with your child, with the recipient of said reinforcement and saying, let me outline for you all the ways in which your behavior had an impact on your environment in a way that maybe you'll do it again.

SPEAKER_01: 45:22

Yep. I mean, your daughter just built a fort, right? If you were just like, good job with the fort. That's one thing. I'm sure she'd want to show you a lot of things, and she would really be interested on what you noticed about the fort. Man, you

SPEAKER_00: 45:34

just sparked an idea here. It's the magic mind. It is the magic mind kicking in again. It's the second wave of magic mind here. If I were to ask her to take the fort down and she were to give me the resistance, I would probably engage in the very type of elaboration that Dr. Becky is talking about we do when we say good job, but we tend to engage in that elaboration when we're correcting or scolding. That's exactly when We turn it up. We turn up the volume, right? So the idea, and I think I've said something similar here on the show, but the idea is you want to reinforce your children. If you're doing it verbally and vocally, you want to do it with the same fervor and absolute value as though you were tearing into them, right? Because, damn, we're good at tearing into our kids. The phone goes away. The phone goes away, man. You're animated. You're pointing. You're gesturing. Your face is making all sorts of expressive countenances. But we tend to truncate that more down to the good job. So I might say is think of you tearing into your kid because they really made you angry and you take the absolute value of that energy and that fervor and apply it. in some way, shape, or form. Maybe don't yell, but in some way, shape, or form to what Dr. Becky is saying here, which is, man, let your kids know what aspect of this is a good, what's good, what was the job, and what was good about it. Can you, maybe that's a good formula. Okay, instead of saying good job, think to yourself, what was the job? Oh, you did the painting. What was good about it? Oh, wow, that painting, you put a lot of paint on it. Ah, you took a lot of time. That's cool. Do you like it? I think it's really bright. And then she's saying questions, right? So what else can you ask about it? Are you going to do another one or maybe later? You're going to take a break now? So to Dr. Becky's point now, that's not transactional. That's an interaction. Yep. That's enriched.

SPEAKER_01: 47:24

Yep. So next piece, there's two more. This is the first one. A great way to think about how we praise children is how we would like to be treated as adults. Woo! Well...

SPEAKER_00: 47:56

So I'm going to have to push back on Dr. Becky here because I think that what you really want from your boss is the bonus check, and then they can go. And to get off your ass.

SPEAKER_01: 48:05

Yeah. You don't want them to find out how you fudged the numbers.

SPEAKER_00: 48:11

Not important. Did we make revenue? Did we make more profit? Give me my bonus check. So obviously we're being facetious, but that's an excellent point, right? So yes, as adults, we might. derive a lot of negative reinforcement from our boss if he just gives us the bonus check and goes back to his office good enough but the idea that you've got an enthusiastic charismatic boss who pulls you in and goes hey you got a couple minutes hey can uh let's go grab a cup of coffee together hey man here's a bonus check wow you've earned this can you tell me a little bit about what what happened what was the strategy that you know was it just kind of happenstance or did you do something actively? And how can I support you in doing that again? Because, you know, if it's not a one-off, if it wasn't just a bunch of new clients or whatever the case is, how do I, how do I recognize that, that this, the secondary reinforced this placeholder, right? Which is now the bonus check because it represents extra revenue for the company. So now I'm sharing with you that that's the secondary part. The primary reinforcement, I would argue, and I think that's what you're nodding your head about over there feverishly, is the interaction. I love the way you pitch that. It's not just this quick transaction. It's got to expand.

SPEAKER_01: 49:27

That's a great example with the boss. Because you know at the end of the day what the most valuable resource is? What's that? Time. You can't ever... You can get more of almost any other resource. You can't get more... More time. So I heard an interesting, somebody was saying, Warren Buffett's like 95, I forget how old Warren Buffett is, but he's an aged gentleman, and he's one of the wealthiest people in the world. And he was like, how many people would trade places with him? Not a lot, because he probably doesn't have that much time. So what you're saying with your example is the boss found it valuable to invest his time to compliment you and spend with you. And good job's the exact opposite of that.

SPEAKER_00: 50:10

And that's the attention function, right? That's the attention function. A lot of times we're talking about it on the other side of the equation, which is your child is emitting an undesirable behavior to you and you're spending a lot of time scolding and correcting. And... On the other end, maybe you're saying good job whenever. So there's an imbalance there. Your child is clearly getting much more attention from you in those circumstances for the undesired. So your point fits right. The idea of time and attention, I think, is very somewhat synonymous. They're correlated for sure, right? So that's an excellent point. I

SPEAKER_01: 50:47

mean, it happens with bosses just as well as parents, right? I've been in plenty of board meetings, and when stuff's not going well, those are long board meetings to figure out exactly what needs to change. When stuff is going well, hey, Mike, nice job. Those are much shorter board meetings, right? So the same thing.

SPEAKER_00: 51:02

Don't they call them board meetings because they're boring?

SPEAKER_01: 51:05

Everybody's bored? Yeah. Because they're nailing everybody to the board. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:11

It's a bunch of people just talking about revenue and no other process. That's why they're boring.

SPEAKER_01: 51:16

Well, that's, I mean, that's something and we won't need to spend too much time on that, but that's an example, right? We see this all the time in various board meetings that I've been on. They look at the outcome and don't look at the process and wonder how certain outcome So you're

SPEAKER_00: 51:38

saying that your prospective impact or influence on your child's behavior will improve? by paying more attention to what they're doing, such that when you say good job, you know what the good job was? Wow, Mr. Dan, that's revolutionary, man. You're right, you're right, because the more informed you are, the more of an influence you're gonna be able to have on those successive approximations as you work toward shaping some behavior. And we're always looking at this from the singular, linear, I know I say this all the time. What I like that we're talking about here that this article's making us talk about are all the correlated, we talk about domains, for example, right? And it's hard for us to conceptualize the... I guess, a multivariate approach. Another Stanford word. Because of our three-part contingency, we're always looking at more of a univariate, meaning we're looking at one SD, one behavior, one consequence. What we're talking about here is many possible SDs, many possible behaviors toward a slew of expanded consequences. Yep. That's what we're after.

SPEAKER_01: 52:43

And the multivariate's such a good point, too, because if good job is working, it's all based on the premise, again, that there's reverence or you're wanting to please that person. So if that person says good job, and again, I'm just kind of reiterating something I said earlier, you probably did 50, 100, 1000 things before they said good job. So now it's on you as the learner to try to infer what you did a good job of, maybe it's the product, or what part of the process you did a good job of. Whereas if somebody can specify the process you did a good job of, that will be much more easily repeatable.

SPEAKER_00: 53:15

Yeah, yeah. And so you mentioned earlier, too, or I think you were talking about it, I might have alluded to it, as a parent, as a teacher, it might be very difficult to always see the entire process. So in that sense, now... that's where Dr. Becky's questions come in, right? That's where they're valuable. Or the idea that you didn't see the whole process. You don't have any questions or time to ask questions. Now, how can you just expand on the good job by letting the child know what level, and then back to your point, that yes, maybe part of it is pleasing me. Let me tell you how that made it work out better for me or for some other aspect of your environment, or better yet, how what you just did made it work out really well for our family. Yes. Okay. So maybe that's where Dr. Becky talks about the self-confidence, the lack of anxiety that maybe you're a little confused or vague as to maybe you did something wrong. Your parents frustrated. I took a little too long to put my shoes on as we're going to church. I'm reaching here. But the idea is that maybe that's what she's talking about. There's a certainty in I did. I did for me, and I can do it, and I did, and it had an impact on my family versus the vagary of I didn't get a good job, now I'm being scolded, now I'm not really sure what I did right or wrong. So I don't know if that's what she's pointing to, but I would love to learn more about that. Hint, hint, in case Dr. Becky wants to help out a smaller but well-known third-ranked ABA podcast. So anyway, we'd love to have her on the show in case anybody out there is listening and wants to make the hookup.

SPEAKER_01: 54:49

Well, you brought up two points. One is... Good job tends to be very top down versus bottom up. It's just what is the process that was done? And think about that in ABA, right? I remember doing DTT with colors and spending months and months and months. And somebody might not be successful. And unless we're looking at the process, we're just looking at the outcome. And we're saying this person doesn't know red. So what I'm going to do as the therapist is I'm going to... basically uh violate einstein's definition of insanity i am going to continue to do the same exact thing over and over and over again with the same process until you say red but what is the where is this falling apart where in the process is it falling apart is it the attending is it the fact that they don't have the vocalization is it the fact that they're not able they might be colorblind did we ever think about that um there's seldom I literally didn't think about that until right now. I

SPEAKER_00: 55:44

actually have one experience with that, which I won't get into. But to your point, it was working the process as opposed to just sitting there going, oh, this kid can't learn his colors. I think we were playing with the billiards balls. And I forget how we came upon it, but it's like, hey... I don't think he can detect color. But to your point, unless you pay attention to your process, you might make a false attribution or conclusion about that child's learning ability.

SPEAKER_01: 56:11

Yep. I was playing pickleball with my buddy yesterday. And he's colorblind. And he was saying that he brought somebody to play. And I was like, oh, the guy with the blue shirt? And he was like, yeah, I don't know which guy has a blue shirt. Because he's colorblind, right? Interesting. So let me read the last two paragraphs. And then we can riff on that. Dr. Becky also uses the example of visiting someone's house who recently redecorated. I go, oh, I love your house. Good job. It's actually a conversation ender, Dr. Becky said. But instead, if I said, how did you pick the color of the wall on that couch? You would, okay, well, let me tell you and let me show you my Pinterest board or whatever it was. And even if I never said good job, I bet you would feel more lit up inside and almost better than if I just ended the conversation that same way. Ultimately, instilling confidence in children is more about acknowledging the results of their actions, and it's more about asking them to explain their processes, curiosity, and effort. We can instill resilience and confidence by asking questions and allowing them to express their deeper connection in the work. There's nothing wrong with praising a good job. So that's, I guess, what you're saying. But the real confidence building comes with meaningful conversation and how they made it happen. The second to last paragraph really hit home with me because it would... It would be really awkward if you redecorated your house and I came over and I was like, good job, Mike. We would never do that. That's so weird. But we do that all the time with kids. Just good job, Mike.

SPEAKER_00: 57:46

You said I did a good job with my car when you came in. It looked clean.

SPEAKER_01: 57:50

I said you did a good job with the misting. Misting. Product placement. Shout out to Elite Finish Wash Mist.

SPEAKER_00: 57:59

They want a piece of the action. I'm great testimonials on the product for sure. Let me see. Let me gather my thoughts here. I went on a tangent there. But... Recap for me here. You were saying so. Oh, yeah, yeah. So it's the difference between etiquette or meaningful, again, interaction to go back to the point you met initially. If I come into your home, it could be customary for me to say, oh, you have a lovely home. Okay, good enough. I was nice. I was polite. We're done. Maybe I don't like your home. And I'm saying that to be nice. Okay. Maybe I don't like your home, but I need to be courteous. Right. And there's a certain etiquette that we're upholding. So the idea that now I can say, hey, you know, thank you for inviting us. And then you find one aspect of the home that you find interesting. That's what we're after here is there's a there's a. There's an aspect of being genuine or sincerity that we're after here. I know that we don't talk about those words a lot in ABA, but that's what we're after here. There's a quality to the quantitative, the measurable interaction. There's a quality to it. The things we call etiquette, the things that we call little white lies, right? So maybe I don't like your home, but I'm not going to tell you that. I'm not going to make you feel about it unless we're in some sort of spat or dispute. But the idea that I can present myself as a conscious, observing, you know, well-intended individual with my words is kind of what you're modeling for your kids here too is inquisitiveness, observational skills, etiquette, plain etiquette, right? The idea that, yeah, I talked about this in a parent group recently with regard to the holidays and there was a mom saying, yeah, how do you teach your kids to just be grateful for a gift as opposed to opening it up and realizing that they don't like what they got and then saying that to the person, right? And what's the answer there? A little bit of description and white lies. Yeah, we're teaching our children to say, oh, you realize you didn't really like this, and then you're considering the other person, and then you're expanding on the, thank you, good job giving me a gift. What does that mean? It's a lot of theory of mind. Yes, it is. And again, ultimately, we're teaching deception in that very polite interaction, right? So all of these things, I think, are modeled and encapsulated within ourselves. It's one example of what Dr. Becky's saying. By doing this, we're modeling a lot of those things toward greater learning.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:26

See, the problem with what you just said, though, is if you give too many of the white lies, then you still get the crappy sweater from grandma every Christmas for like 15 years because you weren't honest to say that the sweater is crap and you want

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:40

something else. That is an excellent point. And going back to the article here, pointing back to the article, that's where you have to say, Grandma, this is not a good job. So that's Dr. Becky's follow-up article. Dr. Becky, if you're out there, we need the follow-up. Part two of this article, which is when to say not a good job. For example, Dan, when your grandmother gives you the ugly sweater year after year.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:04

So you brought up a good point, and Dr. Becky talks about that in the article. So you said the lovely house. If I come over and I say... Mike, you have a lovely house. What's your response probably going to be?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:16

Oh, thank you, Dan.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:17

Conversation ended. Right, that's it. Right? That is a conversation ender.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:20

Yeah. No, it is. And it's telling me that maybe you don't want to ask anything about it. Right now, I could go on and say, oh, well, thank you. You know, we've been here about five years. Now that's weird. Yeah. Well, yeah, now I'm talking about myself without you having asked.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:32

Exactly. And now that's weird because by my statement, it infers that I don't really care that much. So now if you're going to expand on it, now that's almost inconsider of me because if I cared that much, I would have been more specific with my praise.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:47

Or you could be even more awkward and be like, oh, you have a lovely home. Oh, yeah? What part of it do you think is lovely? Yeah, absolutely. But that becomes weird. Yeah, we're going to pretend our kids are asking us that in this example. Hey, good job. Oh, yeah? Tell me about that. What's the good job? That's kind of what Dr. Becky is saying. Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:05

Fair enough. So one last final point. And it came up actually when I had my, during the prep, I had my girlfriend read the article. Yeah. My girlfriend is, she was a principal. Now she's back in the preschool classroom.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:17

I'm going to have to offer a correction here. She's not your girlfriend. Registered.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:21

RDP. Registered domestic partner. Thank you. My RDP. As you were, sir. She read the article and she was like, yeah, that makes sense. However, it's not always possible. You know, she has, I don't know, 10 kids or or classroom or something like that, she doesn't necessarily have the ability for each kid to sit down and do all of that because they have a lot of kids. So she's like, yeah, sometimes I just have to say good job and keep it moving. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:46

Yeah. Again, I think we alluded to that a little bit. I made my little faux pas about putting the mother in the kitchen and I quickly corrected to put the father in there. I think that's a very legitimate point. What I would say, and I wonder what Dr. Becky would say, but what I would say is you can find a trunk. So 10 to 20% of the time, You can say good job because if you're 80 to 90 percent of the time expanding on it, then you're not running into the pitfall that I think Dr. Becky's talking about. I think Kaylee, your registered domestic partner, makes an excellent point. And that's to say that you could also maybe revisit it later, depending on your students level of understanding or level of engagement. The idea that you might say, hey, you finished your painting. Good job. And then later circle back and go, hey, come here. Tell me, why did you use this paint here? Why did you use this color here? Oh, I see that you mixed them there. So you can do it. And I think that's an excellent point in the sense that it makes it a very practical feel to this suggestion or this premise now. Yes. We are rushing through life, all of us. And as parents, you're often juggling 10, 12 things at a time. So the idea that you might interpret this article as saying you're going to take this time, you're going to sit down, you're going to talk to your child. Yeah, that's crazy. No, I'm running around. Yeah, we're back to that ratio of 10% to 20% of the time. Sure. Use good job. And then if you can 80% of the time go back and revisit it or expand in the moment, I think that you'll see the improvement in the outcomes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:15

That makes a lot of sense. I might alter. So I think the 80-20, 90-10 definitely makes a lot of sense for a parent. Maybe it's a teacher. Maybe it's 50-50. Maybe... 50-50. But the question is, you've got to make time. Make it happen. Make it happen. Maybe it's 80-20 the other way. But nobody remembers. When you think about the teachers that were meaningful for you, nobody remembers the teachers that just said, good job. You remember the teachers that spent some time, connected with you, and explained things to you in a way that resonated. And even if that's 20% of the time, they still showed that they cared enough about you as a student that they were going to invest their time into your future success?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:53

Maybe a mental note, right? As a teacher or parent, as a professional, the idea that I'm a little tied up right now. I made sure that I at least looked over at you made some eye contact so that you know I was speaking to you, I said good job, and then I make a mental note that I've made one good job, I should circle back at some point and expand on that or find a different opportunity to expand on a good job with that child. Back to your 50-50 point of every time you say good job, you make a mental note to yourself and say, hey, I'm going to circle back to that kid, that might be the way to do it. Man. The hour goes quickly. We're getting ready for longer episodes. We're not sure how we're going to handle that. Nice, succinct one today. Thank you, Dr. Becky Kennedy, for an excellent article. You're welcome to come on our show anytime you like. Go ahead, Dan. What were

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:41

you going to say? Again, we have many, many guests lined up. People that are interested in becoming guests, again, abaontap at gmail.com. Please reach out to us. We are very, very excited about what 2025 is going to be. Yep,

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:56

and can't thank Suzanne Jeswick enough. Thank you for her new partnership in ABA on Tap. She is going to propel the show a little further. We're now a

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:06

business.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:07

We're incorporated. We're now an official business. Exciting. That makes two for us, right? Yes. We've got to send an ABA on Tap. That's exciting, man. So you guys out there, stay faithful. Continue to analyze responsibly. Oh, I might get ahead of myself there. I need some closing points here, Dan. Help me out. I like the way you ended that slash good job. Oh, good job? What was the good job? So we spent some time talking about reinforcing consequences today. Continue to vary those reinforcing consequences as much as you can, which means you're spending time paying attention to what the job is your child is doing that may end up being a good job. And if you do that, you know what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:53

Analyzing responsibly. Cheers, brother. See

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:58

ya. ABA on Tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.