Student: Trieste S. Arrington

School: Penn Foster

Essay: Ways to Get Your Children to Clean Their Room

Date: 06/27/2016

The Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov was interested in the study of gastric function. He examined dogs' saliva when he fed them. While studying the dogs, Pavlov noticed they would salivate before they were fed the food. He then investigated the dogs' behavior and found that the dogs would salivate upon hearing the sound of a bell ringing, and moments later, they were given the food. It was at that time when Pavlov's discovery took place.

By taking the unconditioned stimulus, which was an alarm sound, and a neural stimulus, which was something the dogs had been born with, and joining the two stimuli in a close range of one another, we learned that this phenomenon was called classical conditioning.

We learned from classical conditioning that humans can learn.

Children can learn to clean up their rooms by presenting children with an unconditioned stimulus and by sometimes adding incentives so that the children will associate the incentives with cleaning up their rooms, which would create positive cleaning habits that would last a lifetime. Another way of classical conditioning would be for children to watch their parents clean. Children often imitate what they see, so it would help the child or the children to witness how cleaning should happen by watching how their parents clean their home.

Having children learn to clean up after themselves helps them throughout their lifetime; once they pick up on being tidy, it helps them stay organized. In terms of how I ended up getting my children to clean up their room, I had explained to them the reasons, which were to teach them organization and so that later on in life, they would be organized and able to do things for themselves. When my children got older, responsibilities were added to help them with their development.

Once they started cleaning their rooms on a regular and consistent basis, I noticed that their faces lit up after I gave them words of encouragement and praised them for their efforts. I would say things like " See... I knew you could do it " or " You did an excellent job of cleaning your room." After a few months of verbal recognition, I decided to increase the reward. With my children, I let them know what an excellent job they did, but in addition to keeping their morale going, I began to take them to their favorite neighborhood park. As time went by, I noticed that when I asked them to clean up their rooms, they would get excited because they knew when all chores would finish, they would get to go to the park.

One particular month, they cleaned their bedroom very well, but I didn't have time to take them to the park. When I asked them to tidy up their rooms again, I noticed their efforts diminished, so I had a talk with my children and told them that cleanliness was part of godliness. I also explained to my children that cleaning their room wasn't always going to result in a reward such as my taking them to the park and that their reward would be coming from their sense of accomplishment in taking pride in their room by keeping it clean and organized.

With dedication, consistency, patience, time, and repetition, children can be taught to clean up their rooms using classical conditioning without having to resort to yelling, screaming, or even worse, corporal punishment, which is more likely to happen if negative habits are allowed to set in as children become older. Classical conditioning can also lead to other healthy habits that the children can practise to get better grades and to develop work habits later on, as the children begin the process of learning their roles and responsibilities in life. This, in fact, is a magnificent way of teaching.

I feel that classical conditioning would produce better results than any other method. While every home is different, so are the ways of bringing up a and teaching children from an early age and instilling good things to get great results; in the long run, this positive way of teaching can be passed down from generation to generation. In My opinion, Ivan Pavlov paved the way for others to follow in raising children even though he stumbled upon this style of teaching. Again, classical conditioning is the best way to instill great habits that would have a positive, lasting effect on children.