Evil Daddy

[billroper]

Katie had crawled behind my recliner chair and was investigating the wiring back there, which seemed to be a bad idea. "How are we going to get her out of there?" daisy_knotwise mused.

"If she were a cat, I'd shake the can of catnip." Pause. "Get the can of cookies."

Gretchen retrieved the can of baby cookies and shook it. One squeal of delight later, Katie crawled out from behind the chair, over to the couch, and got her cookie.

I suppose this is egregious cheating.

Comments

[pheltzer.livejournal.com]

Whatever works... for us if I jangle my keys Alex comes running.

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

No, it's inspired parenting. :)

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

You do realize this is only going to work for a month or 2, max, until she figures out what she has to do to get a cookie. ;)

[controuble.livejournal.com]

This works, but be careful not to let bribery become the only way to get her to do something (speaking from experience here). It is a very hard thing to break the kidlet from expecting to be bribed.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I've seen "Everything I know, I learned from my cat" posters. :-)

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Human babies have more in common with cats than they do with adults of their own species.

First rule, actually

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Be smarter than the kid.

Sometimes this is terribly difficult. Then you have to fall back on the second rule: Old age & treachery will always defeat youth & skill.

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

Yeah; you *DO* need to get the text of "Katie, come out from behind the chair" into the process fairly quickly. Once she's responding to the combination, you can start dialing back on the cooky reinforcement.

Behavior learned with intermittent reinforcement is much more durable than that learned with every-time reinforcement.

Kind of like pulling the handle on the slot machine.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Heh. That story is a keeper.