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 Post subject: Locus of control
PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:34 pm 
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I work with children with very bad behaviour problems. Very often the problems are due to ‘bad’ parenting skills. Of course these children do have psychiatric disorders, but even a child with ADHD or autism can grow up to be a wonderfull person. They don’t have to become bully’s or nasty children. What they do need is lots of stimulation, praise, boundaries and certain rules to feel safe.

Anyway,
Very often I see lots of resemblance. In Kirsti’s diary I already told something about this, but I thought perhaps it’s a good idea to start a topic about the resemblance between the needs of horses and children.
Children need to be motivated, just like horses. I think it’s a bad idea to force your child to do something. With horses it’s magnificant how well clickertraining works for them. I think with horses it’s mainly because the horse gets the feeling he’s the one in control (over the cookiejar). All my horses seem to WANT to play and do stuff, even very active stuff, because they know there’s a reward in it for them. And they also know I won’t force them if they decide to walk away. My horses are more motivated, they even offer new exercises to get a reward.

I think this is because of what they call “intern locus of control” (ILC) in child psychology. A child with ILC has the feeling he can control or influence the things that happen around him. The child knows that it makes a big difference if he tries very hard or doesn’t even try a little bit. Most children with bad behavior problems have “extern locus of control” (ELC). They haven’t learned that they can influence their surroundings. They think it doesn’t matter how they behave, because bad things will happen anyway. They will get punished, beaten, or their parent will argue and fight anyway…

So children with ELC think that it’s not worth trying, because there won’t be any kind of relief, pleasure or reward. You can imagine this says a lot about the families these children were raised…

Perhaps horses trained AND have more intern locus of controle”. They have the feeling that they are in controle, the know that they can make a difference by behaving a certain way.

And perhaps horses trained the more normal way are more “extern locus of controle”. These are the horses of which the head is pulled on their chest, who are forced to jump and show piaffe with extreme tension in their body’s. These are the horses who obey their riders because they have learned that giving signals of discomfort or pain are beaten out of them…


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:51 pm 
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A little more theory about ILC and ELC…

Locus of control is about the expectation to be able to have influence on events happening around you. Based on experience the child develops expectations for different kind of situations. A child that mostly has experiences with a regular pattern will develop ILC. The child learns that it matter show it behaves in certain situations. Of course there needs to be a obvious pattern so the child can learn. Behaving badly always needs to have the same (negative) consequences and behaving very good always needs to be followed by rewards and compliments. The child discovers a pattern between his one action and the reaction on that.

Children who have experiences with an iregular pattern often have ELC.
If a child experiences that it can’t have any influence on his surrounding, ECL, the child develops the tendency to act this way. “If it doens’t matter how I behave, why should I even try?”

I think you can replace the word “child” with “horse” and the theory will still make lots of sence!

Yvonne


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 9:37 pm 
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Thank you so much that you have started this topic, Yvonne. I have nothing useful to add right at the moment, but I think this is such an important thing. Basically my whole training relies on that and my main goal is to give my horses the feeling of agency, to let them experience that they can control their environment in a positive and productive way (in contrast to being in control by biting and kicking oneself up to the top of the pecking order ;)).

I will add this topic to our link collection for very useful topics asap and I am looking foreward to the discussion! :)


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:22 pm 

Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:03 am
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Yvonne,
thanks for starting this topic. I think it is very valuable to compare how positive shaping works in people compared to horses. I do use essentially the same principles when relating with adults, children, special needs people and animals of various species. Some people are very offended when they hear me say this because they see it as primitive manipulation of people and resent what they see as my "training people like animals". My response is usually that my intention behind trying to change someone's behavior is what matters, am I sincere in my efforts to encourage the best in them, or am I trying to control them. I had not heard to terms "internal and external locus of control", but they make perfect sense. We have lots of jokes in our house about who has control and who "trains" whom. It all depends on who can figure out what someone else is willing to work for. My daughter is great in "training" my husband and I :D , she just has more time to think about how to" manipulate" us than the other way around. Internal locus control enables her to control her environment to where we virtually never have power struggles.


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 12:35 am 
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hi yvonne, :D this is a great topic. i have owrked alot with children also. i found the same thing, that i learnt to usse a positive reinforcement with children alot. i also found that children did not understand that they could influence their environment positively. i had alot of children with behavioural issues, and found that knowone had actually rewarded good behaviour, just punnished the bad. my mum has a favorite saying for what i am like when talking to people, she says that i "sweeten with sugar" if i have something that i want to say to a child or even an adult that is to point out something that they are doing that may not be right, then i tend to start the sentence with a positive relating to the subject, then i put in the place they need to improve, then i put in another positive. :friends:

i have found that if i get the child on the defencive, or the adult, then they are not likely to listen at all. but i find that using fun and laughter and positive reinforcement, (like commenting on the ten good things that they did, and noting just one of the negatives as something that can improve) children and adults learn so much faster.

i understand mental illness very well, from personal experience. so i appreeciate this topic very much. i think that "shaping people" is such a very inportant subject.

Birgit, doesnt this look kind of similar to what we were trying to get across in NHE. i am glad that this is so warmly appreciated here, as i think that changing human behavior towards horses cannot be done with negative attitudes, but needs to be "shaped" slowly and with encouragement.

thankyou for this post :love: :love:

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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 1:25 am 

Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:03 am
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Jessy,
yes, and here we'd be preaching to the choir. :clap: :clap: :clap:
But it is so good to look in detail what works best, esp. for people and animals who have special challenges (that would be most of us ;) ). I love the idea of wrapping necessary criticism in positives, I'm not always as consistent with it as I want to be, some people just get me upset and it would feel so much better in the short term to get mad at them :blush: :sad: , but in the long term it never works.
One thing that interests me is, if people, who have been treated with positive reinforcement are more likely to use it with animals and if people who have learned to use positive reinforcement with animals will usually do the same with people. The second scenario is common in animal-assisted therapy for people with emotional or social challenges.


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:30 pm 
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Wow, wonderfull to see the response in this topic. I will try to write some more tonight or perhaps tomorrow evening :yes:

Yvonne


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 12:25 am 
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Yvonne wrote:
A little more theory about ILC and ELC…

Locus of control is about the expectation to be able to have influence on events happening around you.


With dogs we call that being 'operant', IOW operating on the environment. A HUGE confidence builder, knowing they CAN make things happen!! The animal learns how to make pleasant consequences happen and avoid unpleasant ones, i.e operant conditioning, especially clicker training.

An animal that won't try, doesn't explore, no curiosity, or just waits to be told what to do can be 'obedient' but may never be brilliant???? That's how my Jack came to me, a good boy that didn't want to rock the boat, tho he's getting better. Lucy caught on a lot more quickly cuz she was never really 'trained', a good thing <G>!!!

There is a saying in clicker training:

"If you don't have 'garbage', you'll never have greatness."

The 'garbage' referring to stuff that the animal tries even tho they may not succeed, it's the confidence and persistence to TRY and figure out what works that matters!!!!!

Brenda

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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 12:43 am 
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Yvonne wrote:
Wow, wonderfull to see the response in this topic. I will try to write some more tonight or perhaps tomorrow evening :yes:

Yvonne


Yes !

More please ?


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 1:45 am 

Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:03 am
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Quote:
"If you don't have 'garbage', you'll never have greatness."

I had never heard that saying. I never read any of the more recent clicker training books, just Karen Pryor's "Don't shoot the dog".
It is absolutely true, though. I think it happens on this forum (although I wouldn't want to call what anyone here says garbage ;) ) in that we share a lot of thoughts and experiences and some of it may not be that great, some may even be useless, but collectively we are sifting through so many rich experiences that we can all hold on to what works best. The positive feedback we give each other and the positive responses of our horses are wonderful motivators to search for more truth. :) The occasional moments of brilliance are the jackpots, both for the person contributing them, but even for the people reading them (or watching them on video). I'm going to try really hard to stay on topic here but there is a connection with a thread from a couple of days ago about passion. Passion can be a result of naturally reinforcing things like a beautiful picture (primary reinforcers) or the result of conditioned reinforcers, like a positive comment from another person or the realization that many of us share the same hopes and dreams, just different flavors of them.


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:34 am 
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Birgit wrote:
Quote:
"If you don't have 'garbage', you'll never have greatness."

I had never heard that saying. I never read any of the more recent clicker training books, just Karen Pryor's "Don't shoot the dog".


I think it was Karen Pryor who said it?? many years ago, at a seminar when talking about an animal offering behaviors vs one who just waits to be told. At that time, clicker training was very new and many people IMO were afraid of letting the dog OFFER behaviors, or reinforcing a behavior that wasn't cued, etc.

Very interesting era for sure, when many were casting off the old rules of obedience and looking at things in a fresh way!! So this 'locus of control' idea is similar in that it gives the student choices and a say in the learning process??? vs the compulsion of 'old school' ideas.

Brenda

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Jack04574


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:32 pm 

Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 7:57 pm
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It is interesting as I find many parallels between training horses and people. I found that some people respond very well to praise and some people do not seem to understand it, and then I find they often had very negative experiences in their childhood or life where they were controlled (ELC) and they do not understand praise as a good thing so do not respond to it. It takes alot of work to cause them to realise that praise is good, and that trying something and not getting it right is ok, as they are often the ones that will not try in case they get it wrong first time. I always find this sad, just like the horses that want to try but are afraid of punishment so do nothing.

My friend motivates me with biscuits or the promise of food, so I can say that people can be clicker trained like horses. :D Someone said to me that I would make a good mum if I decided to have kids .I wasn't convinced until I thought about it and said that raising children must be like raising animals and I can do that. I got told off for calling raising children "training"! I said that school would be more effective if it was like when we play with our horses and the children had some responsibility for their day and input into their learning, and if the teaching was tailored to the childs abilities and talents. But we still seem to be using very "dominance" derived methods in many schools where conformity is the norm with limited ways of interacting -so there is definitely ELC rather than ILC for many of the kids, so it is no wonder some of them act up. If there was a better focus on ILC it would be interesting to see what would happen.


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:51 pm 
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A quick load with some theory...

I already told I work with children with very bad behaviour problems. Mostly caused by a combination of factors within the child AND the parents AND the environment.

Our way of working with these children is based on cempetence-based methods. We start with the (little) things the child can do. We work with positive attempts of the child. And believe me! sometimes this positivim is very well hidden within the child :sad: Most of these children are always told what the could NOT do, they had their share of negative critisism.
And it really makes a lot of sence when I tell the parents "just think about being a little child and the people surrounding you, always tell you what NOT to do and only point out the things you did WRONG, how on earth is this young child going to figure out what he SHOULD do if nobody tells him what that is!!!"

It sounds pretty logic but many people learned themselves to pay much more attention to all the things that are bad....
so how can anybody be happy when you only focus on the things that go wrong :huh:

So we work competence based, meaning that we start with positive things.
It also means that the balance between positive feedback and any correction should be about 80-20. So for every correction that is needed (as in hiting one another needs to be corrected because it's never acceptable) you need to give the child 4 praises.

It also means that we explain to a child why certain behaviour (kicking, shouting, running in the house) is not acceptable. If we tell a child it's better to sit straight on his chair (and not saying DON'T climb on your chair ;) ) because he will get hurt if he falls off, the child is likely to obey because now he understands why he can't climb on the back of the chair.

It also means that the children get 2 learning-points with which they can earn a reward. These learning points are translated in a positive sentence, such as: whenever someone talks to me I stand still, I look at this person and I give a polite answer. This way children can learn positive behaviour in little steps (shaping!)

We also try to prevent misbehaviour to structure our situations as much as possible. If we know two children are going to fight when they are sitting next to each other while eating, we go and sit between them :green: And later when the child has learned to be polite to this other child we will let them sit next to each other. This way you save the child from a bad behaviour. Many of our children have a very low self-esteem, so preventing is better than expose them to another negative situation.

We also use a lot of humor. To let the children relax, create a nice sphere but also to let the children know that we do not hate them. Most children think everybody hates them :sad: So making a laugh about some behaviour releaves the tension of the situation, so the child doesn't feel the need to be agressive or angry.

And of course we use structure, rules and clear consequences of they break or ignore the rules. Most of the children need this to feel safe, mentally safe.

I think competence based working is also my way of working with my horses :yes: :f:

I start with positive behaviour, intentions!
I use rewards.
I set up rules, but only to keep myself and my horse safe (personal space, traffic)
I use humor ;)
I let my horse know when he's on the right track, lots and lots of praise!
I teach them in small steps, little by little I shape their behaviour.

I think I should wright a book about competence based working with horses :green: I'm just joking, I think clcickertraining is equal in many ways to competence based work :f:

This week I will try to read al your reply's, I'm in a bit of a hurry right now :blush:

Yvonne :f:


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:56 pm 

Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 7:57 pm
Posts: 146
That is very, very interesting work you do Yvonne. :yes:

You get alot of that kind of competence-based thinking in spiritual disciplines also, where you look at the things that have gone right, and the things that you can do, and not on what you cannot do. They say "what you focus on grows" and "energy follows thought" so if you only look at bad that is what you will train your brain to see. I find people with depression (and I can hold my hand up here as I have been there) also are only able to see what is wrong and if you ask them what is going right, they get confused, as they are not looking at the good things, only where they do not measure up to others expectations. Maybe depression is a little like the children when they only have negative commands and criticisms. We are subconsciously trained to see what we are doing wrong and then we forget what is good as we are only being told where we are not good. I notice this happens alot in management also where there is no praise, only "why haven't you done this?" or "that is wrong do it again". I tried to praise my staff for doing well and explain why we had to do things again if they were wrong, then my boss got a little jealous as they would talk to me and not her. I liked it as it was proof that competence-based practices work even with grown-ups! :D


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 Post subject: Re: Locus of control
PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 8:48 pm 
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I truly think that interacting with horses in the AND way resembles interacting with (difficult) children. So having a feeling of control is so important for a horse. Every day I see people in my surroundings who 'abuse' their horses goodwill and honesty.
These horses are very well taken care of, they have beautifull stables, thick blankets, the most expensive food available, a thick bed of hay and the newest fashion....

but the fact that these horses would be so much happier of they could just play outside with their friends :sad: and they also would be so much happier if the could INTERACT with their humans....not just follow instructions.

So intern locus of control (being in control, knowing that it matters if you show that you don't agree) is so important for the wellbeing of a horse.
I hope oneday the way we keep and 'train' horses will change to a more possitive way of interacting.



It makes me sad to see riders in tug of war with their horses, yelling and kicking them. It also makes me sad to know that many people don't understand my way of interacting with my horses. They just think that I treat them as little doggies :roll: Well, I couldn't care less, but if they keep thinking like that the won't ever be willing to try a more horse-friendly way of 'training'.......

:sad:


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