No Positive Reinforcement is giving a positive response to an action. Negative reinforcement is giving a negative response. Rewarding for good behavior is what they are told they should do. That is a subset of positive reinforcement. Positive Reinforcement is larger than that. Rewarding a child that is throwing a tantrum by giving them what they want is a POSITIVE reinforcement of the behavior. Spanking the child, or telling them "keep it up and you won't get X either" is negative reinforcement.
Both can be abused. Young children often understand a lot more than people think. Sometimes the understand less than people think. As a father of six every one of my children was different.
You're correct. I had to look it up, but I see what you are saying. Basically, I think positive reinforcement should be used as a good thing, but if parents give in to tantrums by giving them what they want, then that is how it can be bad. Seems like everything in life is about finding a correct balance.
Correct. I spanked my children. Yet I did so under very specific rules and they know what those were. I would tell them before I was going to do it. NO EMPTY THREATS. It wasn't an immediate thing it was reserved for if they kept doing something over and over regardless of what was said or done. Yet, once I told them "If you do that again you are going to get a spanking". If they did it again. They got a spanking. My wife if she gave it to them would be crying while she spanked them and often her crying had more impact than the spanking. Yet, we did not give our children empty threats.
The ONLY time they ever got a spanking without a warning is if they did something life threatening to themselves or someone else such as shoving their 2 year old brother off the top of a bunk bed.
The result?
I spanked each of my children less times than I could count with one hand. I didn't have to. They were respectful of me and others, and they still are to this day. (All adults - half of them with kids of their own)
Conversely I had friends who would never do this. They did use a lot of empty threats and I watched their kids walk all over them and other adults, and even stick their tongues out at the back of their parent's head while smiling after an "empty threat" from their parents.
Spanking can be abused. Yet even reality uses negative reinforcement for some things. Thus, why we have pain receptors.
I believe we should address ABUSE. We shouldn't treat everyone like ABUSERS. Meaning if someone actually abuses a child, deal with them. Don't try to pass overarching laws that impact everyone. That doesn't work.
Also each of my six children were very different. It was a challenge and adventure. What one might respond well to, another would not. So it was an adventure of finding what worked for each child. There was no one method, or one size fits all that worked.