We are big fans of preventative, proactive strategies— it’s often easier to address challenging behaviors before they even happen. One of our favorite strategies is the Premack Principle, a tool developed by and named for psychologist David Premack.

With this evidence-based procedure, we set the expectation that before the child gets access to a highly-preferred (or highly likely to complete) activity, they must do a lower-preferred (or less likely to complete) activity. This procedure is used by parents and educators naturally everyday!

Check out this example:

· Sam runs away when asked to brush his teeth.

· Sam loves to play hide-and-seek before bedtime.

To apply the Premack Principle, we use the language of “first…, then…” before asking him to brush his teeth. For this child, it is: “First brush teeth, then we play hide and seek!” Utilizing Sam’s current motivation (to play the game hide-and-seek), we increase the likelihood of the him brushing his teeth.

BEWARE! Setting the expectation of “first, then” must come before any unwanted behaviors. In the previous example, we would not want to use this procedure after we told the child “let’s brush our teeth” and he ran out of the room. We use this tool as a preventative positive strategy to set our child up for success.

Why does this principle work? The child is more motivated to engage in the non-preferred task/activity because they know something exciting is coming after! Behaviors that consistently bring out protest from the child or require tons of prompting from the caregiver are great candidates for this procedure. Remember, “first…, then…!”