How to address bed-wetting by copying Dolphins

By observing how dolphins learn, humans can improve on interpersonal relations

Imagine learning from animals. It is possible. Sometimes animals display behaviors worth copying by humans. From dolphins, humans can learn a lot on interpersonal relationships. 

  

 

Humans can copy a lot from the learning behaviors of animals. This is the underlying message in Amy Sutherland’s article “What Shamu taught me about a Happy Marriage.” In the article, the author chronicles on the lessons she learnt from the trainers of animals and particularly the dolphin. 

Sutherland’s article majors on how the learning lessons from training of dolphins to enhance her relationship with Scott, her husband.  Standing out from this article is the concept rewarding any steps towards learning a positive behavior and doing nothing about negative ones. Southerland asserts that this process should start by an understanding of the animal. This is the rationale for the statement “It’s never the animal’s fault.”

“It’s never the animal’s fault” means that the animal cannot not help but behave in the way it does. Its behavior is reflective of its characterization. Apparently, the animal is not responsible for misbehaving. Developing from this mantra is the fact the learning is difficult. 

Learning positive behavior can be difficult and even impossible. Partly responsible for the behavior of an animal is its social structure, its psychology and its environment. This means that it should take more than blaming the animal whenever the training attempts fail. At this point, the trainer should come up with strategies to enhance the experience. 

With this motto, the animal trainers appreciate that they might not succeed in training the animals. It can be arduous changing deeply sited behaviors. Applying these insights on humans yields amazing outcomes.

Instead of blaming Scott for the failure of his behavior, Southerland appreciated the need for smaller approximations that could influence his behavior change. She did not blame the husband since she had studied his nature and its implications on his behavior. Ideally, she appreciated the fact that it was not the fault of Scott to misbehave. And it does not only apply to couples. 

Most families agonize over the inability of their children to outlive bedwetting. It is possible to address this behavior through positive reinforcement.  This entails rewarding the child for any improvements towards stopping the bed wetting habit. 

By involving the child in keeping some records on the days he/she does not wet the bed and accompanying these successes with rewards works. This systematic rewarding should start humbly and include such aspects as praises whenever the child behaves appropriately.  

To trigger more behavioral change, the rewards should change their value in the eyes of the child. The parent should even consider having a present the child craves for should he/she successfully keep the bed dry for a week. However, it is imperative to exercise extreme caution when executing this solution.  

Just like in the case of training animals, parents should not blame the child for his/her behavior. Attempts to punish the child through shaming or any other way could translate to a boomerang effect. Such situations could increase the stress and anxiety levels in the child and consequently increase his/her bedwetting behavior.

Importantly, the reward system should allow room for flexibility. The child should not feel that he/she is inadequate especially for the favors by accidentally wetting the bed once in a week. Nevertheless, when accompanied by other strategies such as reducing fluid intake before bed, this approach is one sure way of addressing the problem of bedwetting in children.