Shaping is a helpful technique that you can use to teach your child many complex behaviors.

With shaping, the learner learns by first approximately performing the goal behavior. As the teacher, you reinforce the approximation of the goal, and you help the learner take “baby steps” to the final goal. As the learner gets better and better, you slowly raise the bar, repeating this cycle until the final goal is met. Some uses for the shaping technique include teaching a child how to sleep in one’s bed all night, how to clean his room, how to write his name, language development, and much more.