Parents reinforce good behavior in various ways. First, they offer praise when a child completes homework on time. Second, they give money as a reward for helping with household chores. Third, parents allow extra playtime when the child maintains good hygiene. Fourth, they provide favorite foods for achieving good grades. Fifth, parents remove restrictions when the child shows responsibility.

Teachers similarly employ reinforcement in the classroom. They use grades as secondary reinforcers to acknowledge academic performance. Praise is frequently used to encourage participation. However, unlike parents who may use both primary reinforcers like food and secondary reinforcers like money, teachers primarily rely on secondary reinforcers such as grades and praise.

These instances relate to operant conditioning, where behavior is learned through its consequences. The use of praise and money represents positive reinforcement as they increase the rate of desired responses. When parents remove restrictions for good behavior, it demonstrates negative reinforcement where removal of a stimulus strengthens the response.

Both parents and teachers must consider that delay in delivery of reinforcement leads to poorer level of performance. Immediate smaller rewards are often preferred over delayed bigger ones. The systematic use of reinforcers helps in shaping the desired response through reinforcing successive approximations.