Poker Chips Case Study

Poker Chips Rick Lavoie presented an interesting and compelling comparison between poker chips and self-esteem. Within his commentary he noted how easily it is for parents, teachers, and classmates to remove poker chips, which equal self-esteem, from young people. It was an insightful video and put tangible representations to the exchange that happens with the children in our lives and the self-esteem we either help build or help destroy. One way that we do this is by reinforcements. As described in our textbook, “Reinforcement following a behavior operates on the likelihood that the desired behavior will be repeated under the same or similar circumstances” (Hardin, 2012, p. 24). According to behaviorist, reinforcement can be positive or negative; all with the desired outcome of changed behavior. When compared …show more content…
It gave a visual representation of how teachers, adults, and other classmates can take from and add to a child self-esteem. As a parent and a future school counselor, I found the information very informative and useful in my interactions with my children and my future students. In relation to classroom management techniques and behavioral approach; reinforcements and punishments can be used to add poker chips or take them away. It is important for people to understand the behavior techniques they use and how much they add to and take away from the child’s self-esteem. Ultimately, as a future school counselor it is important for me to understand not only how many poker chips I take away from the students, but also how much my co-workers do and to have a plan in action on how I would advocate for a student whose teacher was taking massive amounts of poker chips away from their students. The most important statement made by Rice Lavoie is to “make sure the child has more poker chips when they go to bed then when they get up in the morning” (Idonline,