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SeaWorld Reaches Out to Parents with Techniques used to Train Parks'
Killer Whales
LearnWithShamu.com Helps Moms and Dads
With Child-Rearing Challenges Through Stories of Positive Reinforcement
Before you ask, we do not recommend
rewarding your toddler with a bucketful of herring for cleaning his
room. Nor do we suggest giving her salmon for sharing her toys, or
crushed ice for using the potty.
SeaWorld marine mammal trainers who are
also parents have long employed the strategies they use with whales,
dolphins, sea lions, otters and walruses to the challenges of raising
their own children. Like all parents, marine mammal trainers pick
up parenting ideas from all around, including friends at work.
Among SeaWorld trainer Laura Surovik's
co-workers are killer whales.
"The first thing trainers must do is
establish a relationship with an animal in which they understand what
thing are rewarding for it," Surovik said. "A handful of herring
might be highly reinforcing to one whale, but a second might prefer a
big chunk of gelatin to play with or a rubdown or a toy. That's
something I found very early on with my own kids: Each has different
things that they find rewarding and reinforcing."
Reaching out to parents of young children
is just one part of an early childhood initiative launched by SeaWorld
today. The centerpiece of the campaign is a Web site -
www.LearnWithShamu.com - that features parent-focused "Webisodes"
about common challenges with sharing and trying new foods. The
five-minute segments feature SeaWorld trainers, whales and animation.
The Webisodes provide insights on behavior and training gathered over
years spent perfecting training techniques for marine mammals and other
animals in SeaWorld parks. The program focuses on children 1 to 5.
"SeaWorld is translating the lessons of
40 years spent building relationships with the ocean's top predator into
something we hope is useful for parents," said Sheila Voss, Director of
Education for SeaWorld's parent company, Busch Entertainment Company (BEC).
"So many of our guests are intrigues and often perplexed at how our
animal trainers work with our marine mammals. As parents
ourselves, many of us at SeaWorld thought this many be a good way to
answer these basic questions while also expanding the conversation to
something relevant to our guests' everyday lives."
Rewarding desired behavior is how
SeaWorld trains its marine mammals, including killer whales like Shamu.
Salmon, herring and crushed ice are a few of the hundreds of "reinforcers"
or rewards given to the parks' whales as part of the training and
husbandry process.
But the principles of positive
reinforcement, if not the fishy rewards themselves, can be in other
types of relationships too. The tools used by SeaWorld killer
whale trainers are particularly useful for parents struggling to
communicate with, and shape the behavior of, that most extraordinary of
animals - the human child. Most of the reinforcers are different
than those used by SeaWorld, through many kids would doubtless respond
well to a reward of raw fish, particularly young boys.
Rewarding positive actions and behaviors
is central to SeaWorld's marine mammals training philosophy. The
techniques have been understood, if not universally applies, by parents
throughout human history.
Child development experts, however,
caution against focusing on the consequences of behavior, and stress the
importance of two-way communications in helping parents deal with
behavior challenges in their kids.
"Naturally, there's a huge difference
between training a whale and raising a child," said Dr. Shalom Fisch,
president of MediaKidz Research & Consulting, a consulting firm that
provides educational content development, hands-on testing, and writing
for children's media. "But even in the most unlikely places, it's
always fun to find unexpected reminders of the sorts of things we all
know but sometimes don't stop to think about."
"Praising successes, not expecting
perfection the first time around ... all of these are just as important
with kids as with killer whales. Hopefully, though, kids make less
of a mess in the living room," he said.
This initiative isn't the first time that
SeaWorld has sought to translate the techniques used in training marine
mammals to human interaction. SeaWorld's Thad Lacinak and Chuck
Tompkins teamed with business writer and motivational speaker Ken
Blanchard for a book called Whale Done that encouraged readers to
rely on positive reinforcement as a management technique. Whale
Done was one of the most successful management books of the last
decade, selling more than 500,000 copies in 18 languages.
LearnWithShamu.com is part of SeaWorld's education mission.
More than 25 million people each year benefit from in-park, Web-based,
outreach and distance learning programs administered by the parks'
award-winning staff of educators. The program is part of an
expansion of SeaWorld's education program into early childhood learning.
While the parenting Webisodes featured on
the Web site will help kick off this initiative, additional resources
such as young child-friendly interactive games, hands-on activities and
expertly-developed classroom curriculum are soon to follow.
The initiative is intended to increase
awareness of wildlife and environmental concepts and connections, to
encourage a simple conservation ethic among small children, and to equip
parents with the tools to shape their child's behavior through positive
reinforcement.
"SeaWorld has always been a destination
and resource for kids of all ages," Voss said. "But 'Learn with
Shamu' has been created with focus on the youngest of our guests - those
inquisitive and wondrous people ages 1 to 5. By sharing stories of
positive relationships between animals and people, 'Learn with Shamu'
aims to transform a child's natural fascination with animals into a
desire to connect with, and care for, all creatures, human and
otherwise, in their lives."
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