Pavlov's Kids

We know that you can condition dogs to salivate whenever they hear a bell ring by consistently feeding them immediately after ringing the bell. I thought maybe the same principle of conditioned response could apply to raising children. For example, I thought our baby girl would stop splashing in the bathtub when I consistently asked her to stop and held her hands together immediately after she splashed. It seemed to work after a while with our oldest. I also thought that our toddler would obey when I consistently reminded her that I was asking her nicely immediately after she ignored me the first time (hoping that our positive responses to her asking nicely would prompt her to do the same). I also that that our oldest would eat his dinner after consistently requiring him to try everything before he could be excused. I now know that I was wrong to think this way. I'm not sure it ever will work with my kids for two reasons: First, our children are not ruled by instinct, like dogs, they are ruled by emotions. Second, whatever worked with one child is almost guaranteed to fail on another child because they are all so different. I guess there is a third reason. They are the same in one respect, which is that they all inherited a double-dose of stubbornness from both family lines. If they don't want to do something or stop doing something, no amount of asking nicely, begging, weeping, or yelling will change it. What do we do? It's times like this when I wish Pavlov had spent his time studying children rather than dogs.