A study was conducted to investigate the influence of systematic trends in the successfulness of children's performance upon subsequent parental disciplinary actions. A total of 30 mothers 24 to 45 years of age and their sons, ages 4 to 7.5 years, participated. Mothers were provided with predetermined sequences of trial-by-trial information about their sons' successes and failures on learning tasks. This predetermined information made it appear to mothers that their sons were doing progressively better, worse, or that there was no systematic change in performance. Effects of these performance trends on the amount of reward and punishment mothers administered were measured. Findings indicated that systematic trends in children's responses exert differential control over mothers' rewarding and punishing behaviors. Particularly, results indicated that each different trend in success rate had unique effects on maternal reward and punishment. It was found that (1) a stable success rate had no systematic differential effects on either reward or punishment, (2) performance that improved over trials led to increases in the mother's rewarding but did not influence her punishing, and (3) a child's deteriorating performance occasioned increases in both maternal rewarding and punishing. (RH)