Author Archives: BehaviorBandAid

Should do??? Won’t do!! – How to get your kid to do what they should

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Just because you think your kid should be doing something does not mean that he will just up and do it one day…”just because he should.”

Look, there are a lot of things parents think their kids should do, but ultimately the question remains: IS he doing it?  If the answer to that question is ever “NO,” lets talk about it a bit more.

The source of this comment is usually about getting up in the morning, going to bed at night, completing chores, taking a bath, following general directions and simply being “respectful” to parents and other adults.  Here is the thing though…it has to have some benefit to the kid for him to do those things without throwing a fit, complaining, or pouting as he takes out the trash.  

Why most kids do what they should

Yes, some kids do such things so they can avoid making you mad, keep access to the game system, or simply preserve the ability to sit down without wincing (have a sense of humor…I am not saying spanking is a good idea).  There are also kids who do these things because they have sufficient experience with these things resulting in positive things such as praise, high fives, parental acceptance or even access to a little extra time in front of the TV or computer that night.  For a lot of kids, these two things are enough.

For some, it isn’t.  Here is the help:

To turn the should do into did do you need to begin with a three step shaping process:

1.  Arrange certain things to make the behavior more likely to occur.  This might mean shortening the task, making it less effortful, less time consuming or more interactive with someone fun (like YOU, for example). 

“Clean your room” becomes “pick up those socks, put those shoes under your bed and throw me that towel and we will get out of here!”  “Clean the bathroom” turns into “squirt some of this weird blue stuff around the inside of the toilet, flush it and lets go…”  “Get dressed” gets done by you going in, putting everything on but the socks and then saying “put your socks on and meet me in the kitchen for those awesome PopTarts.”

2.  Reinforce the completion of the task since you just made it much more likely to happen.  Be nice.  High five. A pleasant, “I appreciate you getting that done this morning.” 

Rewards have not been successful up to this point because the task was too aversive or too difficult.  The reward did not work because they never got access to it.  Now they have…now the reinforcer can begin to work.

3.  Slowly fade into higher levels of demand: “Here is your shirt, now all you need is your pants and socks…see you in a second,” “Make sure you get that towel off the floor too, please” or “rub that brush around in that blue toilet stuff before you flush then spray the shower while I get the movie going.”  

You see…to make sure something happens, whether or not YOU think it should, it sometimes means taking a few steps back to make it more likely to happen so you can reinforce it.  

You should do this…

Teaching your kid to be a “people person”

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“Your kids are so polite.” 

“What a little gentleman.  What is your name, little boy?”

Oh, the smiles of proud parents when this happens.  Your child being publicly recognized for good behavior is about as good as it gets for parents.  Bigger deal for kids?  ABSOLUTELY, here is why:

So much of how we behave is maintained by social consequences. 

Making people smile, doing things not to embarrass yourself in front of your spouse’s boss, receiving compliments, “looking good,” the list goes on.  The power of following social rules and social boundaries is huge.   Receiving social acceptance and avoiding social disgrace is makes us tick.  Here is an example I use in many of my trainings:

Picture yourself at a red-light in a town far away from home.  There are cars on both sides of you.  You get an itch on the inside of your left nostril.  CRAP.

Do you scratch it? 

Most people smile and look around nervously, even as I tell the story.  The truth is, in most cases we will NOT scratch the inside of our nose simply because one of those people (who you will NEVER, EVER see again) might, JUST MAYBE, think you are picking your nose.  How embarrassing.

Need anymore evidence of how much social consequences play a part in our behavior?

Back to your kids. 

As they grow up, many of their behaviors will occur outside of your reach.  These behaviors will be reinforced by those around them: friends, teachers, coaches, even strangers on the street.  It is important for you to begin to teach your kids how to best access the best kinds of social consequences: praise, smiles, compliments, etc.  We talked about this a bit before when talking about the Suzuki method and “teaching the bow.”  If you have not read that, please do so…very cool story.

Politeness.  Manners.  Introducing themselves, shaking hands (even at early ages), saying, “excuse me,” “potty” or “restroom” instead of “I gotta poop.”  Go ahead and teach them to raise their hand.  It is amazing how people respond when young kids do these things.  It is a powerful force. 

It also allows you to follow up the public praise with some of your own: “did you see how amazed that guy was when you said, ‘excuse me, sir.’  That was so awesome.”

Try it.  Do something simple.  Prompt it next time a friend comes over.  Teach your son to shake hands, teach your daughter to say, “would you like something to drink.”  I think they (and you) will be surprised and pleased.

This is your last warning!

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WARNINGS are not a consequence for misbehavior…I’m warning you!

There are times when a simple warning or cautious reminder is appropriate as a response to a minor undesirable or even a moderate misbehavior:  

“Hey, remember you need to keep your hands to yourself or I will ask you to put your toys away.”

 ”I’m just reminding you if you throw your fork, you will not get your dessert”

In this way, warnings can be effective as reminders of consequences to follow continued misbehavior. 

However, warnings themselves are not consequences. 

The power of a warning comes from its association (i.e. experience your kid has) with the delivery of another specific consequence following the warning. Whether it is the loss of a toy, removal from a fun activity, or some other consequence you have already determined (hopefully), the effect of your warnings will be a direct result of how predictive the warning is of the consequence.  

What does that mean?  

It simply means if you want your warnings to be effective as a “hey, don’t do that again” tool following some misbehavior, your kid needs to have experience with the fact that the consequence is the next thing coming down the line.  The only way they will learn this is through experience.

Follow these guidelines:

1.  Warnings should occur one time before delivering the actual consequence. This helps with the connection. “Stop or I will say to stop again,” comes to mind.  We have talked before about the whole “I’m counting to 5” nonsense, so this should not be news. Therefore, if you make a warning, you better be ready to follow through.  If you are not, figure something else to do instead.

2.  Please, do not make your warnings in question form, “do you want me to take those trains away?” Stop it.  You sound ridiculous.  What do you expect them to say?

3.  All warnings should be stated in an unemotional tone of voice simply as a reminder of the consequence. 

4.  Finally, but maybe most importantly, warnings are more effective when paired with positive consequences that can be earned for changing the behavior to a positive one. For example,

“Remember, if you keep your hands to yourself, you can play with your Little Ms Martini Barbie, but if you hit your friends, we will have to put them away.” 

(I made the Barbie thing up, sorry).  

Use every chance you can to praise and bring attention to the behavior you want so you will not have to rely on the warning or negative consequence. That is much harder.

PLEASE do not warn your kid about a consequence you have no intention of delivering.  That is a veiled threat…and will create more misbehavior than it solves.  

Don’t say I never warned you.


Parent with confidence!

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Parenting with confidence makes a difference

One of the things I have to ask a lot of parents to do when we are making changes with the way they interact with their children is to have a sense of confidence.  Many have a hard time doing it.

It makes sense.  Over the years, there have been many ways they have tried to help their children behave better, follow directions, do their homework, be more independent, and lead overall happier lives.  Unfortunately, for many parents with whom I work, those efforts have been met with continued tantrums, challenging behaviors, and hurtful words.  Essentially, the kids have punished their parents’ efforts to do better and it weakens resolve and makes them question themselves.  This leads to more inconsistency and more problems. 

This is very natural.  Every parent experiences this at some point or another.

Sometimes all I have to do is tell parents they are doing the right thing: “Hang in there, you’re right.  He’ll be fine, just hang in there for a bit.”  Yes, they might have made some mistakes in the past, but their current efforts are simply going to take time. 

Just because your son screamed at you does not mean you should have cleaned his room for him.  Just because your daughter fell to the floor crying does not mean you should have given her that last piece of candy she wanted.  Learning takes experience over time…trials…to really sink in.  

Stirring the Kool-Aid

Think about this: you have just added the water to your two packs of Awesome Berry Blast Kool-Aid powder mix (after you licked your finger and tasted a bit of it out of the packet) and you get the trusty wooden spoon out to stir it in.  You stir, first in the counter clockwise direction.  The water gets spinning in that direction.  Kinda looks like a tornado.  Then you reverse the direction of your stir.  The neon blue water splashes a bit, you feel some resistance, but you keep stirring.   Clockwise now, you start to feel less resistance.  There are still some ripples and disturbance, but the ripples fade and the direction of the water is now with your stir. You have changed the direction of the flow. 

Now, if you just went back and forth without maintaining your direction for any length of time, there is no direction.  Often, there is more splash…more disturbance.  Harder to maintain any sense of order. 

Changing behavior is not that different. 

When changing the direction of a behavior, especially one that has some momentum, you might get splashed a bit at first.  But, maintaining your direction over time will get things heading in the right direction.  Going back and forth without any consistent direction will often cause more problems, more disturbance, more challenging behavior.

Lets say your daughter has been whining a bunch, and you are trying to get her to ask nicely to get things she wants.  This is a new behavior.  Not only are you trying to teach her that she needs to “ask nicely” and that is the correct way to get things she wants, you are also teaching her the old way isn’t going to work anymore…the way that has worked a good bit in the past.  That is not going to happen all at once.  She will likely react a bit as she learns the “old way” does not work anymore.  It does not mean you are doing anything wrong.  In fact, you might be doing something correctly! 

Give her plenty of opportunities to learn the new way…prompt her, role play, practice and praise her when she does it so she knows and has experience with what “asking nicely” means.

The path to confidence

If you are having a problem with a specific behavior, think about what you want to do to change it.  What is the new behavior you want to teach in place of the old (always teach a “to-do” when you are teaching a “not-to-do”)?  Talk to your spouse.  Consult professionals.  Do some reading.  Make an educated decision about what you are going to do.  Then do it.  Be confident. 

Your children can smell hesitancy and uncertainty.  Even if afterwards you wish you would have done something a bit differently, just do it differently next time.  At least you were paying enough attention to know what you should have done.

The time to make decisions about behavior and how you are going to respond to it is when you have your wits about you, when you can think with an open mind, while you are not hampered by the emotion of the moment.  Think it through, then be confident. 

Do it.  Hesitancy leads to inconsistency, which will likely lead to more challenging behaviors. 

If you are really interested, measure your results.  Is your child doing more of the “to-do” behaviors and less of the “not-to-do” behavior?  

Pay attention, be informed then be confident and consistent.  You’ve earned your Kool-Aid.

No reaction might be the best reaction of all…

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Treat one time events for what they are…one time events.  Reactive parenting often creates more opportunities to be reactive (i.e., more bad behavior).

I recently read a book, Anything You Want, by Derek Sivers (a guy who turned a little hobby of selling music online to a business generating $100 million in sales and ultimately a $22 million payday for Sivers).  He made a point about not punishing a group at large (customers) due to the bad behavior of one person or a weird one time event.  For emphasis, he mentioned two examples of when over-the-top changes were made as ridiculous reactions to a single event: his elementary school banned grape juice at the school after a single spill (and later banned orange juice for the same reason) and the need to take our shoes off at the airport due to the infamous “shoe bombing.”   These stories and his point made me think of how that relates to parents in so many ways (of course)…

Has there ever been a time when you “banned the grape juice” at your house.  It might not have been grape juice that spilled, but might have been something that your kid misused or even an activity that went wrong and you effectively “banned” it?  Have you taken your children to a special place and things just did not go right and you pledged “never go there again?”  Have you ever treated a child to something special and it blew up in your face and you vowed to avoid using that treat again because it “didn’t work?”  Have you ever gotten a note home from the teacher about a “new behavior” and excessively worried about it and made reactive changes because of it?

I believe this happens and it is important to realize it when it does so you can avoid the pitfalls associated with these types of reactive decisions.

The lesson here is a general one, but a thinker sort of lesson: avoid over-reacting to any one particular behavior or circumstance within which a behavior occurred. This includes when your kid hits another kid at school, bites the neighbor, throws a huge hissy-fit at the shoe store, or says something like, “I hate you,” “I hate school” or drops the F-bomb. 

These are all common things that kids do and there is rarely a need to over think these things and worry about making changes due to one of these things happening. 

I am not saying they need to be ignored, but I am saying there is generally nothing to worry about.  Be aware: let her teachers know you are concerned, let his coach know you have talked to him about kicking the ball instead of the other kids, let the neighbor know that her cat will be safe in the future, and then move on. Lock it away in your parent brain, be prepared the next time similar situations present themselves, talk to your kids about it at the times when the situations are likely to occur again (the closer to the event as possible, the better) and use it as a teaching experience.  No need to expend too much energy on these events or try to heavily punish them “so it will never happen again.”  

The good news about behavior is that there are very few things that are learned after one experience (taste aversion is one…I bet you can think of something you had a single bad experience with and have not touched since).  This should give you some relief when it comes to making the decision NOT to make a decision about something until later.  

Give yourself the the benefit of time and thought before making decisions to “take away the Nintendo” for a month or to “never go out for ice cream again!”  Give yourself the advantage of “sound body and mind” when making these decisions rather than the reactive and emotional decisions we can sometimes make. 

Sometimes you will find that making no decision is the best decision of them all.

Ignore the behavior…not the kid!

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Sometimes the best thing you can do to get rid of or change a behavior is to simply ignore it.  However, this can be a fairly daunting task sometimes.  But, here is the good news:

You can ignore a behavior, but not ignore the kid and it still be an effective way to get rid of some junky behavior. 

Lets start here:

Lets say your little one is acting like a clown making weird noises you know she is clearly making to get your attention (if you don’t know…she probably is).  This has been going on too long, so you say, “NO! Stop those noises.  That is RUDE!” and she laughs…

WHOOPS: You just paid attention to the behavior and probably have made it more likely to happen again.

So next time comes around when she is making those noises and you think ignoring it will be the right thing to do.  You hang in there for a while, but it gets worse.  It gets louder.  Now she is actually dancing right in front of you as you try to pay attention to anything else but her.  You can’t take it anymore.  You give up and say “Sit DOWN and STOP IT!”  She either laughs and runs away or gets upset and whimpers as she sits.  Neither is what you really wanted.

Here is where many parents get in the black hole of ignoring and where a lot of parents feel like ignoring is not a powerful or effective tool.

Paying attention to the child, but ignoring the behavior?  Here is how…

Pay attention to her without paying attention to the behavior.  Don’t say anything about the behavior, act as if it was not occurring at all…ignore it, but don’t ignore her. Try a little misdirection:  Lets try this again:

DANCING QUEEN: (Dancing in front of you with fingers pulling her mouth to her ears while making noises that remind you of a siren at the fire station)

YOU: “I love your shoes, what color are those?” or “Did you see what dad put on the front porch?” or “Tell me what you did with your best friend yesterday?” or “Can you grab me your magazine right there by the TV?”

If she replies, keep talking.  Engage with her.  You are now teaching her you will pay attention to her, but not directly to the behavior.  You have the best of both worlds: you have attended to her so she will not escalate her craziness to get your attention and you have ignored a behavior you don’t really want her to use to access your attention.  Things are good.

If she does not reply, ask other questions, things she will be like to talk about.  This is not a demand, but a way to get her to engage with you so you can attend to her appropriate behavior rather than simply ignoring the junk. 

If she continues to chirp like a bird or sing the “beans are good for your heart” song, just let her know you want to talk to her about her new gymnastics routine when she is ready.  Then do what you can to get out of her visual area and continue ignoring.

Just remember…ignore the behavior, not the kid.

Time out: the baby with the bathwater. Listen carefully.

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Have you ever tried something new, a new electronic device or something for the kids and got frustrated and said,

“This *&^% thing doesn’t work…why does everyone say these things are awesome…this thing is stupid!” 

Then someone comes over, grabs it, does something simple to it and says, “you’re doing it wrong…that is why it wasn’t working.”

It wasn’t working because you weren’t doing it right or you overlooked something very elementary.  Very simple.  I can’t help but think of the ultimate family man, Clark “Sparky” Griswold, in Christmas Vacation karate chopping the reindeer because the light switch was off, preventing the display of his Christmas cheer:

Here is the connection:

There are a lot of behavior strategies that are commonly misunderstood and misused and when they don’t work there are books written and websites dedicated to very strong responses regarding how awful these strategies are and how they “never” work.

Case in point, I commented on an internet article on time out two months or so and received a lesson in the incredible emotions, disdain, and clear misunderstanding connected to this thing we call “time out,” not only on my Facebook page, but on the other pages associated with the conversation.  It was if those who even think about time out should be reported to child protective services.  

What was clear was that the term “time out” has been over-used, misused and mischaracterized so that many parents who thought they were using “time out” were unsuccessful.  It created more problems, it was difficult to maintain, it did NOT help.  This resulted in “time out” (even though what they were likely doing was wrong and NOT time out) being framed as a terrible, heartless parenting strategy that “never works” (the phrase “never works” is what triggered me to respond to the article due to how insanely incorrect this statement was). 

OK, now, for my thoughts.

I strongly believe in an incredibly positive and proactive style of parenting and behavior management.  I believe reinforcement strategies are the strongest tools in your parenting tool belt.  Proactive teaching in a way that reduces, as much as possible, the likelihood of “error” or challenging behavior is my mantra.  For example, waking up several times throughout the night to take a child to the bathroom can and does work to teach toilet training sometimes without error!  Helping your child navigate the social demands of a birthday party before the party, teaching ahead of time, turns a potentially difficult situation into a successful learning opportunity. Taking shorter trips to the store so it can be successful instead of painful is more effective than taking away your kid’s Nintendo DS (or threatening Santa’s naughty list) because they screamed through the two hour long escapade through the mall on the week before Christmas.  Check out my archives and my Facebook posts and see how much I believe in prevention and proaction…its pretty clear.  

I do not believe punishment strategies are to be used to shape behavior, but do believe there are times when time out, when used appropriately and with sufficient caution, is an effective and prudent strategy.  Decades of research have supported this.  I have a top 10 list…check it out here.

Let me clarify what I mean when I say, “punishment.”

Punishment: something that makes the likelihood of that behavior less likely to occur in the future (not this time, next time).  It is not what we think should be “punishing” (sometimes yelling at your kid for saying a dirty word makes the kid say more dirty words…whoops), but what actually happens to the behavior.  Does it go away, or persist despite your “punishment” efforts?  

As I have stated in previous posts, things like spanking, timeout and harsh words don’t always fit this definition.  If spanking does not reduce the future likelihood of a behavior occurring it is not punishment. STOP IT.  If time out does not reduce the future likelihood of a behavior occurring it is not punishment. STOP IT.  If harsh words do not reduce the future likelihood of a behavior occurring it is not punishment. STOP IT. 

So, in many cases, these strategies do NOT work because of the nature of the behavior and are therefore potentially harmful for a variety of reasons, but it is not the strategy that should be deemed ineffective.Herein lies the misinformation and misleading comments from those in the parenting “web world.”

So, here is the lesson. 

Think through the strategies you are using to reduce unwanted or undesirable behaviors.  Are they working?  Are you finding yourself doing them more instead of less?  Have you read up on “time out” and how it should and should not be used?  Do you actually even keep up with this to know?  Is your spanking reducing the occurrence of the behavior for which you spanked?  Remember: it is not what makes the behavior stop in the moment, but what makes the behavior less likely to occur again.

Be informed…let me help.