If we could put together a top ten list of common parenting phrases, I think counting to 3 would be near the top.  “Don’t make me come in there,” “what was that noise?” “you’re awfully quiet in there” are probably in there somewhere too.  

Counting to 3?  Really?  What is that?  You want my answer?  Here is what your child hears:

• “Its OK for you to continue doing that until I get to 2 and a half, so wrap it up, but don’t be in a hurry.”
• “I might or might not get to 3 and will usually ask you if you want me to get to 3 before I actually get there, so carry on.”
• “The counting has less to do with time than it does with my current level of patience.” 
• “Getting to three really depends on how quickly I can physically get to you, so the further you are away from me, the less likely I will get to 3 or actually be able to follow through with what 3 means if I do get there.”
• “Oh, and by the way, I don’t know what the ‘or else’ is quite yet.”

Do you count to 3?  How many times do you get to 3?  Do you find yourself using this a lot?  The more you use it, the less it is working, by the way.  I want your directions to mean something other than what you are probably teaching by counting to three. Here are some quick to dos:

• Before you ask your child to do something, be ready for both responses (he is either going to do it or not…its pretty predictable).
• If she does what you ask, praise and reinforce socially… “thank you for listening and picking up your shoes”
• If she does not do what you ask, be close enough to follow through by taking her (nicely and calmly) to her shoes and saying, “OK, give me that shoe, please.”  This takes the place of being further away and saying, “you need to pick those shoes up before I count to 3!”  Reinforce and praise when she does it, even though you are there making #$% sure she does it.
• If you ask 5 times then say, “this is the last time I am going to ask you,” do yourself a favor and be there for the follow through as close to the first request as possible. 

You might be amazed at how much more compliant your children are when you actually follow through with your initial requests, both positively and correctively.

We have all learned to reduce our writing to the bare minimum to effectively communicate through txt msging. Some of these messages are so reduced we need a glossary to figure out what the other person has written.  Some have made their way into normal lingo (ex. Lol, omg), but others are a bit more obscure.  Here are a few things I think your young child would send along via SMS:

IMOK = I am O.K. 

My tantrum was simply because I did not get what I want.  

IDNTH8U = I don’t hate you.

I just say it for the effect.  When I say it you somehow forget what we are doing, tell me how much you love me and ask, “why would you ever say that?”  Sometimes, when you don’t do this, you say, “OK, I’m done with you” and walk away…which is what I wanted you to do in the first place. 

IMTRD = I’m tired. 

You can’t tell this because I am acting possessed, running around and screaming, but think about what we have done today…get me to a quiet place and let me sleep.

IDK = I DO know.

I just don’t want to tell you and really would rather not talk about this at all. 

IWTO = I want time out. 

This follows your question, “do you want to go to time out?” REALLY? Do I have a choice?  Why are you even asking me in the first place?  I’m 4 years old!  Is there really a right answer to this?

OMG = Ouch, my gut. 

I feel horrible today.  How do you act when you have stomach aches and poop in your pants?  Thought so, ease up on me today. 

ICDI = I can do it. 

I really could probably do it if you took the time to teach me and let me do it.  I mean, do I just automatically learn this stuff, or does it take you being tired enough of doing it to finally teach me?  Don’t wait.  I can probably do this now.

AMA = Acting my age. 

This is not going to last forever.  My behavior problem today is not pathological.  Pay attention, but relax.

If I have correctly identified the age group of the audience of this site, all of you remember this legendary after-school television masterpiece. Zach, Kelly and the crew.  Ah, the memories.  Without getting too sentimental, or exposing myself as a devoted fan of the show (oops, too late), there is one thing in this show I always wanted then, but something we could all use much more now: the pause button.  Remember that?  Zach would find himself in a precarious position of who to ask to the prom or how to pull a fast one on ol’ principal Belding and he would look at the camera and say “PAUSE!” Everyone around him would freeze and become a statue.  Zach would review the situation, weigh out the pros and cons, maybe provide a bit more insider information then would magically snap his fingers and those around him would continue on as if nothing happened, not a second lost.

In my effort to teach parents to teach their children to be better at following directions or to become more “compliant,” I often bring up the idea of a “pause” button and how it can help us better teach compliance. 

Before you ask your child to do something or to stop doing something, I want you to “PAUSE.”  Ask yourself, “what are the chances he is going to follow that direction?”  If the chances are less than 80-90%, you need to figure out a better way to give that direction, a better time to give it, a better position from which to give it, or somehow change the way you ask to make it more likely he will respond appropriately.  Why? 

Shouldn’t our children just do what we ask them to do?  YES.  That is what I am trying to do.  I am trying to make sure when you ask your child to do something, it actually means something.  Think about it: the more directions you give that are not complied with, the more experience your child has ignoring your requests—you are teaching noncompliance by giving poorly timed and controlled directions.  Think about it in terms of the ratio of your requests:

Directions given : Directions followed

Your job is to make this ratio as close to a 1:1 relationship as possible.  Don’t expect the ratio to get closer to that magical number by punishing the noncompliance.  Expect it to get there by preparing appropriately and reinforcing the compliance.

Do yourself a favor and hit that pause button every now and then…who said watching “Saved by the Bell” was a waste of time??

Fairly frequently, I hear about children who are “argumentative,” will “argue for hours on end” or “will not stop arguing.”  This is common enough to talk about.

Here is the news:

1.    It takes at least 2 people to have an argument.  If your child is arguing with you, you are also arguing with your child.  What you are doing and saying is maintaining the argument.

2.    A lot of times, the child is arguing about something you control (access to a certain food, money, permission to have a sleep over, not going to school, etc.), so he needs you visible and engaged to get access to what he wants.  Your engagement/arguing signals the continued availability of the item.

3.    Sometimes, the arguments work (access to those things he wanted, but were not allowed prior to the argument itself).  If the argument gets “solved” after an hour, the hour-long argument has been taught…by you (see the post about kicking the soda machine).

Think about these things if you find you have an attorney in training (no offense): 

1.    If you control what the child is arguing about, leave it.  If a 15 year old is arguing about driving to the beach and you have the keys to the car, why go into some diatribe about being 15, not being responsible enough, against the law, etc.  YOU HAVE THE KEYS…ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.  This is even easier with younger kids.  “I want gummy bears! NOPE.  (They are in the top of the cabinet where she can’t reach them…why argue about it?)

2.    Don’t let an argument be a “skeleton key.”  Arguments should not open doors that were not open prior to the argument itself.  Otherwise, it has been effective even if the initial request is not granted.  For example:

CHILD: I want to go to Lizzie’s house to spend the night

PARENT: No, not tonight

CHILD: WHY?!?

PARENT: Because I said so

CHILD: [Increasing intensity, “I hate you,” “I never get to spend the night,” “Lizzie’s mom is cooler than you,” etc.]

PARENT: I tell you what…do you want Lizzie to come over here tonight?

CHILD: Sure mom, can we go to Pizza Hut?  I LOVE YOU MOM.

Think about this next time your child is hysterically arguing about not being able to get that pizza delivered for breakfast instead of explaining why you shouldn’t eat pizza for breakfast and giving him the option to order it for lunch if he stops complaining.

Part of my job as a behavior analyst is to analyze behavior.  Makes sense, right?  Part of this is trying to figure out under what circumstances a certain behavior is most likely to occur.  Knowing this makes behavior more predictable, which is good in my business as a behavior analyst and in yours as a parent.  We often call this a “trigger analysis,” kind of the same way alcoholics identify “triggers” for drinking (i.e., things that make drinking more likely to occur).  

So, early on in my career, thinking I would sound smarter than I actually was, I used ask teachers or parents to identify “triggers.”  More often than not, they would give me the famous response, “it just happens out of the blue.” Out of the blue??  Not likely.  So I changed my question:

“I’ve got 15 minutes and I need to see that tantrum.  Can you make it happen for me?” 

I had no intentions of doing it, I just wanted to see what they would say.

After the disgusted look and, I am sure, thoughts of “why I am paying this guy” subside, the usual answer is “OHHH, yeah.  All I have to do is….”  There is the answer.  If you can fill in the blank, you can answer the question and start to figure out why that behavior occurs.  Then, you are on your way to fixing it.

Here is an example answer:

“I’ll just tell him it is time to turn off the TV off when he is in the middle of Dora.” 

If that is what triggers the tantrum, what purpose do you think that behavior serves?  Do you think there have been a few times when the TV stayed on a little longer, he got the “OK, 5 more minutes, then it really has to come off,” or she got the “OK, then you won’t get to play with the other toys” response?  I bet there has.  That tantrum worked…even if was to extend Dora only by that 5 minutes.  (A lot of times, it turns out to be 5 more minutes until I scream again!)  Note that it doesn’t have to happen every time, just some times (look for the post on slot machines in the near future). 

Can you make it happen?  If you can, you can probably figure out why it is happening.  Spend some time doing thinking about this and I’ll post the next step soon.

There are times in everyone’s life when absolute certainty is not necessarily a great thing.  In a consultation with a family recently, the mother asked me “should we take him to that party when we know it is going to be a disaster?” 

 My initial answer: NOPE.  The only caveat was if there was anything they could do to prepare things well enough in advance to at least give them a bit more confidence in how successful the child’s behavior was going to be.  This was a lesson of preparation and thinking ahead of time: why are you that sure it is going to be a disaster?  Is there some way to make those things less likely?

 For example, “he hates that Matthew kid and always gets in a fight,” “when the cake comes out, he freaks out if he does not get the corner piece,” or “she is not going to be able to handle all those kids skating faster than her.”

Think through these things instead of a) waiting for it to happen again with crossed fingers, b) whisking him away from the party right before the cake comes out, c) warning him with a stern voice what will happen if he hits Matthew, or worse yet d) publicly punishing her for engaging in a behavior you knew was going to happen. 

1.    Talk about it ahead of time and don’t act like it is not going to happen

2.    Set up something positive for engaging in the appropriate behavior (e.g., “OK, when the cake gets cut, you might not get the corner piece, so what do you say if you don’t?  I will be there to help and remind you to say ‘thank you’ and if you do, we can do something special when we get home.”

3.    Prevent those things that are simply not going to be well-controlled (e.g., make sure Matthew and your kid aren’t in the bounce house at the same time).

4.    Be there at the crucial time to remind them of the lesson you already taught.  You can do so in fewer words now. Whisper the reminder, the better behavior and the positive things that will result.

5.    Make a big deal out of it when it happens (although you worked your tail off and missed the last round of “mommy and daddy drinks” to make sure it went well).

Some people say kids need to learn from their mistakes.  I’m not one of those people.

Have there been times when you were ready to go somewhere and your kid didn’t have homework done or had a messy room you wanted cleaned up.  “We are not going to Disney until that room is clean!”  The other version is a little less noticeable, but as troublesome:  “We can go to Disney in August if you keep your room clean and do your homework.”  The reality: you are going regardless.  You have paid $750 dollars for plane tickets, $400 on park tickets and have made arrangements with Aunt Margaret who lives in Orlando to take her out for a belated 70^th birthday dinner.  You simply try to use these things as incentives.  Sometimes it works.  What if it doesn’t?

I know what you are thinking, and YES, it is a big deal.  This is an exaggerated (but likely) example, but it happens all the time.  If it is something you want to do as a family and have no intentions of canceling or not going…don’t bring behavior into it!  Please.  If it is something that is flexible and you could do or not do (e.g., pizza dinner), use it if you would like, but make the requirements specific (more on that in a later entry).  These types of contingencies (i.e., if you _________ then you can _________) can be incredibly helpful, but only if used appropriately and at the right time.

Don’t teach the bluff.