Behavior
I was thinking last night how it is nice that foster/adoptive parents can get training to help them parent their children. “Normal” parents don’t have that luxury very often, especially not for free.
I learned some interesting things so far.
The program is based off of an ABC method. B is the behavior. Such as “Baggage kicks people.” Then you want to rephrase it in a positive method. “Baggage will talk to people about her feelings instead of kicking them.”
A is for antecedent. What happens directly before my behavior? What can be done to help me not kick people?
*Baggage will get 8 hours of sleep a night.
*If Baggage is going to kick someone, Geo will raise his index finger in the air as a warning.
*Baggage will be supervised around asshats.
Basically anything you can do to help the person behave in a proper manner.
Then are consequences. Consequences are basically reinforcers, and therefore should be mostly positive reinforcers.
*If Baggage talks about her feelings instead of kicking, she will be praised both privately and in public.
*Baggage will get a check mark on her chart.
*Baggage will get a vodka tonic if she doesn’t kick people for a week.
You will also have punishers, but the goal here is to try to punish as a last resort. You should try to praise excessively, which reinforces the good behavior.
They talked about something interesting. It was the idea that when the primary caretaker has to spend a lot of time with a child who has negative behaviors, they become accustomed to looking only for negative behaviors. The child acts in a negative manner, the parent reacts by yelling, nagging, lecturing and the behavior is temporarily stopped. This reinforces the parent. So then the parent is searching for bad behavior so that they can reprimand the child and get the behavior to stop.
The class is going to help us instead focus on finding positive behavior. Our goal should be to praise a child 3 times for every one time we reprimand them. Which is hard. Especially when you get in a cycle of feeling like your child is always bad. You feel a resentment towards the child for their constant bad behavior.
One thing I know I do wrong that we talked about last night is that I don’t give pure praise. I will say to Bug, “Well, I’m glad you got your room straightened up BUT you didn’t do your chores today.” or “I’m proud of you for getting an A+ on your project, but what about this C on your science paper.”
Pure praise should only be praise. “You did a great job on cleaning your room.” and then STOP. Don’t address anything critical at the same time you are praising.
I even notice that I do that with Geo. I will say, “Well, I’m really glad you got here on time, but you forgot the milk.”
Basically what you are doing is eliminating the compliment. People won’t remember the praise, they will remember the criticism. It takes away the power of the praise.
Another thing they talked about was phrasing punishers in ”you decided” terms. The goal is to get children to understand that their actions have consequences which are both good and bad. If you go to work, you get paid. If you a rob a bank, you go to jail.
But if you say to a kid, “You didn’t clean your room and now I’m grounding you for a week,” then you have made YOURSELF responsible for the consequence and not the child. The child is not going to blame themself for not cleaning their room, they will blame you for grounding them.
So instead, you would say “Because you didn’t clean your room, you chose to spend the next week grounded.”
The thing I liked about the class was that it attempts to look at behavior in an intellectual manner. To analyze the behavior and what you can do to stop the frequency of the behavior. It is intellectual and not emotional.
That is a big one for me. Intellectually I know that Bug’s behaviors are caused by a lack of consistent parenting for 9 years, ADHD, ODD, puberty etc. but when she is acting out constantly it is hard to not blame her. It is hard to see the behavior as the behavior and not a reflection on her as a person.
This program helps you focus on the identification and elimination of behaviors. It also tries to help parents of behavioral children switch their focus from “my kid is bad, my kid is bad, my kid is bad” to making an effort to identify times when the kid is being good or even less bad.
I’ll keep you posted on the next classes as well.
Technorati Tags: parenting, behavioral problems, ADHD, ODD, foster care, adoption, tantrums
January 9th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I actually had to get over the fact that people who birth children were lucky.
I feel like I am lucky because I do have access to resources on how to parent as ana adoptive parent to be.
Good luck on working through everything with Bug. Keep us posted on the classes. They sounds great.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Ooo, all that is excellent.
My mom is always on about what a great kid I am and how “brave” I am. I always reply that I’m lucky enough to be surrounded in my life where every family member or friend I talk to says at least one very nice thing to me each time I speak to them. Every time I pick up the phone, even if it’s during an argument, these people tell me they love me and are free with the compliments and warm fuzzies.
Meanwhile my mother never finished college, but she had a poisonous relationship with her mother and my father was anything but supportive. Every time she decided to do something everyone around her was telling her, directly or indirectly, that she was too thick/slow/pedestrian to do it.
I’m not any braver than my mom, but I’m a LOT luckier.
I belive in love without qualifiers. Apologies without qualifiers. Praise without qualifiers. Like you said, being on time is a different issue than forgetting the milk. Being thankful that someone is thoughtful enough to be timely can be a totally different thing than being annoyed that they forgot to pick up milk. It’s okay to say both, just keep them separate.
I’m always floored by the great steps you take in parenting Bug. I know it’s hard to see on a day-to-day basis, but this is not the kid who came home to you. This kid has about a thousand instances of just plain love to draw on than she used to.
You did that. You’re a good mom.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Yep, that’s what they tell you to do in behavior management class. Always reward the absence of unwanted behaviors/presence of positive behaviors. Don’t punish - it’s guaranteed to have no effect at all. If you’re lucky.
I’ve had a hell of a time convincing Evil Dad that saying “you’re bad” to your child is *not* the way to go. Bad *behavior* not bad *child*, as you’ve said much better. You’re doing really, really well. Rock on, Baggage.
January 9th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I’m needing a class right now….the terrible twos are making me develop a nervous tick. How many times in a day can I say “No!”
January 9th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
that sounds like a great class. and i like the part about positive praise. (i recieved a lot of the ‘but you didn’t…’ add ons as a kid and it would have been very cool to just have the praise part sometimes!)
January 9th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Wow, that was incredibly interesting to read, and totally applicable even if you aren’t just talking about parenting. Thanks for sharing, I’m interested to hear what else you learn!
January 9th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I like this post — really simple, easy to implement with great examples. And it works, too. It makes you more mindful about your own behavior, too, which I think helps your child realize that you are working to improve, too.
e
January 9th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Three postives for every negative - that is my NY’s resolution. And pure praise - what a great concept!!! Thanks for giving us all you are learning.
January 9th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I agree with everyone else. I think a lot of this is applicable to any relationship. In fact after reading it I rewrote the letter I was about to send to a client… using “you chose to” language, instead of “I don’t want” language. I didn’t put any praise in it though. So maybe the relationship will be doomed! Anyways, i love hearing this stuff. Keep sharing!
January 9th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Fantastic topic, this is something that is so important to be reminded of often…parenting is the hardest job that I have ever had - my 2 1/2 year old challenges my patience daily. Thanks for sharing!!
January 9th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
I love this, I’m printing it out and sticking it on my fridge, for me AND my husband to read!
January 9th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Thanks for the reminder about praise.
January 10th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Great post. It is so difficult not to end a praise with however or but, but the last thing you say is what someone remembers.
We have an inservice this year at school called “Fred Jones” and many techniques are given on how to speak, walk, etc. to not only students, but co-workers.
I am glad you have the opportunity to attend these classes for free. Every parent should be given the opportunity to do so. It would probably decrease the amount of abuse we have in the world.
January 10th, 2007 at 1:22 am
I took a class from the teacher that wrote a book about the ABC methods. Dr. Frank Sparrzo. Is that your text book???
January 10th, 2007 at 2:50 am
I hope you talk more about this. Simple is better and this boils things down pretty simply.
PS - What do you think about Angelina’s comment that she feels more for her adoptive kids and their early trials vs. the one born to her in the lap of luxury? I think once the little one reads that in a decade or two, she’ll have plenty of emotional obstacles to overcome herself.
January 10th, 2007 at 3:23 am
This is my all-time favorite post! I work as a behavioral therapist and am in graduate school studying (what else) behavior analysis, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it when people know about and use behavioral methods. Most people don’t understand them (you’re just bribing that kid, etc.) but reinforcements are truly what make the world go round! Who are we friends with? The people who make us feel good–they’re reinforcing. Who is the better boss, the one who notices our successes or the one who notices our faults? If it’s true of us adults then it’s certainly true for children. PRAISE, PRAISE, AND MORE PRAISE–I promise that you won’t spoil your kids by letting them know when they do stuff right. They’ll just do that stuff more often!