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Apply Universal Strategies

Have you ever watched those reality shows on TV where the experienced nanny tells you how to parent your child the “right” way? There’s always a super-simple concept with a cutesy name that single-handedly transforms a “problem” child into an angel within a convenient half-hour setting.

Have you then tried that super-simple concept at home, only to find it doesn’t exactly work the same way on your children? There’s either a mitigating factor that interferes with the tactic or your child reacts differently than the angel on TV. For many parents, this scenario of seeing or reading about a new strategy for discipline and trying it at home, only to have it fail, is a recurring cycle of frustration. What any of those TV shows, or magazine articles, or even other parenting books tries to sell you is their cutesy version of one of the strategies we’re going to teach you in this chapter.

The difference with our book is that we’re not going to sell you one of those strategies. We’re going to give them to you, explain why they work, and then teach you how to implement them in your own home with your own children. If you understand the underlying principles, you can choose what will work for your specific situation.

Universal Strategies are the basic common denominator in parenting tactics.

These underlying principles are what we call Universal Strategies. They are the basic common denominators in parenting tactics that, to some extent, will work with most children. They will not all work for all kids in the same way; some will resonate better with your child than others, and that’s typical. There are challenges with each. You’ll need to take what we give you and apply it to your daughter or son, building on those tactics that resonate better and leaving the others in your back pocket.

Some of these strategies you may have already tried and abandoned, thinking they don’t work for your child. While that may be the case, please keep an open mind and read through them all, because you might want to revisit them later. Understanding why each strategy works may help you implement it more effectively. Sometimes, a strategy you tried already may work later in a different situation. Having a good understanding of all of these strategies gives you options to deal with anything that comes up. There are no perfect methods and there are no guarantees as to which of our suggestions will spur your child to better behavior.

In this chapter, we outline some of the most commonly used Universal Strategies that will work with most children. Then, in the following chapters, we break them down even further and discuss the ways you can tailor them based on a specific problem at hand.

Cultivate a Positive Relationship with a Time-In

Time-In is the opposite of Time-Out, and what it basically means is that you cultivate a positive relationship with your child by spending time together. Some of you may look at this strategy and think, “Duh! We all know we should have a positive relationship with our children.” But how does it affect your child’s behavior? Having this kind of a foundation can be extremely powerful, both for averting a difficult situation and in dealing with one.

Your child must experience Time-In in order for Time-Out to work.

A positive relationship gives you a favorable advantage and makes many of the other strategies we’ll discuss in this book more effective and more potent. Your child will react more positively to your directions and reinforcements, will feel comfortable opening up his or her feelings to you, and will feel safe and secure in the parent–child relationship. Your child must experience Time-In in order for any Time-Out to work correctly as a negative consequence. Time-In needs to be meaningful in order to be used as leverage.

Make good use of your time, even if you don’t have a lot of it. Use every moment together toward building a positive relationship with your child. You’ll be surprised at how even the most routine activities can create opportunities for casual, stress-free communication with your child.

The BeThere campaign provides suggestions for just this sort of thing, taking what might have been a mundane moment in your day and turning it into a powerfully positive interaction with your child. You can find a number of videos to show you how it’s done at www.bethere.org.

The more time you spend with your child, the more opportunities there are for her to talk about her life and experiences, which can provide insight into what she’s thinking. As with adults, children often don’t express their thoughts “on command.” Instead, their inner thoughts leak out at various times, and we need to be available for those intimate moments.

When a child does share his emotions, parents need to validate those feelings and make an effort to understand the situation from the child’s point of view. While you—as a rational adult—may grasp the reasons behind a rule or the purpose of a limitation, your child may likely only feel that it’s unfair. It is very important that you show empathy for your child’s emotional world. That doesn’t mean you give in, just that you tell your child that you understand that he is upset, and communicate that he has a right to have that feeling if he expresses it in the proper way (in words, not as a tantrum).

But even in a family with the most positive relationships, a disciplinary issue may make those positive times feel futile. The negative can easily outweigh the positive in dark times, and that can become a vicious cycle unless you have this foundation of a positive relationship to fall back on. When your child trusts you, eventually she will come to you for help and let you into her world. If you set the stage for this now, the teen years will be much easier.

One key provision for a positive relationship: Allow for a clean slate each morning to avoid the buildup of frustration that may color your relationship. No matter how many behavior problems happened yesterday, today wipes the record clean. Your child must know that you love him no matter what and that he still has a reason to try to succeed today.

Role-Model Good Behavior

Children learn everything by watching: Their little eagle eyes miss nothing. Their world revolves around us, and so very often we are teaching them behaviors without even knowing it. That’s where this strategy comes in. Showing is more powerful than telling. Sometimes, the best way to get your children to do something is to do it yourself when you know they are watching. Role-modeling good behavior helps your children avoid bad behavior because you are communicating through action what you want them to do.

We are teaching them behaviors without even knowing it.

If you stop at a crosswalk and wait for the signal before crossing, your children will learn to do the same. If you clean up messes without complaining, that’s what they’ll (eventually) do. If you put away your cell phone at dinnertime, they’ll learn that’s the way things work in your home. If you treat salespeople and waiters with respect, using please and thank you, your children will know that’s how they’re supposed to behave.

Sometimes, good behavior occurs right away as an immediate mimic; other times, it takes a while for the behavior to seep into a child’s consciousness. Teachable moments can be positive in and of themselves, or be a negative situation turned into a positive lesson. Take a circumstance that irritates you, and be obvious in the ways you calm yourself down: Take a loud, deep breath, validate your own emotion, and, out loud, talk yourself through letting go of the aggravation. When your children overhear you talking through your emotions, they will internalize those lessons and apply them to themselves when they face a similar situation. Keep in mind, though, that this strategy works both ways. Your kids will copy both your good and bad behavior. Unfortunately, it’s the bad behaviors that can be most memorable, usually because they’re a little more dramatic. If you curse and pound on the horn in traffic, your children will believe that’s the way to handle frustration while driving. If you talk trash about the neighbors, your children will think that’s how they should treat others. If you argue with the referee at the youth soccer game, your kids will think that’s how to be a good coach.

Role-modeling also extends to mistakes. If you want your kids to learn from the mistakes they make, you need to do the same. When you make a mistake, and we all do, don’t dwell on it. Be a role model to your child in coping with having made a mistake: Own it, apologize for it, and don’t make it the next time.

Prioritize Your Absolutes

As parents, you will have Absolutes—behaviors you absolutely expect from family members. They reflect your values and thus are different for every family. There are no right or wrong items for you and your spouse to put on this list.

Here’s what an Absolute means: You will absolutely not tolerate a behavior and will stop what you’re doing to address that issue immediately, taking decisive action and brooking no explanations. These are the lines in the sand that, when crossed, provoke a reaction that conveys to your child that he has gone too far. Absolute means absolutely consistent: Every time this behavior happens, you are resolute and take action in response. Coordinate and predetermine your response with any other adult who helps to parent your child.

Keep your family’s list of absolutes very short.

Keep your family’s list of Absolutes very short. These are things you’re going to go to the mat for, and if you choose too many, you’ll be on the mat too often. You won’t be able to effectively parent with such rigid parameters. For example, in many families, hitting is never tolerated. If you and your spouse determine that will be one of your Absolutes, then every time you see your child hit someone, you always need to react with a consequence. Many families use a swift Time-Out in these cases.

Give Good Directions

Children need simple, clear, well-thought-out directions, and often more specifics than we adults realize. Miscommunication can be a frequent cause of your child getting into a disciplinary situation.

Learning to give good directions reduces miscommunications and frustration as well as avoids some problem situations. Being able to successfully follow your directions helps build your child’s sense of his or her own competence, which is important for developing self-esteem.

Here are some tips on how to give effective directions:

• Ensure you have your child’s attention. This means turning off the TV or getting in between your child and whatever electronic gadget is in front of him.
• Break your directions down step by step: First do this; next do that; then this, and so on.
• Offer a positive outcome, using if/then and when/then statements, which tie an outcome to a behavior. For example: “When you finish picking up your toys, then we will be able to go meet friends at the park.”
• Have your child repeat the instructions back to you or paraphrase them to ensure they are understood.
• Finish with praise, even if you had to help them complete the task.

Enforce Limits and Rules

Children must be aware of boundaries and expectations. The clash between what your child wants and where you have set limits is a flashpoint for behavioral situations. This struggle is a natural manifestation of growth and development, and family conflicts are very normal. Enforcing the limits you’ve determined are appropriate for your child is a key strategy, one you’ve likely already tried to implement. If you had mixed results in terms of getting your child to stay within the limits you’ve set, then this is a strategy you’ll want to use.

First, make sure you’ve explained your rules. Use the tips from the Universal Strategy of giving good directions to ensure your child understands them. Second, role-model this behavior, especially as your child is younger and first learning it. Third, make sure to embed a positive reinforcement, an incentive, for a job well done that is appropriate for this rule. (Example: After dinner, the rule is that your child clears the table. Once the table is cleared, dessert can be served.) Be consistent so your children know this is a set rule they must always abide by. And, finally, praise them when they do a good job and follow the rules.

Enforcing limits is an extension of those rules. Here is how to follow through on limits:

• Firmly, but politely, tell your children they’ve reached their limit.
• Remind them what they need to do at this point (i.e., turn off the TV, come in from playing outside, do their homework, etc.).
• Give them a chance to follow your directions. Don’t give them too long—just enough as is appropriate to whatever activity is involved at that moment.
• If your children follow your directions, use positive reinforcement/praise.
• If they did not follow your directions, step in and enforce the limit yourself. (Some parents give a warning, which is okay.)
• Depending on the situation and your child’s age, a consequence may be warranted. Most often, a natural, negative consequence is appropriate: “Since you weren’t able to turn off the TV on your own when I told you to, I’m going to have to hold onto the remote control and do it for you next time.”

Allowing your children to make their own mistakes—reach your limits, go over them, and suffer a consequence—is a necessary part of parenting. It’s never fun, but this underscores the need for consistency. Your children will learn faster when you have clear rules and enforce consistent limits.

Please don’t misunderstand. We’re not saying that the first time you detail your expectations to your children they will comply. All of this takes time and plenty of repetition. When your children know what to expect and where those limits are, they will eventually act accordingly.

Redirect Your Child’s Focus

Redirection is a strategy that you can use to defuse a situation before it explodes. Basically, when you see a problem about to start, you redirect your child to another activity and thereby avoid the problem altogether.

This strategy with younger children is a valuable lesson, because if your child can begin redirecting himself, he will find as he gets older, he will be more prepared to avoid many problems of adolescence, such as peer pressure, cliques in school, or even fights.

By watching a child or a group of children, you can get a sense as to when an activity needs to change. With younger children, it may often be that when they’re playing with toys, and one toy becomes the focus of the entire group, you may have to redirect a child who’s already had a turn with that toy to another toy, thus enabling his friend to have a turn. When kids are a little older, it may be that you sense the game of tag in the backyard is getting out of balance because the biggest, fastest kid has won too many rounds. At that point, suggesting a snack or bringing out another game for them to play will allow for a change of focus.

A key challenge is making that new toy or activity attractive enough to steal your child’s attention away from the potentially problematic situation. The most strategic parents will hold something like a snack or a different toy back until a potential problem crops up, and then bring it out at the proper moment.

Act Like a Coach

In many cases, acting like a coach can be a winning strategy as a parent because it both educates and sets positive behaviors in motion, which create helpful antecedents. Coaches cheer their athletes, but at the same time point out what skills need to be worked on.

The coaching strategy is made up of a discussion with your child just before getting into a situation that’s known to be troublesome. You need to be very specific in terms of naming the behavioral tendencies your child has had in similar situations in the past that concern you.

For example, if your child tends to get wound up and act crazy in a group situation, you need to be proactive and say exactly that: “We are going to John’s birthday party, and sometimes when you are in a big group of excited children you run around and knock other children over. If you are going to do that, we can’t stay at the party. Do you understand?”

You are soliciting your child’s agreement that he will work to manage the behavior that you have very specifically named. It’s helpful to prompt him again just as he is entering the situation, and even during the situation once or twice if necessary. You take what would otherwise be an impulsive behavior and bring it to his conscious awareness before the behavior occurs, and then keep him thinking about it throughout the entire situation. The idea is that he’ll then be more likely to self-manage that behavior.

Letting your child know that you have had the same emotion she is having is a powerful lesson.

A good technique for validating your child’s feelings in a coaching setting is to personalize your empathy: “I understand how you feel; when I was a kid, the same thing happened to me, and I didn’t like it very much.” Letting your child know that you have had the same emotion she is having is a powerful lesson. This is central to the idea of shaping your child’s behavior in a positive direction. In using validating statements, you’re identifying with her emotions, and then coaching her on how to keep her behavior under control despite having these emotions.

Keep in mind that the more difficult the behavior, the more planning and coaching needs to occur. And just like coaching a sports team, your children aren’t necessarily going to get every concept the first time. You have to keep coaching them through those difficult situations again and again, continuing to provide positive reinforcement, and also have some post-game meetings. The great coaches move forward from a loss, taking what they can learn and applying it in the next game.

Hold Practice Sessions

This strategy is for situations that give you or your child trouble. Practice sessions can be held for anything: a trip to the grocery store, a meal in a restaurant, or even calming down after a tantrum. This strategy goes hand in hand with the Universal Strategy of coaching.

Start by explaining you noticed she had trouble the last time she tried this activity. So you want to show her how it’s done and give her some practice time. Give her your full attention, with no other children around, and practice at a time when you have no scheduled activities or deadlines. Go through the entire situation and use key points to explain important considerations, but if things get heated or your child slips into the problem behavior, you are ready to bail out.

The beauty of practice sessions is that they build familiarity with the situation for both you and your child. If all goes well, they give your child a positive, successful experience that you can then remind her of before the next “real” situation. These sessions give you a calm setting in which to show your child what to expect during this situation. They also give you an opportunity to explain how you want to see your child behave in spite of any upsetting feelings she may experience during this situation. Another benefit to practice sessions is that they allow you to practice keeping your priorities in perspective when facing a potential behavior problem. You will learn just as much from these practice sessions as your child in terms of managing your own responses.

Using this strategy, the practice needs to be the only focus. In other words, when dinner is late and you have to pick up a few things at the grocery store, this is not the time to practice going to the store with your child. (You can read a step-by-step account of a grocery store practice session in Chapter 3.) Practice sessions can be a big time commitment, but this is also one of the most helpful strategies for parents and children.

Practice sessions are one of the most helpful strategies for parents and children.

Ignore the Problem Behavior

Ignoring problem behavior involves a little reverse psychology. If an antecedent and consequence make it more or less likely that a behavior will be repeated, then the absence of either should have the opposite effect.

In other words, sometimes getting your attention in any way, bad or good, can be reinforcing to your child, thereby making it more likely that the behavior will occur again in the future. So, when your child doesn’t get any attention for a behavior, often he will stop doing it. At the very least, ignoring a behavior is a neutral factor; it avoids escalation and doesn’t reinforce anything. It also allows you to remain consistent in your responses.

Has your child ever had a tantrum in an empty room?

Has your child ever had a tantrum in an empty room? No; the point of a tantrum is to get your attention and draw you into an emotional drama. This is why it’s so crucial to understand the ABCs of behavior. Ignoring is best used when your attention, or reaction, is reinforcing to the behavior, or when your child’s behavior doesn’t engage you.

For example, let’s say you observe your child getting upset with a friend at a playdate and come whining to you. You do have the option of stepping in. However, if you choose to ignore the whining, your child is forced to turn his attention back to his friend and the kids may now work out their problem and keep playing. In this case, you have refused to reinforce the behavior of whining, and the consequence of the kids working it out on their own will naturally reinforce problem-solving the next time they have a disagreement. Note that using the ignoring strategy on behaviors you do not want to reinforce does not mean that you ignore the children. In this situation, parents need to keep their eyes (or ears) open to ensure the disagreement they are having doesn’t escalate. If the kids start to yell at each other or hit each other, you will need to intervene.

Here’s a different example: If your child is using foul language, your reaction may simply reinforce the behavior and make it more likely that your child repeats the behavior. Getting upset and making a big to-do about a bad word feeds the situation, because the child gets a great deal of attention for his behavior. Ignoring is the neutral factor because it doesn’t reinforce anything. Your child gets no attention and is likely to stop saying that bad word. Of course, the age of the child plays a huge factor in cursing, and this must be taken into account as well.

It is hard work to not take action sometimes, but in certain instances, pretending to not notice a behavior and doing nothing can be the best strategy.

Disengage from Behavior Out of Your Control

Disengaging is the art of responding appropriately to behavior that’s out of your control without escalating a problem. It’s not ignoring, but instead a neutral, superficial response that does not feed into the heightened emotions and charged behaviors of a difficult situation. Typically, at these times, your child is trying to draw you into the fray, and disengaging is a way to respond without adding fuel to the fire. It works because you’re not inadvertently reinforcing negative behavior. The typical sequence is that your child argues and you argue back. But what is the point of that? If you engage in an argument with your child, you often add to the emotion of the situation, which won’t go well, and you reinforce her arguing with your attention. Basically, we’re buying ourselves more arguments from our kids, rather than fewer.

Disengaging is a way to respond without adding fuel to the fire.

Use automatic responses to disengage. The response, “I understand that,” is a terrific phrase you can use when, for example, your child is upset about a rule or a direction. That statement places the burden back on the child to decide how to act to fix whatever is the problem and does not rope you into taking responsibility for anything other than understanding your child’s feelings.

If your child tries to draw you into an argument about whatever she is unhappy about, instead of repeatedly answering her with no, you can politely but matter-of-factly respond with, “I’ve already told you. . . .” Each time your child asks, you provide the same short, calm response. The idea from a behavioral standpoint is that you reduce the frequency of the child’s behavior by simply not engaging, which provides no reinforcement to arguing.

CHILD: I don’t want to go upstairs and brush my teeth. I want to finish watching this TV show!

YOU: I understand that.

CHILD: It’s my favorite show.

YOU: I understand that. It’s your favorite show. But it’s bedtime.

CHILD: So why can’t I watch it till the end?

YOU: I already told you, it’s bedtime.

CHILD: But it’s a really good show!

YOU: I understand that. But what did I already tell you?

You have to stick with this strategy, as well as your composed demeanor. You can’t get angry, and you can’t use an automatic response five times and then give in on the sixth because that reinforces the behavior more strongly than if you’d just given in the first time. Plus, that only teaches your child that if she keeps at you, she can get you to change your behavior.

Yell Sparingly

If used very sparingly, yelling can let your children know immediately that whatever they are doing is serious and they need to STOP RIGHT NOW.

The word sparingly is a key distinction. While so many of us go straight to yelling as a first reaction, what that does is devalues the yell as an attention grabber, so that eventually your child doesn’t even pay attention to it. If everything sounds the same, your child has no way to differentiate what is a really important limit from something that is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. When something really serious does happen, there’s no higher level you can go to in order to convey that seriousness and urgency.

You want to be able to pull out your Code Red tactic when you need it.

It’s crucial that you have something in your parenting tool box that signals Code Red and that your child will know not to ignore you. Yelling can be that strategy. With small children, it might be yelling when they’re about to run into the road. With older children, it could be, “Don’t touch that hot stove!” You want to be able to pull out your Code Red tactic when you need it and be 100 percent certain it will get his attention.

Praise Positive Behavior

Praise is a simple strategy. It calls for carefully chosen words that call out specific behaviors in order to meaningfully reinforce what you see your child doing right. Used correctly, praise is a consequence, and a powerful one at that. It can also become a positive antecedent, something that contributes to future stellar behavior.

Look for ways to catch your children being good, and then praise them for the behavior you see. It may be that this is new behavior they’re exhibiting, in which you can express happiness and perhaps congratulations on a skill they’ve developed. “I see some very nice sharing going on with your brother today. I like to see that!”

But it’s possible that your child is now showing you good behavior after learning his or her lesson about bad behavior in the past, and that warrants well-deserved kudos, as well. Here’s how to tweak the way you use praise to acknowledge progress from your child: “I saw how nice you were sharing toys with your brother. I know it’s difficult for you to let him use some of your special toys, and I can see how hard you’re working at it. Great job, honey!”

Praise as an antecedent works like this: At first it’s a consequence of doing something good; it is then carried over and remembered by your child before the next similar situation, which makes it more likely he or she will behave well again.

The most powerful praise is immediate, specific, and sincere.

The most powerful praise is immediate, specific, and sincere: immediate, in that it takes place in a reasonable amount of time directly after the display of good behavior; specific, because your child wants to know exactly what she did well—which means praising those things that the child can control (effort, persistence, resilience, etc.) instead of those things she can’t (intelligence, beauty, etc.); and sincere, because a kid can spot a fake from a mile away.

Third-party praise can be extraordinarily potent as well. Brag about how your children did something great to someone who wasn’t there. This can be a spouse, grandparent, or friend. You can do this in front of your children, or even when you know they’ll overhear you, such as when you’re on the phone:

YOU: Hi, Mom, guess what your granddaughter did today? She was outside playing with her friends and saw me pull in with the groceries. She stopped playing and came right over to help carry the bags inside. What a thoughtful girl, and such a hard worker!

Surprise praise, or intermittent praise, can be an extremely powerful reinforcement, as well. Telling your child, out of the blue, that you like something he did, at a time in which there’s no expressed need for praise, will generate positive results for a long while. Psychologists call this intermittent reinforcement, referring to the unpredictable intervals at which the reinforcement is given. That it is unexpected is what triggers a very strong drive in the child’s brain to achieve that kind of reinforcement, or praise, again.

It’s important to learn what kind of praise is most reinforcing to your child. Some kids like quiet praise, even just a pat on the shoulder. Others like the bigger celebration—whooping and high-fiving. Despite your own personal preferences, you need to fit the praise to your child’s tastes, or you run the risk of your praise backfiring to make it less likely he or she will repeat the behavior in the future. A common example of this is making such a huge to-do about something that you embarrass your quiet, shy child, who makes a mental note to never succeed so well again in order to avoid this uncomfortable feeling.

Appropriate kinds of praise should be used liberally, but don’t praise to the point that it loses its meaning and potency. Avoid superlatives like best or perfect because they ring hollow to children. Too much praise can be counterproductive, as the child can’t separate what is meaningful praise from those positive words that Mom or Dad always use about everything.

Offer Positive Reinforcement or Rewards

Positive reinforcement can be among the most effective behavioral tools in your parental tool box. Tangible rewards that parents use, such as candy, toys, or stickers, are a form of positive reinforcement, but giving accolades has more long-term benefits. Both are that carrot, dangling out there in front of a child, who can sense the benefit to herself and will strive to reach it. When you read through this strategy, remember the word reward can mean verbal recognition or something tangible.

Reward can mean verbal recognition or something tangible.

There are many children for whom a regular schedule of goals and rewards are what keeps them on track because they learn to associate a positive behavior with a positive outcome. Some children really thrive with a very structured routine of what to do when and what rewards they’ll get for certain behaviors. The clinical phrase for this when discussing behaviorism is “rewards at regular intervals.”

A reward chart is the most common example. To create a chart, you need to list the expected behaviors and actions you want your child to do, and then mark off every time he does them. The reward is a goal for achieving a number of marks within a certain time frame. So, let’s say you make out a list of chores and good behaviors for your child, and every time he accomplishes one, you put a gold star on the chart. The child’s aim might be to get 10 gold stars a week to earn the reward of going the movie theater that weekend. The idea of a rewards chart can be amended in a plethora of ways to work for your family’s particular situation. Just be aware that some kids will try to game this system, and if that happens in your home, you may want to consider using recognition and rewards in different ways.

Other children will respond most strongly to “rewards at unexpected intervals.” For them, the timing of the positive outcome is what creates the potency. Studies have shown that surprise benefits have the most power and that when a reward comes out of nowhere, it reinforces whatever behavior it’s associated with and cements that in the child’s mind.

This means that you really have to be careful in how you implement a reward. One way to do this is to wait to see the good behavior that you want to reinforce, and then drop the reward into the child’s lap: “Fantastic job on your science project! I want to see you do more of that kind of work, so I’ve decided that microscope you wanted from the store the other day might be a really good idea. Let’s go get it and see how it works!”

A less effective approach is saying something like, “If you do great on your science project, I’ll buy you that microscope you wanted.” Rewards that are contingent on actions are a slippery slope: Pretty soon the child will demand a prize before doing anything that’s outside of his or her interest area. That’s not to mention the definition of “doing great” may be different in your child’s mind from what you had in mind.

Use Negative Consequences Through Punishment

As with any skill that has to be developed, there will be the normal setbacks and slipups as your child learns good behavior. We don’t immediately punish a child who makes mistakes while learning to read; instead, we correct the mistakes, we teach over and over again, and we praise effort and eventual success. Please know that punishment is one method of trying to control your child’s behavior, but as we’ve learned in this chapter, it’s by no means the only method.

Punishment is one method of trying to control your child’s behavior, but it’s by no means the only method.

In the ABC concept of behavior, punishment falls into the category of implementing negative consequences, which make it less likely your child will repeat the behavior. You want to cause some displeasure, enough so that your child will remember that feeling when he or she is at the juncture of a similar situation and making a decision about how to act. You want your child to associate bad behavior with a negative outcome.

How do you know you’re choosing the right negative consequence? Oh, you’ll know you’ve stumbled into an effective negative consequence when you hit on something that causes a great deal of displeasure. The most effective negative consequence is different for each child.

Just as the praise strategy calls for carefully chosen actions that call out specific behaviors in order to meaningfully reinforce what you see your child doing right, negative consequences should be carefully chosen to respond to specific behaviors in order to reinforce against their happening again.

The most powerful negative consequence is immediate, specific, and within the context of the behavior you’re trying to stop. And just as you can overdo praise until it loses its value, you can overdo punishments as well. If overused, the displeasure your child feels can turn to a feeling of futility, and then the punishment loses its potency. If your child always loses his favorite toy as a consequence for bad behavior, pretty soon that toy won’t be the favorite anymore and taking it away won’t have any effect on his behavior. You need to avoid overreliance on a handful of negative consequences and change them up from time to time to keep them useful.

Regardless of how often you use it, the type of negative consequence needs to logically relate in some way to the behavior you’re punishing. If your son throws a toy at his sibling, he loses that toy. If your daughter rides her bike to a friend’s house without wearing a helmet, she loses the privileges of going to her friend’s house for the weekend and riding her bike.

A great way to be effective using negative consequences with your children is to follow up an hour, day, or week (depending on the circumstances) later with praise that is directly related to their behavior since they experienced the negative consequence: “Honey, I like to see how you put your helmet on every time you ride your bike now, without me even reminding you. I know it was hard to be grounded last weekend, but you’ve really learned that safety is important, and I’m proud of you.” By pairing the negative consequence with subsequent praise, you’re shaping their behavior twice, and pointing them toward the behavior you want to see more of in the future. The pairing also reinforces the idea of starting out each day with a clean slate.

By pairing the negative consequence with subsequent praise, you’re shaping their behavior twice.

Punishments can go beyond causing displeasure, however. Spanking, for example, is a severely negative consequence that causes pain. While it interrupts a bad behavior at that moment, psychological research does not support its benefit as a parenting strategy. It really does not increase positive behavior and decrease negative behavior. Further, there are risks involved with spanking, which can lower your child’s self-esteem, academic achievement, peer relationships, conflict resolution skills, and so on.

Call a Time-Out

A Time-Out is one of the most used, and in some cases, overused discipline strategies available to parents. Too often, it’s the go-to response when something else might have worked better. It is a valid tool, but perhaps not for the reasons you may think.

A Time-Out is a negative consequence for a behavior: Your child loses the ability to be around family and friends for a period of time. It interrupts whatever he is doing and allows for a cool-down period. But in order for this to work as a negative reinforcement, to make it more likely the behavior will not be repeated, your child has to have the positive context of a Time-In. The leverage here is the relationship and positive attention the child is accustomed to receiving, and the loss thereof. The Time-Out strategy goes hand-in-hand with the Time-In strategy of cultivating a positive relationship. “It seems like you’re having a hard time being careful in the pool. I’ve already warned you to be more careful, so now you need to go inside and have a Time-Out. When you’re ready to follow the rules, you can come back outside and swim with us again. I’ll set the timer for five minutes.”

Remember, children are looking for attention. If your child gets attention for bad behavior, and you spend more time with her, she will continue to try to get that attention. If you spend more time with her when she is behaving well, she will continue along those lines.

A Time-Out can be in the child’s room, in a corner, on the stairs, anywhere. That detail isn’t what makes the strategy. You can find a breakdown of giving a Time-Out during a tantrum in Chapter 3.

In younger children, a Time-Out has a mystique about it. They link it with punishment and getting fussed at, and so some kids respond even if a Time-In is not all that great. But especially as kids get a little older, the Time-In component is what gives the Time-Out its potency. This is why starting early to develop that positive, happy family relationship is crucial to all discipline methods.

Insist on an Apology and Restitution

Whether accidental or intentional, if your child’s behavior causes harm or inconvenience to another person—child or adult—then a follow-up apology and restitution should be implemented. He needs to say he’s sorry, and needs to make it right, whether that’s paying for a broken toy or cleaning up a mess. Restitution can take many forms and should be undertaken by your child as a natural consequence of his actions.

Moreover, it’s important to consider restitution not so much as a consequence for behavior (though having to clean up multiple accidental spills may be noxious enough to the child to make her be a little more careful), but as something that is the right thing to do. You’re guiding your child to develop greater empathy and consideration of others. “When you broke Dylan’s toy, you didn’t realize it was a favorite from his grandfather, and you need to make it right. That toy costs twenty dollars at the store, so you’re going to need to do enough chores around the house to earn that money to replace Dylan’s toy. We’re going to walk next door, and I want you to tell Dylan that you’re sorry and that you’ll get him a new one.”

He needs to say he’s sorry and make it right.

The idea of apologizing and making something right often brings up the concept of intent. Have you had your children say they are sorry, perhaps to a sibling, but they roll their eyes and say it in such a way that it is obvious they don’t mean it? It is so frustrating. You want your children to mean it because that shows they’re actually developing that empathy and consideration we want them to acquire.

There’s a saying that psychologists often tell parents: “Parent the behavior, not the intent.” The intent will follow, eventually, as your child matures. You cannot force someone to feel something, but you can force him or her to say something. Sometimes restitution and apology really just take your child through the motions, but it’s necessary nonetheless.

• • •

There are strong emotions on all sides when dealing with a behavioral situation. By understanding the ABCs and the ways in which these Universal Strategies work, you can keep your focus on helping to shape your child’s behavior positively toward appropriate ways to handle a situation.

Kids will say mean things sometimes; often they are simply communicating their vexation in the only way they know how. So when your child says, “I hate you,” or “I won’t invite you to my birthday party,” what you should hear is, “You’re making me mad,” and “I want you to know how angry I am.” Try not to take any of this personally and use the strategy of disengaging. (But please realize these words can be deeply wounding to siblings or friends, so you’ll need to make this clear if your child uses them toward another child.)

All of these Universal Strategies are adaptable to your specific situation and can be mixed and matched with each other to give you an unlimited number of parenting tactics. Some of them will work better than others for a particular child. Some will work better than others for a particular issue, such as tantrums, homework, or bedtime. In Part II of Stress-Free Discipline, we take you through some specific examples of how to implement these strategies within the context of common disciplinary problem areas.