Written by Laura Riffel and Edited by Ann Turnbull (at www.pbis.org/families )
"Positive behavior support, often called PBS, is not just for schools. Parents can use the same ideas to create a better environment for the entire family. First, let’s look at what PBS is:
Positive behavior support does not mean changing the child; rather, it means creating a new environment that supports the positive behavior you want to achieve. It means creating a plan that determines who will help and what you will do differently. So how do you do this?
Let’s take a hypothetical child: Let’s call the child Taylor.
We want Taylor to eat a healthy, balanced dinner. Let’s brainstorm reasons that Taylor may be refusing to eat:
Let’s test the reasons that Taylor won’t eat dinner:
As each reason is tested, note which one causes Taylor to eat more dinner.
Let’s assume that more is eaten when Taylor plans the menu.
After several successful meals, as Taylor is planning the meal tell Taylor that you are going to fix 3 things. Taylor gets to choose all three but they must be from the choices you present.
Notice how two of the choices were the things that Taylor has already proven likelihood of eating. Tell Taylor that if the plate is clean, it will be Taylor’s choice the next evening.
As Taylor eats more and more, give increasing praise for eating dinner and for doing a good job of planning a good meal. Keep changing the choices to healthy choices until you are actually replacing the macaroni and cheese and peanut butter and jelly with more healthy choices.
We changed the environment, and it produced more positive results than demanding that Taylor eat dinner. How many of us remember sitting at the table until it was bedtime because we refused to eat our vegetables? I doubt it really made us want to eat them again the next time.
In the interest of peace and harmony, does it matter if we altered the child’s environment to get what we want or do we want him or her to do it because we say so? Most of us do the things we do because there is a payoff. Would you go to work every day if you did not get paid? We do not have to pay our children to be good, but we do have to alter the environment so there is a payoff for good behavior. Usually the pay off is more attention from parents or a friend.
Most of the time our children misbehave because they want attention and the only way they can think of to get it is to misbehave. How many times have you been in the grocery store behind a mother who is asking her child the following questions?
Have your child switch roles with you. Tell him or her ahead of time that you are going to practice asking for things and learning the difference between yes and no. Tell your child this is going to be fun because s/he gets to be the parent for an hour. Don’t worry about what people will think of you in the store. Think about what they think of you when your child is screaming “I want…” Walk through the cereal aisle at the store and do the following:
Tell your child ahead of time to tell you “No” to whatever you ask for.
On the same days that you practice saying “no,” also practice saying “yes.” Have him or her model saying “thank you” and then compliment him or her on his or her manners. You will need to model this the same way you did for the “no” model.
It isn’t a miracle, and it isn’t going to happen over night. But soon, you will start to see a difference when you tell your child “no.” It is fair for him or her to understand why you said, “no,” so explaining your reason is reasonable. Your children will respect you for not using the “I’m the mommy that’s why,” and you will respect him or her for using good manners by accepting your reason. Be honest in your reason. “It’s too expensive.” “It’s not good for you.” “I don’t have the money this week,” are all good responses.
The most important lesson is to practice, practice, and practice the new behavior. You have to be consistent. If you say “no” and give a reason, then don’t give in and purchase the item if further begging ensues. This only tells the child that you have a breaking point and to keep trying. If you’ve said “no” and given a reason, then you should not say “no” again nor give another reason. When your child accepts your answer and your reason, then it is very important for you to compliment him or her on this good behavior. It is also very important that both parents and/or caregivers are consistent.
What can you do if the above does not work? The truth is every child is different, even children in the same family. What works for some children doesn’t work for all. Here are some other ideas:
This is a personal experience that worked well for my own children: We quickly became indebted to fast food restaurants, video stores, and the popular teen clothing establishments. We investigated the reason for this loss of money and determined: 1) we let it happen because we kept giving our children more money, and 2) our children didn’t understand the concept of budgeting. We decided to remedy this by creating a budget box. We bought a plastic recipe box and put in envelopes and labeled them:
Each month we put in a certain amount of money in each envelope. If our children wanted to order pizza, they had to check the budget box and pay for it from the appropriate envelope. Suddenly, coupons were very important to them when coupons were a dirty word when mom and dad footed the bill. Suddenly, those extra cokes at the drive through were not quite as important. They considered every purchase and weighed the options. If we had to drive our children somewhere, each child had to pay us one dollar out of the budget box. We wanted our children to understand that when they had their own cars, they would need to budget trips instead of driving all over town wasting gas. We did not have to say “no” when asked about purchases. All we had to say was “check your envelope.” We allowed no trading from one “account” to the other. The children were responsible for their own box. They quickly realized that decisions regarding the whole month were more important than living for the moment. This created an environment where everyone was happy. Our children learned to think before they acted, and it was good practice for when they became independent young adults.
This method was far superior to ranting and raving about money which was an abstract idea to them. They saw that we had a checkbook, credit cards, and cash and did not understand that we would not have those items if we spent money every time we saw something we wanted. If they wanted something, our children learned to save from one month to next to make major purchases. We did not give them extra money; when we said “no” we meant “no,” and our reason was our budget.
We praised our children:In the world of PBS, we changed the environment (basically we changed our behavior, we didn’t dole out money any longer). We taught our children a new skill, and we provided positive feedback when they performed their new skills. Our hypothesis was that our children didn’t understand the concept of budgeting. We proved that hypothesis when they learned to budget for themselves."
If you would like futher information on this type of approach, please call Jean O'Dell at PLLC
863-534-7440 or click here to e-mail her:
Jean O'Dell .
