If punishment is used, careful consideration must also be used. We must consider why the behavior is occurring. If we do not, and blindly punish the behavior instead, we never truly find out what the behaver (the person engaging in the behavior) is getting out of performing the behavior. So what does this mean? The behaver now has no appropriate way of communicating what they want. Most likely they will find other means of communicating their needs with new negative behaviors.
So it is important to take this into consideration. We need to first figure out why the behavior is occurring and second treat the problem behavior. As we treat the behavior we will be teaching a more effective means to communicate the behaver's needs.
So if a two year is screaming because he wants a cookie, many parents will either give into the screaming (very dangerous!) or punish, or attempt to punish, the behavior. Instead they should ask why is this behavior occurring? They want a cookie. So we need to teach the child to ask for a cookie appropriately and only give cookies to the child when he asks appropriately.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
My child asks for food items he wants by saying please and thank you. The problem is, he will sometimes ask for a cookie or some other food iteam at a time of day when it would not be appropriate for me to give it to him or when he has already had too much of that food iteam. What do you do when your newly turned 2 year old says, "can i have a cookie please?" and you can't give it to them? When I tell him "cookies are not for breakfast, you can choose either oatmeal or cereal" or "no cookies right now you can choose either fish crackers or banana" that is when the temper tantrum ensues.
ReplyDeleteTelling a child that "no it's not time to do (XYZ)" is exactly what you should be doing, it's a parent's job to decide what is healthy, safe, and appropriate for their child, so props to you for setting guidelines. When your son cries or whines I would let them do so, he is still not getting that cookie. You can ignore what he is doing until he is calm, then you can give him attention and affection. If he goes back to crying when you do, you can go back to ignoring him. Also it is important he doesn't learn to chain behaviors together (so he does not think, if I cry first then I get attention) you can break the chaining by waiting a minute or two while he is quite before providing attention.
ReplyDeleteThe other important point I wanted to make is make sure he is not getting anything when he tantrums, no attention (this includes eye contact and yelling), no cookie, no toys, etc.
Even if you do not provide anything when he tantrums he still may have an emotion response when angry (which is the tantrum), but it should be short lived once he realizes he will not get anything out of it. My son (14 mos) cries when we take things away at times, usually only when he is tired, but it is an emotional response and we have never given him an item when he cries, so the amount of crying and frequency has decreased over time.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah. Just let him tantrum, but don't give him attention during the tantrum. Thank you.
ReplyDelete