“No, No! DON’T. TAKE. MY. BOOK!!!!” she cried, running over and yanking the book out of his hands.
He had recently learned to crawl, and his new life goal was to put every object into his mouth.
“THAT’S MINE.”
You’d think it was her favorite treasured book, but really it was just one of many books that she enjoyed reading. That’s just how it is though, isn’t it? When someone else wants it, its specialness suddenly spikes and we feel extra possessive for it. I’m still like this, even as I try to train my daughter to respond otherwise.
How would you respond in this situation? Make her give it back? Encourage her to share with him? Ignore it? Tell her to take turns with him? Let her keep it and distract him with something else to play with?
Here’s what I do: I remind her to be more gentle, and then I have her practice being more gentle right then and there.
“Sweetie, you need to be more gentle with your little brother. Let’s try that again. This time, gently ask him if you can use the book, and if he’s okay with it, take it away- gently. Let’s see it.”
I place the book back in his hands and watch her try again, this time doing everything with more gentleness and respect.
Of course, she imagines he says yes, and then she scampers away with the book.
She and I will have a talk later about the heart of the issue and where this vicious sense of “mine” comes from, but for now, I’m focusing on curbing the immediate rough behavior before it becomes a habit. Because habits are much harder to break, but correcting early on is relatively easy.
Similar scenarios take places throughout the week, but each time, we re-do everything and she practices replacing her rough behavior with gentle behavior. And each time, she is a little more gentle than the last. Nowadays, even when I’m not in the same gated space, I can hear her gently asking him for the toy he has. She’ll gently pry it out of his hands and usually replace it with another toy.
It’s not because I have an angel toddler. It’s because early on, before a habit of roughness or unkindness formed, I trained her to replace that undesired behavior with gentleness and respect. I did it by making her practice and rehearse gentleness and respect at every opportunity until it became second nature to her to respond this way.
Replacing an undesired with a desired behavior
This is one of the keys to successfully training a child in any habit. You can’t just tell them to be more gentle and think they’ll just do it next time. It’s unnatural for most children to be gentle like that, so you need to train every part of them- their mind, their voice, their muscles- to understand what gentleness looks like, sounds like, and feels like. They need to learn how to control their muscles to be calm instead of grabby from the very moment they see “my object” in baby brother’s hands. Then they need to learn how to speak kindly and respectfully to baby brother instead of roughly. Then they need to know how it feels to hold something and slowly remove it, which is a very different motion than wrenching an object away. Replace the undesired behavior with a new positive behavior.
Too often, we think we can just tell a child to do something differently and expect that they know how to do it. Then later, when they simply repeat the undesired behavior, we get frustrated. We say things like, “Didn’t you hear what I said earlier?” or “I told you to stop!” We wonder why they aren’t improving like they promised they would.
I don’t think it’s always because they’re blatantly ignoring you or rebelling. At least, not at first. In the beginning, they might really truly mean to improve. However, as time passes and they find that they are being just as rough or unkind as before, then they just don’t know any other way to do things and their bodies start being somewhat programmed to keep doing what they’ve been doing; it’s a habit. It becomes a source of frustration for you and a source of annoyance for them to hear you nagging about something they don’t really know how to change.
Despair not. Even if you’ve reached this point of bad habits, rehearsing good behavior is still super effective! You might just have to rehearse a lot more before the new habit begins.
Taking a lesson from sports
Does this seem excessive to you? Redoing and replaying and replaying the same scene until your kid starts doing it himself naturally? It shouldn’t. We do this all the time when we really care about achieving something. In high school, we once had a basketball game where we were weak with our rebounds. During a timeout, our coach repeatedly told us we needed to get more rebounds, but our performance must have continued to falter because I think we lost and, at the next practice, we did a lot of rebound drills. We even played games where teams earned points not by making baskets, but by getting rebounds. And then more rebound drills, drills, drills. What do you think happened at the next game? That’s right. We all went for rebounds like it was nobody’s business.
This didn’t happen because he told us to get more rebounds. It happened because he trained our bodies and muscles such that every time we saw a shot go up, it became instinctive to find a body and push back. Every time we saw a ball bounce off a rim, it became goal #1 to put all our efforts into reaching the ball first.
If that’s the kind of effort we can invest into something like winning a ball game, then surely we can make a case for putting in more effort and practice in shaping our children’s behavior.
More examples, please
If you’ve been in the habit of letting things slide, or still aren’t really sure how to go about replacing undesired behavior with positive behavior, here are some examples that might help:
Instead of: “Give the toy back to your baby sister.”
Try this: “Let’s try that again. This time you need to ask first, and then gently take it away. Go ahead.”
Instead of: “Stop leaving your clothes on the floor!”
Try this: “Let’s try all of these again. I want you to put on all the clothes that you have on the floor. Okay. Now. Take off the scarf and hang it up. Now take off your jacket and hang it up. Now take off the black pants (that are over the jeans your child was originally wearing) and fold it and put it back. Take off your socks and put them in the hamper.”
Instead of: “Stop blowing bubbles in your milk.”
Try this: “Let’s try that again. I want you to hold your milk cup and imagine you reallyreallyreally want to blow bubbles. Oh yeah. That would be so fun. BUT WAIT. Control yourself. Control your mouth. Stare at that milk and force yourself to just DRINK it. Drink. Drink. There you go. Just like that.”
Suppose someone is being unkind to your non-confrontational child at school.
Instead of: “You should tell him to stop taking your pencils.”
Try this: “Let’s try it now. I’ll pretend to be the kid taking the pencils, and when I reach into your imaginary desk, you strongly say, ‘STOP it. If you need a pencil, ask me and I’ll lend you one, but you can’t just take my things without asking.'” (Or whatever response you think is appropriate)
Instead of: “I already answered you! Stop asking!”
Try this: “Let’s try that again. You really want to have ice cream and I already said we would after dinner… but you still want it right now. Think about how badly you want it… but hold that thought in your head. Don’t say it out loud. Now think about how I already said we would have it after dinner. And then think about how I’m not going to change my mind just because you’re nagging me. Now control your mouth and decide not to ask me again and just walk away.” Child thinks as you direct his thoughts, and then walks away. “Good, just like that. Now let’s do it again one more time.”
The funny thing is, kids oftentimes really enjoy rehearsing these scenarios together. In a way, it feels like you’re playing with them. I think they also like knowing that you do really understand just how badly they want that ice cream right now, and that understanding actually counts for a lot- even if your answer remains unchanged. It sure beats having your kids feel like you’re just nagging at them again for the same old thing.
Those are just a few examples, but I’m sure you can find ways to get creative and give your child opportunities to rehearse. When it isn’t practical to actually physically rehearse something, using your imagination to walk through a mental situation is a good second option.
Conclusion
Still, I always have to remind myself that ultimately, good behavior isn’t even what it’s all about. But it is our responsibility to train our children, and intentionally shaping behavior is one part of it. I hope this helps you replace any old habits of just telling your kids to do something and instead replaces that with a more effective option!
How about you? Do you have any examples of rehearsing desired behavior with your kids? I’d love to hear it in the comments below!
P.S. Before any of this “My toy!” business even started, I had already had a preventative conversation and talked with her about how this stage in her brother’s development was coming. I had already told her that he’d soon be crawling and going for toys and that she’d feel upset seeing him hold her toys, and that she’d need to learn to share them. These conversations primed her for the real thing, and she took it much better when the time actually came! If you don’t already have preventative conversations, you MUST read this. It’s seriously one of the most important tools in my parent toolkit!
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Related Posts:
How to Shape Children’s Behavior
Using Rewards Strategically to Shape Behavior
How to Use Consequences Effectively
11 responses to “Rehearse Desired Behavior”
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amazing! super duper helpful. THANK YOU! :DD
So glad!! Thanks for the feedback!
How did you know that we needed this lesson at exactly this time?!
Haha any child between the ages of 1-9 could probably benefit from this 😉 or… you know… 31… 😉
Jo Ellen,
Thanks for the bridge between what goes on in the little kids’ heads and the adults’ heads. Inspiring. Insightful.
Love your articles!
Elaine
Thanks so much for the encouragement, Elaine! I REALLY appreciate it!!!!
B.K. and I both love your post on rehearsing desired behavior 🙂 Will definitely keep it in mind to try with our kids in the future! Adding it to the list of posts we’ll want to reference when the time is right 😉 Thanks for sharing your amazing ideas!
Yayyy! I appreciate you guys saying that :]. <3!
I literally had to stop right in the middle of reading to tell you…the idea about asking your children to put all of the clothes on them and then put them away one at a time is BRILLIANT. Absolutely brilliant.
Woohoooo thanks!! Glad you like the idea! Let me know if you try it haha 🙂
(would be a hilarious picture don’t you think?)