"Don't react" - how does that work?

amother

Aqua

Wed, Nov 04 2015, 7:35 am

A common piece of advice sometimes thrown out there for when kids behave poorly is "don't react, because even negative attention is positive reinforcement". But what does that even mean? Bad behavior can't exactly be ignored. And I do understand that sometimes negative attention does incentivize kids to keep up the poor behavior, but at the end of day, if a consequence is needed, it needs to happen. So what exactly is this not reacting and how does is work?

salt

Wed, Nov 04 2015, 8:07 am

Dare I state the obvious. It depends on the case.

Trying to think of examples here. Obviously not reacting to very bad, dangerous, intolerable
behavior is not possible. But there's reacting, and there's reacting.

Sometimes, it means not over-reacting. Your toddler empties the content of your jewelry box onto the floor. Move him away as quickly as possible, and distract him with something else that's fun. Don't scream "Why did you do that? You don't do that. Now you clear it up yourself or you're not getting dinner!"

When my teenage DD passes a snide comment to her younger sister, I try and encourage the latter not to react. I tell her, she's just trying, waiting to get a reaction, waiting to see you cry - don't react and she'll stop. I'm not sure it's true, cos little DD has not succeeded yet in not reacting Smile

Does that make sense?

5*Mom

Wed, Nov 04 2015, 8:17 am

amother wrote:

Why can't some bad behaviors be ignored? Why must every undesirable behavior get a consequence? What do you think would happen if you overlooked some bad things sometimes?

the world's best mom

Wed, Nov 04 2015, 8:48 am

When someone advised me to ignore dc's misbehaving, my first thought was, but I need to teach him (for the 1,000,000,000th time) that he's not allowed to do that. Otherwise he won't know.

Then I realized that I've taught him the rules enough times. He knows them in his head. He's just too impulsive to actually think about what's right and wrong before he does it. Therefore, I agreed to ignore it. (It turned out to be a miserable experience for us, and after a few days, when I said I'm going to stop ignoring him, the entire family was thrilled, including him.)

The thought behind it is explained well in Howard Glasser's book, "All Children Flourishing", about the Nurtured Heart Approach. I switched to a different form of the approach and it worked wonderfully.

Basically, he says that children see us like toys. They press our buttons and we make a lot of noise, so they do it again and again. We need to learn to make noise when they are behaving nicely instead of when they misbehave. We need to give a lot of positive reinforcement and praise, while minimizing the negative.

Fox

Wed, Nov 04 2015, 11:54 am

FranticFrummie wrote:

What I think it means, is "Don't give it any EMOTIONAL attention." Deal with the situation in a calm, methodical, even robotic way. Make it as boring as possible.

ITA.

I am often disturbed by parenting advice that focuses on parents' being bosses to the exclusion of being leaders. Bosses can be in charge and give us orders, but leaders make us *want* to follow those orders. Being a parental "boss" may keep your toddler from running into the street, but impacting how your child behaves when he's 30 requires parental leadership.

One of the first leadership lessons is, "Lions don't need to roar." Lions don't parade around the jungle, constantly telling the gazelles just how vulnerable they are. The gazelles know. The lions know the gazelles know. No more needs to be said.

When you respond to bad behavior emotionally, you're sending all kinds of messages that are harmful:

"I feel so vulnerable as a parent that this behavior unnerves me."
"I feel I'm a failure if your behavior doesn't constantly validate me."
"I am so weak that I constantly have to remind everyone that I'm in charge."

In short, you are setting yourself up for low-grade blackmail.

Even worse, you are short-circuiting the dynamic that will allow you to build a long-term relationship with your adult child.

Like FF said, bad behavior should be boring, not threatening. Kind of like taking out the trash. No matter how meticulous a housekeeper you are, you have better things to do than take out the trash. You do what needs to be done and move on to more interesting tasks.

Same with responding to bad behavior. As a lion, you either eat the gazelle or not (I.e., respond appropriately to the misbehavior), but you don't take it to heart.

amother

Periwinkle

Wed, Nov 04 2015, 1:40 pm

I agree with the advice above. Im going to give an example of what I started doing lately , as per a piece of advice I got:
When my DC miss behaves , I'll take away the toy/ food/ whatever , if necessary, then he /she starts crying and I say : I had to take it away because... Please stop crying/ let's discuss/ whatever... Im sorry it upsets you but it was dangerous/ not allowed etc.
Then We either talk about it or kid keeps screaming so I begin with the 'ignoring'. I say calmly : I'm going to sit on the couch / sold laundry/ make food / whatever . When you ar ready to stop crying and talk/ hug/ whatever I'll be waiting for you , I love you very much.
Then I ignore the crying. For as long as it takes. And it can take a while.
To me- that's ignoring bad behavior.

Another example is when DC does something pretty bad - most times I try to ignore completely so that they won't get attention for what they did. Many a time I see them waiting and waiting for the attention.. And disappointed when they don't get it. So I'll try to find anything good they do to complemsnt them.

Ok Gtg sorry for the rambling.

mandksima

Wed, Nov 04 2015, 4:06 pm

One helpful way for me to be calm when kids misbehave is to pretend they are a neighbor's kid whom I am watching. I would definitely tell them if they did something dangerous but at the same time, I would not be so overly upset at something they did and wish to punish them like my own kid. Especially when it is done to grab your attention, you would feel sort of sad for your neighbor's kid wanting so much attention and you wouldn't be angry.

I have found that when my kids would misbehave, feelings of guilt and inadequacies as a mother would come about and that was what would make me lash out. I would feel like I didn't do enough to raise them right or they wouldn't have misbehaved, etc. So, I worked on this a lot. I reminded myself that kids know exactly the right thing to do so reminding them doesn't help them do the right thing. Kids are smart. The act of reminding gives them that negative attention which they love just as much as positive. Anything to connect with their parent.

What I think "Don't react" means is don't react from a place where you are questioning your mothering. You are doing a great job. They deserve any consequence they get naturally by doing something not good. They need to learn from their mistakes and will grow independent from it. Every situation is not the same of course and I am not advocating ignoring dangerous behavior. The more they see the lesser reaction from you though, they less they need to misbehave to get your elicited reaction.