I never did make that post on alternatives to time-outs.

[conuly]

And there's so much to say, I don't think I will make one big post. Maybe several smaller posts, spread out, as I think of them.

Here's one, though, prompted by a comment I left in somebody else's journal (hi!).

Angelique, as you know, has a thing for gum. Well, we don't *give* her gum, so she really likes ABC gum. (Say it with me - EW!) And for ages, months and months, I'd see her with gum, I'd give her a time-out, and tell her that the next time was a quick trip home. And then often we'd have to go home, because she'd do it again. We talked, and talked, and talked about how disgusting it was and how dangerous. I even brought Deniz in to tell her it's gross.

I was being consistent. That's the important thing to remember. I was very consistently applying these rules. I was being diligent, watching her to keep her from getting gum, and to see if she had any in her mouth. I was definitely being strict - the whole subject disgusts me.

And it wasn't getting better.

At all.

You have to understand, she's now past four. I kept getting more and more frustrated - why hasn't she outgrown this yet? And Johanna at the museum, whose unsolicited advice I *usually* have no need for (we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, though I like her and haven't bothered to tell her to stop giving me advice now!) kept telling me "Oh, don't worry, she'll outgrow it, and it won't kill her."

And one day, without quite realizing it, I decided to take a new approach. Dragging us away from places wasn't quite fair to Evangeline, and it wasn't making me feel any better, and, like I said, it wasn't working.

So now, I still do my best to keep her from getting gum (she can't sit backwards on busses (I say it's because of her age, but she knows it's because of the gum, and will even say "there's no gum here!"), and she can't bend down to look under benches, and I stop her if she is chewing (she'll chew her own spit) or if her mouth is just shut for a while, and see if there's anything in there that shouldn't be), but now, if it should happen, instead of a long, drawn-out affair, I just take the offending item and toss it, or I ask her to spit it out into the garbage.

And do you know what?

It's finally getting better.

Oh, it still happens, believe me, but only once or twice a week, or less even, instead of at least once every single day. And instead of fighting me when I get rid of the gum, and screaming - she just spits it out.

And, I feel less frustrated - both with this one issue, and with everything else, because once she's had a time-out, I get upset too. I get frustrated with other things she does, and it takes me some time (depending on how hard getting her to time-out was, and how often she does whatever-it-is) to recover from that.

If you want to use adversarial phrases, look at it this way: I haven't decided to "pick my battles wisely" - I've decided to win them altogether. It looks like I've given up - but instead, every time I decide *not* to make a big deal of it, she acts better.

The mind boggles. Everything I read, and everything people say, it's not supposed to work like this, not this clearly. But it does, apparently. I saw this with toilet training (which happened when we "gave up" and stopped making a huge deal of it), and I see it now.

So, here's how it seems to work:

1. I do my best to help her behave. Remember that kids *want* to behave, they *want* to be helpful (that's what Angelique says when some scheme of hers goes awry - "I was trying to be helpful!"), they *want* you to be happy with them. They just don't always have the tools to do so. You wouldn't get mad at your 4-year-old for not doing perfect quadratic equations, you'd help them to add, right? This is the same thing. I help her behave by preventing her from misbehaving (watching her in trouble areas to make sure she doesn't pick up gum) and by giving her, when possible, alternatives (snacks on a regular basis, and, as I suggested to somebody else, if it were really bad I might want to give her something to chew on. But it's getting better without that, so I don't think so for right now.)

2. If she does misbehave, I stop it - I take the gum away. If it were really bad, at this point I'd give an alternative chewy thing. I also remind her why we don't chew other people's leavings. Ew.

3. I try not to blow it out of proportion, and I try to have a reasonable grasp of her limitations. This one is key. I so often see people getting mad at their kids for, well, acting like kids. I think that Angelique should be at a stage where she doesn't do this anymore - but clearly, she's not at that stage yet. If she were, she wouldn't need me to tell her not to eat other people's gum, just like I don't need my mom and sister to tell me that. When everybody told me that's developmentally appropriate (if still unacceptable for me), that should've been the first clue.

4. I try to keep an eye on what's working, and what's not, and change what's not working. That should be self-explanatory, but a lot of people miss that step. I should clarify that I want to give whatever it is a good try before moving on to something else. If you ever feel the need to post on LJ that you've "tried everything" for a problem that has existed for less than two months, you're doing it wrong. Give everything a chance to prove itself first, then move on if it doesn't.

This isn't rocket science. It's just an example of what I mean when I say "overdosing on time-outs". I'm beginning to think I should leave those for more serious things - and even then, leave long time-outs (four minutes, no looking around, etc.) for VERY serious things, and have more Ana-led time-outs (when are you ready to talk? When are you ready to behave?) for less serious things. Because that seems to be working, where the serious time out for everything I tried for a few months wasn't.

(I am, of course, referring to how she acts with me. She acts differently with her parents, especially 'dul, who seems to have a real gift, but his methods don't appear to cause better behaviour with me when I try them. I don't get it, but maybe it's something about Daddy. This method does when I do it, so that's what I'm sticking with for now.)

Comments

[calieber.livejournal.com]

Point 1 ties in with something that I think would particularly resonate with AS types but that all caregivers should bear in mind: rules children are expected to follow should have a purpose. Children do want to behave, and one way to help them in this is to give them basically the same motivation for following the rule as you have for wanting them to follow it. "Because I said so" is never enough of a reason in the long run. Not putting other people's garbage in your mouth is a useful life skill; following a rule merely because someone made it is not.

Point 3 is why I'm CF: I have a low tolerance for childish behavior, so I try to stay out of situations where I'd be forced to accept it on the grounds that the offender is a child.

[conuly]

Point 3 is why I'm CF: I have a low tolerance for childish behavior, so I try to stay out of situations where I'd be forced to accept it on the grounds that the offender is a child.

Perfectly reasonable. There's a reason childish is an insult when not applied to children.

And not all childish behaviour is acceptable, even when it's age-appropriate. Sure, it's normal and age-appropriate for Evangeline to hit Angelique and pinch her, but that doesn't mean it's allowed, condoned, or ignored when it happens. (Indeed, I almost wish her sister would hit her back, but I can't very well tell her that. I should instead praise her forbearance.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

My childhood was by no means a model I'd want to apply, but something my parents did right was that every rule was explained and generally reasonable. I didn't throw any temper tantrums as a child, and I didn't even have the concept of it until I learned it later. I didn't understand why someone would act that way, because it just seemed so bizarre and counter-productive.

I know also that I was an unusual child, but I think it helped that behaving and acting rationally worked fairly well. The story my mother likes to tell and I do as well, because I actually remember it is the story of going to buy a dress for me to wear for my father's upcoming birthday party. I had just turned two and I absolutely hated changing my clothes, which meant I hated trying on clothes when I had to go through a bunch of different outfits. I wasn't that fond of shopping either, but was okay with it if I didn't have to do anything. I could look around at all the weird stuff (most stuff is weird when you're that young).

My mother was looking through dresses, and oddly, I saw one I liked. I asked my mother if it was too expensive (I'm not sure what words I used, but something to that effect, because I had the notion that we couldn't buy just everything we wanted and there was some sort of price range for okay items) and she said it cost about as much as the others. Then I asked if it was "well-made", which would have been that phrase, which was the phrase I used to try to embody the concept I'd picked up of some items being cheaper, but costing more in the long run because you had to replace them too often or they wouldn't work right, which was a concept I couldn't express very well yet but used that phrase for. I was told that it was. So, I asked if I could have that one.

My mother told me that if I was willing to try on all of the dresses she picked out first without fussing or causing problems then we could try on this one last, and she'd consider buying it if it looked good on me. I decided to accept this as a fairly reasonable offer, and I didn't expect to get a better one. So, that's what happened. And even though the dress was green (a color I still like qnd one my mother has never liked), it apparently did look quite good on me. She told me it did, and then we ended up getting that dress, which worked out well for both of us. And I still have that dress (although it obviously does not in any way fit me anymore. :))

Being treated reasonably and with respect helps ~a lot~. Being told not to drink the stuff under the sink because it will make me very ill made sense to me and didn't tempt me to do so. However, even treating children reasonably will not prevent all problems (especially if a child is sleepy or hungry) and childproofing is probably still a good idea. And children will vary and some will just be more difficult to get to behave. But I definitely think explaining things reasonably is beneficial, even if it won't magically give you easy to raise children.

[conuly]

I agree. I get so tired of hearing people say "Oh, you can't reason with a 2/3/4/5/6 year old!" You know what? You can. I've done it.

It doesn't always work, because sometimes they aren't open to hearing what you have to say, same as adults. And just because it works doesn't mean it's perfect - children are still children, they still do lack real impulse control and long attention spans. You have to be prepared to re-reason. And if you go about it the wrong way, you will go over their heads.

But yes, you can reason with quite young children, so long as you try.

(That said, if a child is attempting to honestly reason with you, instead of whining their way into getting what they want, the least you can do is courteously tell them why all the reasoning in the world won't get them ice cream for breakfast. At least the first time. If they keep it up, then you can snap at them.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

*nods* I'm the youngest of five. I really, really wanted a younger sibling, and I asked very nicely. My parents gave me very good reasons why I wasn't going to get one, and looking back, I certainly think you shouldn't have a child just because your kid wants you to. It was all completely reasonable. Still made me sad. Just because your kid is being reasonable doesn't mean you should give them what they want. But sometimes they are reasonable and want something okay to let them have.

And some kids are going to get upset if not given the unreasonable things they want, and well, that's why parents have to suck up and deal. Nobody should think parenting is easy. But you have to have your kid get shots or take the disgusting medicine anyway. Although sometimes if your kid is asking for something unreasonable, it's a really good idea to find out why. Sure often kids don't want to go to school, but if the kid is really trying to get out of it, is there some more serious problem that needs to be addressed? And so forth.

Of course, if your kid simply wants to eat tons of sweets, there probably isn't some hidden deeper issue. Although I did that once in childhood and learned a quite valuable lesson. I was about seven, so old enough to make the connections fairly well and learn from it. I didn't overeat on sweets much again. Yay natural consequences.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Good point about overdoing time-outs. WHen you're having to do them over and over again for the same offense, they're going to lose their effectiveness. And clearly Angelique *does* know she's not supposed to do it, because she's not resisting you when you tell her to spit out the gum.

(Out of curiosity, why isn't she allowed to have gum? I mean, not the ABC kind.)

May I share an Appalling Parent story? I was at McDonald's the other day (we go there fairly often so Sam can play on the equipment - or rather, can watch the other kids play.) There were a couple of brothers, and the younger one hit his brother. Dad immediately put him in time out. So far so good. But the boy pulled back his fist as if to hit dad, although he didn't actually hit him -- and Dad sat there goading him! He kept saying, "Go on, hit your Dad, see what happens. Go on, hit me!" And the poor boy was crying and crying, his fist pulled back, but he never hit his dad because he knew he'd get in bigger trouble. Here's a hint, Dad: never goad your child into doing something that you and he both know is wrong, and that you would only turn around and punish him for. Sheesh!

And on another totally unrelated topic, although you've probably posted something about it before. What do you think about these claims going around nowadays about blaming vaccines for autism?

[conuly]

It's a choking hazard. Less so now, but I, at least, still ban it on the grounds that it'll "make the baby jealous", which is actually pretty true.

Also, I just dislike gum, and don't want to spend my money on it. If her parents do, that's their business, I certainly won't stop them, but they aren't big gum chewers and it's not going to happen on my watch, certainly.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. I had someone offer the padawan some gum today. I thought, "Are you nuts?! He'll swallow it!"

[conuly]

And it's not just that the time-outs lost their effectiveness. I mean, they did - but I want to emphasize that I actually believe that their frequency and severity (getting out of proportion to the crime) were making her behaviour worse - she was not just taking gum, but actively hiding it, and trying to lie to me when I called her out on it, and fighting me over removing it from her mouth, and suchlike, and doing it more often instead of less.

If she were holding steady, that'd be bad enough, but it got worse instead. I see that in hindsight, but then it just frustrated me.

[conuly]

On to the rest of the comment (I hate when I do that!)

1. Bad parent needs to learn not to act like a jerk to his child. Among other things, engaging in childish (not childlike) behaviour with your kid only causes you to lose their respect. And I should hope you want people to respect you.

2. I think those claims have been disproven six ways from Sunday. I don't bother to post new articles about it anymore, though, because those who don't want to hear what I have to say will never be convinced.

Additionally, it's worth noting that I can clearly see autistic traits in three out of four sides of my family (never met the fourth), and at least two out of three grandparents. I know from my family that it's a familial trait for us, I don't require additional proof.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

I suspected that the vaccine claims were overblown, but I didn't know that. Thanks.

[leora.livejournal.com]

If I have children, I will very much try to discourage gum chewing. Part of that is that migraines run in my family and my kids would be at high risk, and excessive chewing is one of my triggers. That doesn't apply for most people, but I don't expect a child to be able to connect the chewing now with the agonizing pain later enough to stop doing it, but it's not a punishment I can prevent if chewing is a trigger for a child of mine too. Also, chewing gum is just plain bad for you. It gets the stomach ready to digest food, but then no food comes. It's not horribly bad for you, but it's not good. And I'd rather avoid gum chewing if I can. Plus, if you let kids have gum, you have to carefully monitor what they do with it to prevent them littering really obnoxiously with it.

[calieber.livejournal.com]

Point 1 ties in with something that I think would particularly resonate with AS types but that all caregivers should bear in mind: rules children are expected to follow should have a purpose. Children do want to behave, and one way to help them in this is to give them basically the same motivation for following the rule as you have for wanting them to follow it. "Because I said so" is never enough of a reason in the long run. Not putting other people's garbage in your mouth is a useful life skill; following a rule merely because someone made it is not.

Point 3 is why I'm CF: I have a low tolerance for childish behavior, so I try to stay out of situations where I'd be forced to accept it on the grounds that the offender is a child.

[conuly]

Point 3 is why I'm CF: I have a low tolerance for childish behavior, so I try to stay out of situations where I'd be forced to accept it on the grounds that the offender is a child.

Perfectly reasonable. There's a reason childish is an insult when not applied to children.

And not all childish behaviour is acceptable, even when it's age-appropriate. Sure, it's normal and age-appropriate for Evangeline to hit Angelique and pinch her, but that doesn't mean it's allowed, condoned, or ignored when it happens. (Indeed, I almost wish her sister would hit her back, but I can't very well tell her that. I should instead praise her forbearance.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

My childhood was by no means a model I'd want to apply, but something my parents did right was that every rule was explained and generally reasonable. I didn't throw any temper tantrums as a child, and I didn't even have the concept of it until I learned it later. I didn't understand why someone would act that way, because it just seemed so bizarre and counter-productive.

I know also that I was an unusual child, but I think it helped that behaving and acting rationally worked fairly well. The story my mother likes to tell and I do as well, because I actually remember it is the story of going to buy a dress for me to wear for my father's upcoming birthday party. I had just turned two and I absolutely hated changing my clothes, which meant I hated trying on clothes when I had to go through a bunch of different outfits. I wasn't that fond of shopping either, but was okay with it if I didn't have to do anything. I could look around at all the weird stuff (most stuff is weird when you're that young).

My mother was looking through dresses, and oddly, I saw one I liked. I asked my mother if it was too expensive (I'm not sure what words I used, but something to that effect, because I had the notion that we couldn't buy just everything we wanted and there was some sort of price range for okay items) and she said it cost about as much as the others. Then I asked if it was "well-made", which would have been that phrase, which was the phrase I used to try to embody the concept I'd picked up of some items being cheaper, but costing more in the long run because you had to replace them too often or they wouldn't work right, which was a concept I couldn't express very well yet but used that phrase for. I was told that it was. So, I asked if I could have that one.

My mother told me that if I was willing to try on all of the dresses she picked out first without fussing or causing problems then we could try on this one last, and she'd consider buying it if it looked good on me. I decided to accept this as a fairly reasonable offer, and I didn't expect to get a better one. So, that's what happened. And even though the dress was green (a color I still like qnd one my mother has never liked), it apparently did look quite good on me. She told me it did, and then we ended up getting that dress, which worked out well for both of us. And I still have that dress (although it obviously does not in any way fit me anymore. :))

Being treated reasonably and with respect helps ~a lot~. Being told not to drink the stuff under the sink because it will make me very ill made sense to me and didn't tempt me to do so. However, even treating children reasonably will not prevent all problems (especially if a child is sleepy or hungry) and childproofing is probably still a good idea. And children will vary and some will just be more difficult to get to behave. But I definitely think explaining things reasonably is beneficial, even if it won't magically give you easy to raise children.

[conuly]

I agree. I get so tired of hearing people say "Oh, you can't reason with a 2/3/4/5/6 year old!" You know what? You can. I've done it.

It doesn't always work, because sometimes they aren't open to hearing what you have to say, same as adults. And just because it works doesn't mean it's perfect - children are still children, they still do lack real impulse control and long attention spans. You have to be prepared to re-reason. And if you go about it the wrong way, you will go over their heads.

But yes, you can reason with quite young children, so long as you try.

(That said, if a child is attempting to honestly reason with you, instead of whining their way into getting what they want, the least you can do is courteously tell them why all the reasoning in the world won't get them ice cream for breakfast. At least the first time. If they keep it up, then you can snap at them.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

*nods* I'm the youngest of five. I really, really wanted a younger sibling, and I asked very nicely. My parents gave me very good reasons why I wasn't going to get one, and looking back, I certainly think you shouldn't have a child just because your kid wants you to. It was all completely reasonable. Still made me sad. Just because your kid is being reasonable doesn't mean you should give them what they want. But sometimes they are reasonable and want something okay to let them have.

And some kids are going to get upset if not given the unreasonable things they want, and well, that's why parents have to suck up and deal. Nobody should think parenting is easy. But you have to have your kid get shots or take the disgusting medicine anyway. Although sometimes if your kid is asking for something unreasonable, it's a really good idea to find out why. Sure often kids don't want to go to school, but if the kid is really trying to get out of it, is there some more serious problem that needs to be addressed? And so forth.

Of course, if your kid simply wants to eat tons of sweets, there probably isn't some hidden deeper issue. Although I did that once in childhood and learned a quite valuable lesson. I was about seven, so old enough to make the connections fairly well and learn from it. I didn't overeat on sweets much again. Yay natural consequences.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Good point about overdoing time-outs. WHen you're having to do them over and over again for the same offense, they're going to lose their effectiveness. And clearly Angelique *does* know she's not supposed to do it, because she's not resisting you when you tell her to spit out the gum.

(Out of curiosity, why isn't she allowed to have gum? I mean, not the ABC kind.)

May I share an Appalling Parent story? I was at McDonald's the other day (we go there fairly often so Sam can play on the equipment - or rather, can watch the other kids play.) There were a couple of brothers, and the younger one hit his brother. Dad immediately put him in time out. So far so good. But the boy pulled back his fist as if to hit dad, although he didn't actually hit him -- and Dad sat there goading him! He kept saying, "Go on, hit your Dad, see what happens. Go on, hit me!" And the poor boy was crying and crying, his fist pulled back, but he never hit his dad because he knew he'd get in bigger trouble. Here's a hint, Dad: never goad your child into doing something that you and he both know is wrong, and that you would only turn around and punish him for. Sheesh!

And on another totally unrelated topic, although you've probably posted something about it before. What do you think about these claims going around nowadays about blaming vaccines for autism?

[conuly]

It's a choking hazard. Less so now, but I, at least, still ban it on the grounds that it'll "make the baby jealous", which is actually pretty true.

Also, I just dislike gum, and don't want to spend my money on it. If her parents do, that's their business, I certainly won't stop them, but they aren't big gum chewers and it's not going to happen on my watch, certainly.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. I had someone offer the padawan some gum today. I thought, "Are you nuts?! He'll swallow it!"

[conuly]

And it's not just that the time-outs lost their effectiveness. I mean, they did - but I want to emphasize that I actually believe that their frequency and severity (getting out of proportion to the crime) were making her behaviour worse - she was not just taking gum, but actively hiding it, and trying to lie to me when I called her out on it, and fighting me over removing it from her mouth, and suchlike, and doing it more often instead of less.

If she were holding steady, that'd be bad enough, but it got worse instead. I see that in hindsight, but then it just frustrated me.

[conuly]

On to the rest of the comment (I hate when I do that!)

1. Bad parent needs to learn not to act like a jerk to his child. Among other things, engaging in childish (not childlike) behaviour with your kid only causes you to lose their respect. And I should hope you want people to respect you.

2. I think those claims have been disproven six ways from Sunday. I don't bother to post new articles about it anymore, though, because those who don't want to hear what I have to say will never be convinced.

Additionally, it's worth noting that I can clearly see autistic traits in three out of four sides of my family (never met the fourth), and at least two out of three grandparents. I know from my family that it's a familial trait for us, I don't require additional proof.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

I suspected that the vaccine claims were overblown, but I didn't know that. Thanks.

[leora.livejournal.com]

If I have children, I will very much try to discourage gum chewing. Part of that is that migraines run in my family and my kids would be at high risk, and excessive chewing is one of my triggers. That doesn't apply for most people, but I don't expect a child to be able to connect the chewing now with the agonizing pain later enough to stop doing it, but it's not a punishment I can prevent if chewing is a trigger for a child of mine too. Also, chewing gum is just plain bad for you. It gets the stomach ready to digest food, but then no food comes. It's not horribly bad for you, but it's not good. And I'd rather avoid gum chewing if I can. Plus, if you let kids have gum, you have to carefully monitor what they do with it to prevent them littering really obnoxiously with it.