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I never did make that post on alternatives to time-outs.
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.)
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.)
no subject
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.