There are some behaviors that you will find more
success at diminishing if you selectively ignore them instead of managing them.
The main idea here is that children will often continue behaving in a certain
way if they receive any attention of any kind, positive or negative. Therefore,
if parents want to diminish certain specific behaviors, they should purposely
and selectively ignore these behaviors.
An important
concern here is your own stress. If you can successfully ignore your preschool
child with ADHD’s socially inappropriate behaviors, your own stress levels will
decrease. If you are able to do so, you will have successfully eliminated some
of the behaviors that your child exhibits that annoy you, as well the ones that
give you the most stress.
There are two caveats here, however. The first
caveat is that the use of selective ignoring must be consistent and correct.
What does this mean? It is imperative that any adult who is observing her
child’s socially inappropriate behavior must not comment on that behavior. This
means that neither parent should engage the child in discussing the socially
inappropriate behavior that he is exhibiting. In fact, if either parent talks
to the child about the socially inappropriate behavior that he has just
exhibited, that behavior will most likely increase once again.
However, if
the selective ignoring of socially inappropriate behavior is to work most
effectively, it is vital that positive behaviors are recognized and praised.
For example, if the child is continuously getting out of his chair at a meal,
when he does sit as is required, the parents need to immediately say, “I love
the way you are sitting and staying in your seat.” The previous phrase or
similar comments may not seem natural for you to say, but they will really work
to diminish your child’s socially inappropriate behavior.
The second caveat is that, in order for selective
ignoring to be effective, there is some likelihood that the child’s negative
behavior will increase to a larger degree before it ceases immediately.
Therefore, if you pay attention to the child’s socially inappropriate behavior
as it increases temporarily, your reaction will cause the child’s behavior to
remain and possibly even grow in intensity.
I cannot say
that the child knows or even understands that when his parent attends to his
socially inappropriate behavior that his behavior will escalate. However, it
just happens that when parents reinforce a negative behavior, there will be an
increase in the number of times that the child exhibits that behavior, as well
as an increase in the intensity of that behavior.
Ignoring
socially inappropriate behavior is challenging for parents, however. Parents
must learn to respond instead of to react. The reactive response would be to
say to the child who is bouncing up and down in his chair at a meal, “Stop that
now. Do not do that or you will have to go to time out.” Instead, responding is
a much more effective tool than reacting, because it is behavior on the
parent’s part that is intentional instead of unpredictable. The responsive
behavior would be to say, “I really like the way you are using your napkin to
wipe your face when it gets dirty” while ignoring the inappropriate behavior of
bouncing up and down in his chair.
What are some examples of behaviors that are not
very serious (yet parents may find extremely annoying!) but nevertheless need
to diminish, so that the preschool child with ADHD can interact successfully?
• bouncing up and down in his chair at a meal
•continuously
using repetitive language
•banging his
silverware on the table at meals (unless the table is glass and may break or
become damaged)
• whining
•
interrupting
• name
calling
• making
strange noises
• getting in
and out of his chair
• screaming
• excessive
talking
• running
continuously in the house and sliding on the floor
• throwing
his toys on the floor and laughing
• whining in
the grocery store
• pushing his
sibling (unless there is a wall or a hard surface into which he can push his
sibling’s head)
I observed
one preschool child kicking the dinner table underneath him. His mother
absolutely could not stand his behavior. She yelled at him several times to
stop and he just kept on doing it and doing it. Finally, she screamed at him to
stop at the top of her voice and he stopped . . . for just a few moments, and
then he began to kick the table again! You should have an intentional and
prescribed set of responses that you are ready to access at all times. It is
vital for you to behave in a predictable and a responsive way, rather than
behaving in a reactive way. If you react to your child’s behavior, then you
will be as out of control as your child!
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