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Grounding Exercises

Grounding exercises are short, simple techniques that focus attention and distract from intense emotions.

They often involve focusing on environmental stimuli or pleasant, calming topics or objects.

They can usually be done with minimal equipment, such as a pen and paper, or nothing at all except one’s thoughts and imaginations.

Therefore they are versatile exercises that can be performed anywhere.

Grounding exercises quiet down extreme emotions and help survivors of trauma shift to a more rational form of thinking.

People with trauma will, from time to time, experience high stress or emotional overload.

This is true for people with acute trauma, complex trauma, even traumatic grief.

The goal is not to eradicate feelings of intense anxiety, sadness, or anger. Instead, learning how to respond to those emotions, in the moment, is key to our healing.

In the video above you will learn 5 powerful Grounding Exercises:

Item Listing

The 54321 Game

Task Visualization

The Method of Loci

The 5 Senses Technique

It’s always best to have multiple grounding techniques in your toolbox.

What works best for one stressful situation (a trauma flashback, for example) might not work best in another (such as prior to a job interview).

A technique that you use frequently may become less effective over time. It is best to use a variety of techniques to avoid becoming acclimated to them.

Some grounding exercises may not be a good fit for your temperament.

For example, some people find the Ice Cream Technique frustrating because they get stuck and can’t remember any additional flavor examples.

Other people find the 54321 Game unhelpful because it can draw attention toward unpleasant feelings or sights in their environment.

For each technique, there are modifications to help expand their usefulness. But some techniques might just not be for you.

Get more tools for your Trauma Toolbox at http://www.TraumaToolbox.com/

Looking for a speaker on Trauma-Informed care for your next workshop, conference, or event? Contact Ron Huxley for more information at rehuxley@gmail.com

 

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Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope

Listen to my radio interview reflecting on the documentary “Resilience”, the Adverse Childhood Experiences study (ACES), and my thoughts on how to heal from trauma and child abuse.

Click here: http://kcbx.org/post/resilience

aces pyramid 2

“The child may not remember, but the body remembers.” Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope is a one-hour documentary that delves into the science of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the birth of a new movement to treat and prevent Toxic Stress. While the original research was controversial, experts now consider the findings to have revealed one of the most important public health findings of a generation. Understood to be one of the leading causes of everything from heart disease and cancer to substance abuse and depression, extremely stressful experiences in childhood can alter brain development and have lifelong effects on health and behavior.

Join host Kris Kington-Barker as she speaks with guests Nisha AbdulCadar, an M.D., F.A.A.P. and Pediatrician with Martha’s Place Children’s Assessment Center and Ron Huxley a LMFT who provides faith-based, trauma-informed therapy for individuals and families about the upcoming movie screening and research behind “Resilience,” a powerful documentary film by James Redford and Karen Pritzker that reveals, toxic stress can trigger hormones that wreak havoc on the brains and bodies of children which can put them at a an increased risk for disease, homelessness, prison time, and even early death. Join the conversation and listen to how trailblazers like these in pediatrics, education, and social welfare are using cutting-edge science and field-tested therapies to fight back against the effects of toxic stress and greatly improve the health of our future generations.

Central Coast Voices is sponsored by ACTION for Healthy Communities in collaboration with KCBX and made possible through underwriting by Joan Gellert-Sargen.

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How To Stop Emotional Eating Habits

Alternatives to emotional eating

  • If you’re depressed or lonely, call someone who always makes you feel better, play with your dog or cat, or look at a favorite photo or cherished memento.
  • If you’re anxious, expend your nervous energy by dancing to your favorite song, squeezing a stress ball, or taking a brisk walk.
  • If you’re exhausted, treat yourself with a hot cup of tea, take a bath, light some scented candles, or wrap yourself in a warm blanket.
  • If you’re bored, read a good book, watch a comedy show, explore the outdoors, or turn to an activity you enjoy (woodworking, playing the guitar, shooting hoops, scrapbooking, etc.).

Most emotional eaters feel powerless over their food cravings. When the urge to eat hits, it’s all you can think about. You feel an almost unbearable tension that demands to be fed, right now! Because you’ve tried to resist in the past and failed, you believe that your willpower just isn’t up to snuff. But the truth is that you have more power over your cravings than you think.

Take 5 before you give in to a craving

Emotional eating tends to be automatic and virtually mindless. Before you even realize what you’re doing, you’ve reached for a tub of ice cream and polished off half of it. But if you can take a moment to pause and reflect when you’re hit with a craving, you give yourself the opportunity to make a different decision.

Can you put off eating for five minutes, or just start with one minute. Don’t tell yourself you can’t give in to the craving; remember, the forbidden is extremely tempting. Just tell yourself to wait. While you’re waiting, check in with yourself. How are you feeling? What’s going on emotionally? Even if you end up eating, you’ll have a better understanding of why you did it. This can help you set yourself up for a different response next time.

Learn to accept your feelings—even the bad ones

While it may seem that the core problem is that you’re powerless over food, emotional eating actually stems from feeling powerless over your emotions. You don’t feel capable of dealing with your feelings head on, so you avoid them with food.

Allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable emotions can be scary. You may fear that, like Pandora’s box, once you open the door you won’t be able to shut it. But the truth is that when we don’t obsess over or suppress our emotions, even the most painful and difficult feelings subside relatively quickly and lose their power to control our attention. To do this you need to become mindful and learn how to stay connected to your moment-to-moment emotional experience. This can enable you to rein in stress and repair emotional problems that often trigger emotional eating.

8 steps to mindful eating

This ancient practice can transform the way you think about food and set the stage for a lifetime of healthy eating.

Like most of us, you’ve probably eaten something in the past few hours. And, like many of us, you may not be able to recall everything you ate, let alone the sensation of eating it. Because we’re working, driving, reading, watching television, or fiddling with an electronic device, we’re not fully aware of what we’re eating.

By truly paying attention to the food you eat, you may indulge in foods like a cheeseburger and fries less often. In essence, mindful eating means being fully attentive to your food—as you buy, prepare, serve, and consume it. In the book Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life, Dr. Lillian Cheung and her co-author, Buddhist spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh, suggest several practices that can help you get there, including those listed below.

1. Begin with your shopping list. Consider the health value of every item you add to your list and stick to it to avoid impulse buying when you’re shopping. Fill most of your cart in the produce section and avoid the center aisles—which are heavy with processed foods—and the chips and candy at the check-out counter.

2. Come to the table with an appetite—but not when ravenously hungry. If you skip meals, you may be so eager to get anything in your stomach that your first priority is filling the void instead of enjoying your food.

3. Start with a small portion. It may be helpful to limit the size of your plate to nine inches or less.

4. Appreciate your food. Pause for a minute or two before you begin eating to contemplate everything and everyone it took to bring the meal to your table. Silently express your gratitude for the opportunity to enjoy delicious food and the companions you’re enjoying it with.

5. Bring all your senses to the meal. When you’re cooking, serving, and eating your food, be attentive to color, texture, aroma, and even the sounds different foods make as you prepare them. As you chew your food, try identifying all the ingredients, especially seasonings.

6. Take small bites. It’s easier to taste food completely when your mouth isn’t full. Put down your utensil between bites.

7. Chew thoroughly. Chew well until you can taste the essence of the food. (You may have to chew each mouthful 20 to 40 times, depending on the food.) You may be surprised at all the flavors that are released.

8. Eat slowly. If you follow the advice above, you won’t bolt your food down. Devote at least five minutes to mindful eating before you chat with your tablemates.

Source: http://www.helpguide.org/articles/diet-weight-loss/emotional-eating.htm

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Dear ANGER Diary

by Ron Huxley, LMFT

Have you ever kept a diary? Maybe as a child you did. I still do although I am not as diligent with it as I used to be. Using a diary is a simple way to manage your anger. Anger triggers and solutions are very predictable. Unfortunately, we miss the clues to both of these anger management tips and continue to repeat the negative process of outburst and tantrums.

Every day for two weeks, write in a diary using this four step anger management process:

1. List what made you angry.
2. List how angry it made you feel on a scale from 1 to 10, one being cool and calm and 10 being a major rage.
3. Put a plus sign (+) down if you handled it well and a minus sign (-) if you didn’t.
4. Write what you will try next time this situation presents itself.

After two weeks are over go back and see what you have learned. You will be surprised by how much info you gathered in a short time and how much insight and change you have accomplished.

Get more help on anger management by Ron at http://inner-healing.tumblr.com/anger

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17 Hugs A Day

My wife and I have a joke that we tell each other and family members: It takes a minimum of 17 hugs a day to feel normal. I will confess that there is no scientific research that supports 17 hugs per day therapy…at least not yet. Nevertheless, we have come to recognize that need for touch and have adopted the idea that hugs, at least 17 is what gets us through the daily life hassles. At a recent conference on Attachment Theory, where there was some real scientific data, a presenter on PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that stated that data suggests that the little stressors of everyday living can add up to the same effects of someone who has undergone a single, major life trauma, like a robbery or death of a loved one or car accident.
We let these little incidents of life go by without any real concern. Perhaps we feel embarrassed to admit how much a poor marriage or teenager defiance or even workplace stress really does affect us. Can parents acts as prevention specialists for our children. As adults, we need 17 hugs just to maintain normal living? Our children need them to counter the cumulative effects of stress on their lives to avoid PTCS – Post Traumatic Childhood Stress.
If you don’t believe there is a such a thing, just observe children interacting on a play ground. There are some mean things thrown back and forth on the jungle gym, let me tell you! Add to that some homework pressures and the constant media bombardment of negative words and images and what child wouldn’t feel slightly traumatized? As parents, the least we can do is give some touch therapy with a few hugs a day.
John Bowlby, the great attachment theorist, stated that attachment is essential to normal development. Guardians are supposed to be our safe haven from life. Home should be a place of refuge from the constant stress of school and work. Granted, there are chores and homework to be done but how can you carve our 30 minutes a day for some connection. Parents are quick to use Time-Out, how about some Time-In? It might be good for mom and dad too. Starting today, give a few more hugs than usual. It is OK to start slow and work your way up. And yes, teenagers love them too. You just have to be a little more crafty in your approach.  
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17 Hugs A Day

My wife and I have a joke that we tell each other and family members: It takes a minimum of 17 hugs a day to feel normal. I will confess that there is no scientific research that supports 17 hugs per day therapy…at least not yet. Nevertheless, we have come to recognize that need for touch and have adopted the idea that hugs, at least 17 is what gets us through the daily life hassles.

At a recent conference on Attachment Theory, where there was some real scientific data, a presenter on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder stated that data suggests that the little stressors of everyday living can add up to the same effects of someone who has undergone a single, major life trauma, like a robbery or death of a loved one or car accident. We let these little incidents of life go by without any real concern. Perhaps we feel embarrassed to admit how much a poor marriage or teenager defiance or even workplace stress really does affect us.

Can parents acts as prevention specialists for our children. As adults, we need 17 hugs just to maintain normal living. Our children need them to counter the cumulative effects of stress on their lives to avoid PTCS – Post Traumatic Childhood Stress. If you don’t believe there is a such a thing, just observe children interacting on a play ground. There are some mean things thrown back and forth on the jungle gym, let me tell you! Add to that some homework pressures and the constant media bombardment of negative words and images and what child wouldn’t feel slightly traumatized? As parents, the least we can do is give some touch therapy with a few hugs a day.

John Bowlby, the great attachment theorist, stated that attachment is essential to normal development (see my blog post on this here). Guardians are supposed to be our safe haven from life. Home should be a place of refuge from the constant stress of school and work. Granted, there are chores and homework to be done but how can you carve our 30 minutes a day for some connection. Parents are quick to use Time-Out, how about some Time-In? It might be good for mom and dad too.

Starting today, give a few more hugs than usual. It is OK to start slow and work your way up. And yes, teenagers love them too. You just have to be a little more crafty in your approach.

 

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Power of Silly

There are a lot of very good parenting techniques available to parents in the form of parenting books, videos and classes. I have written and taught them myself. What you don’t often hear about is how to “do” parenting when the rubber hits the road. How do you get through the daily grind of life and keep a cheerful face and engage your child (or for some us multiple children)? My best parenting advice is this: Be silly. I know, parenting should be serious, shouldn’t it? The truth is that it is serious way too often.

Silliness is a useful way to lighten up the mood in the home and to engage bored or irritable children. Over the years I have used variations on the silly theme with mostly good effect. Here’s a few to try on and see how they fit for you:

Change the game rules Parents can get exhausted playing the same old game of “Go Fish” or “Sorry.” Anything done hundreds of times can be hum drum. Spice it up by changing the game rules. Use a pirate voice when playing a card game. “Argh, give me your fours!” Narrate the characters in the book you read at bedtime every night. Act it out instead of reading it. This weekend I played my niece, nephews and grandson Ping Pong Poetry. Every time you hit the ball you have to rhyme a word: Ping, sing, ring, thing, king, etc. It resulted in several belly laughs.

Tell a joke This is perhaps the simplest silly strategy. Have a long car ride? Tell a few Knock-Knock jokes. OK, you might have to do a google search first to come up with a few but it will be worth the research! I have one I told me kids over and over again. They groaned every time I would start to tell it but I could tell by their smiles they loved the “tradition” of it as well. Want to hear it? “How do you make a hanky (hankerchief) dance? Put a little boogie in it.” Made you laugh? I know it is a little irreverent but isn’t that the point here?

Make up a song Need to get your kids to focus and march in a file through a store without touching everything? Come up with a marching song and sing it (quietly) as you go down the aisles. Preschool teachers do this all the time to get kids to clean up their mess and move to a new classroom activity. Use it at home too.

Food can be fun Got a picky eater? Dinner time always turns into a fight? Use the food to create some fun. Put coloring food into the milk. Make a game out of how slowly you can eat. Wiggle your nose at others around the table and see who can catch who doing it. Eat in courses, switch seats for each one or use your opposite eating hand to do it. Make faces out of the foot as you place it on the plate. We often use special pancake forms on the griddle to make dinosaur shapes. A lot of food is package in shapes of animals or other character. I enjoy bitting their heads off. Sorry, but I do. Have a crunching contest – keeps kids focused and eating mom!

Wear funny slippers My sister-in-law came over for the weekend and wore fluffy pink slippers most of the weekend. She was comfortable and the kids loved making fun of her. Keep a full house of people energized and in good humor. Alternate this strategy by wearing bright clothing, mix patterns or act cool in your shades. I am sure you have a few silly tricks up your sleeve.

Share them with us by leaving a comment or Facebook post or Tweet us! Let’s pool our silliness ideas together and use it to increase cooperation, enjoy each other more, and decrease stress levels.

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Putting on Your Anger Management Tool Belt

This article was written some time ago on how to deal with anger in the workplace. I think it a powerful resource for parents at home as well…Enjoy!

Do you wake up in the morning with your stomach tied up in knots? Does the thought of going to work and dealing with your co-workers seem unbearable? Have you ever thought that if you never had to deal with people, your job would be great? Family therapist Ron Huxley shares some tools for conflict resolution.

Use prevention to avoid problems

It is easier to deal with a problem or a problem person if you know it is coming. It’s when you are surprised by a co-worker’s rude behavior that you’re unable to cope with him. Knowing that a co-worker will be rude to you gives you time to plan how you will handle him.

It doesn’t mean to plan how you will be equally rude back to him. It means finding a way to protect you emotionally and then turn the situation around, if possible. Finding the right tool for the job to do just that is where most of us get stuck.

The anger tool belt

Dealing with problems is like fixing a household appliance. You need to know how the appliance works and you need the right tools for the job. When you plan to deal with your angry co-worker, you will need an anger tool belt filled with an assortment of anger management tools.

Tool #1: Labels

Perhaps the most basic tool available to us is communication. If your co-worker barks at you when asked about an overdue report, respond to him by labeling his feelings. For example, stating “You’re angry at me right now” can actually reduce his anger towards you. The most basic reason for this is that your co-worker suddenly feels understood. It is far easier to be angry with people who don’t listen then it is for people who do.

Labels let the air out of the proverbial balloon before it fills up and explodes. It gives you mastery over the emotion by taking the person out of the emotion, makes it a force of its own, to be handled and managed. Most arguments focus on personal attacks and not the problem to be solved. Giving an emotion, like anger, a label allows you to acknowledge the emotion and move on to finding a solution separate from blaming one another.

Your co-worker, expecting a retort, may look momentarily stunned by your new response and then mutter, “Yeah, I’m buried up to eyeballs with work. Give me ‘til Friday and I’ll have the report ready.” At that point the two of you can negotiate a time for the report that is mutually acceptable.

Tool #2: Negotiation

Negotiation skills are essential in dealing with angry people. Negotiation is a tool that allows for a win/win situation to occur between two parties who do not already mutually agree. It has several steps:

Step 1: Know what is negotiable and not negotiable. If next Friday is not an acceptable time for the report, you are in a much better position to negotiate and not feel used by him. Specify, matter of factly, what is and is not an acceptable time for the report.

Step 2: Be open-minded. Be willing to listen and consider the other person’s viewpoint. Stephen Covey, in his book the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” suggests that you seek first to understand the other person before you ask to be understood. You will increase your co-worker’s cooperation by asking him to tell you what is troubling him first.

Step 3: Set a time limit. Keep the negotiation time short to prevent the discussion from getting off track. It usually ends up in blaming each other for one’s problems. Keep things on the topic at hand and to the point no matter how much they get off topic.

Step 4: Keep it private. Don’t embarrass your co-worker by negotiating in public. He will be more likely to react negatively if he thinks others are watching him. Ask to talk to him in a private room.

Step 5: Stay calm and cool. Don’t try to negotiate when feeling angry, tired, or preoccupied with other things. If the situation gets too hot, suggest taking a few minutes to cool off and then resume the negotiation. Set this up as a ground rule before negotiating if you think a heated discussion is likely.

Step 6: Acknowledge the others’ point of view. Even if your co-worker is totally off base, acknowledge his feelings about the report. They are important to him even if they are irrational. One way to do this is to say, “I can see how you could feel the way you do given your work load.”

Step 7: Restate the final solution once it is reached. Most failures to cooperate after a negotiation is due to a misunderstanding about what EXACTLY were agreed upon. Write it in memo form if that seems necessary.

Of course, labels and negotiation may not be enough. Your co-worker may continue to be rude and attacking even when you acknowledging his anger. Negotiation may falter because he refuses to budge. No matter how you try to communicate, his obnoxious behavior is unrelenting. That’s when you use the tool of change.

Tool #3: Change Your Situation

Many people believe that they have no choice but to put up with the co-worker’s obnoxious behavior. They let people walk over them because they are in positions of power. It might be a boss who has the power to fire you or your spouse who can make your life miserable or your co-worker who won’t give you the report you need to make you look irresponsible. The reality is that you always have a choice. You can change yourself, the stressor, or the situation. Notice that changing the other person was not one of the choices listed here although that is the one most often chosen. It is also the one that is the least effective. You have no guarantees that you can change the other person. You always have a 100% guarantee to change yourself. But isn’t that being a victim? No, you are never a victim when you choose what and how to change.

You can change yourself by taking care of yourself. Are you getting enough exercise and sleep? What is your diet like? Do you spend a few moments meditating or engaging in relaxing activities every day? The better you take care of yourself, the better you can deal with that angry co-worker.

You can change yourself by changing how you respond to angry people. Using the communication tools above is a step in the right direction. Your co-worker expects you to act in a pre-programmed manner. Call it a dance. He leads and you follow. Changing the dance steps changes the dance.

You can change the stressor by getting more organized. Perhaps if you were more organized you could have asked your co-worker for the report earlier in the week lessening the chances of an angry reaction from him. The more organized you are the better you are able to cope with unexpected problems or problem people.

You can also change your work situation. You don’t have to stay where you are. You might think that you do, for whatever reason, but it is still a choice you are making. Even if you stay in the job you have now, you can always ask to be reassigned to a new department or share a new cubicle with another employee.

There are always choices. And having choices empowers us to deal with angry people in a more confident manner.

Finding a little serenity

Let’s be honest: Life is difficult. This is a basic truth of various wisdom traditions and perhaps, of common sense. But the fact that life is full of problems, shouldn’t be your focus. Your focus should be on how will you respond to problems and problem people. Don’t be surprised by them when you know they will rear their ugly heads again and again. Instead, get a plan and a tool belt full of anger management tools.

Use these tools to change your life so that you don’t wake up every morning with a knot in your stomach. Work on you and you may be pleasantly surprised by the results it creates in others. One way of looking at all of this is the Serenity Prayer popularized by the Alcoholics Anonymous movement. Hey, why should millions of people have all the good stuff? If it helps them overcome alcoholism, maybe it can help you deal with angry people.

The Serenity Prayer goes something like this: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Finding a little serenity means changing what we can, the best way that we can and not stressing over what we can’t change, namely other people.

 

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Changing Children’s Behavior: Take Some Measurements!

Does your child have so many problems that you don’t know where to start? Are you so frustrated that you can’t see or think straight? Do you feel helpless about how to make changes in your relationship with your child? Perhaps the first place to start is with a few measurements.

When behaviorists study people’s behavior, they start with a baseline. A baseline is a tool that is used to measure the frequency and duration of someone’s specific behavior. A baseline can be used to measure the frequency and duration of both desirable and undesirable behavior. This dual measurement can tell parents what they want to increase and what they want to decrease, all without a lot of screaming, hair pulling, or medication!

The first step in determining a baseline is to measure a child’s behavior when no intervention or tool is being used with the child. This way parents can get an accurate estimation of the child’s behavior. Baselines will allow a parent to measure the effectiveness of a particular parenting tool they are using. If a parent discovers that a tool is not getting the desirable results (i.e., the misbehavior continues at the same level as before or is much worse), then the parent knows to abandon this approach and try another. Parents then find a different tool to use that gets them better results. Sounds easy, huh! Actually it isn’t. But with a little practice parents can use baselines to objectively and rationally approach a behavior problem and change it.

The next step is to gather a few basic materials: a piece of graph paper, pencil, and daily calendar. Write across the top of the graph paper the behavior you wish to increase or decrease. For example, you might write: “I want to increase the number of times that Tommy takes his bath on time” or “I want to decrease the number of times that Mary hits her little brother.” Picking the behavior may not be as easy at it sounds. You must pick one behavior to focus on and not get confused with other problems at home. Be very specific about what you want to increase or decrease. Don’t write: “I want Tommy to behave.” That is too general and vague. You will never achieve that anyway, so why frustrate you and Tommy. Pick a behavior that is particularly troublesome and/or dangerous to start.

To get a baseline, simply count how many times a day that particular behavior is occurring for one week. Average it on a per day basis by taking your weekly total and divide it by seven (days of the week). That will be your baseline. Let’s say that you want Tommy to take his bath, on time, every day. At this time, Tommy only takes his bath, one time, once per week. One is your baseline. Anything you use to increase this frequency will be considered effective. Anything that does not or reduces it to zero, is not effective.

After you have picked the behavior, use the bottom of the paper to list the days of the week from the calendar (Sunday, Monday… Saturday). Along the left side of the paper you will write a range of numbers, starting from the bottom and going up. The range could be from zero to ten, if the behavior you are targeting is a low frequency problem or zero to hundred, if it is a high frequency problem. I would suggest sticking with a low frequency problem. It will make the process simpler and easier to monitor.

Now comes the fun part: picking the tool. What will you use to increase or decrease your child’s behavior? You could do what you have always done, like Time-Out or Removing Privileges. Or you could read up on a couple of books, ask a wise friend or teacher, or search the Internet, looking for various interventions to try. Regardless of where you go for your tools, choose only one. Use the tool of choice for a period of one week and faithfully measure how many times a day that behavior occurs with the application of the tool. Be sure that all caregivers (moms, dads, relatives, day care staff, etc.) use the same tool or you will not get a good measurement. In fact, if dad is doing one thing and mom another, you could be sabotaging each other’s efforts. Get everyone on the bandwagon and cooperating.

Chart the number of times the behavior occurs (its frequency per day) and the time that it occurred. In order to see if change has occurred, parents must check to see if there is any difference between the baseline number, before any intervention was made, and the number of occurrences after an intervention is made. This final number should come close to your target number. Let’s take another look at Tommy and his bath time. Mom and dad decided to take away Tommy’s television privileges if he did not get in the bath on time each day. They did this by simply stating the consequence ten minutes before bath time to give him time to prepare. If Tommy did not get in the bath on time (they gave him a five minute window of opportunity either way) they stated that there would be no television privileges the next morning and stuck to their decision. After a couple of days, Tommy realized that mom and dad were serious about this bath time business and decided to cooperate. He was able to get in the bath, on time, three times in one week, as a result of mom and dad’s new interventions. This was a definite increase from the baseline and considered successful by everyone.

Don’t worry if the change doesn’t occur immediately. Children test their parents to see if they will be consistent with these new interventions or if parents are going to fall back to old, inconsistent ways of disciplining. One to two weeks may be needed to witness any real results. If the behavior is still not changing after that period of time, find a new tool. It is also important that you be consistent. Inconsistency will reward the behavior in the wrong direction.

What if one parent is willing to cooperate but the other is not? This makes our task harder but not impossible. Simple measure during a time that you are able to control, say, during the daytime when dad is at work. Obviously, you must pick a target behavior that occurs during that time period and find a tool that you can administer alone. Children will adapt to the different parenting styles of their parents, even if they are exact opposites.

Reward all positive, behavioral changes. This will help to maintain the behavior over a long period of time. Don’t resort to bribes, such as sweets, money, or toys. This will backfire on you. Use social praise, like: “Great job” or “I really appreciated how you did that.” This is usually sufficient for children. Any negative behavior should be ignored, as much as possible.

How long should you use the baseline tool? Use the tool for as long as you need. Once you are getting positive results from your new tool, you can go on to targeting a new behavior or put the chart away until it is needed again. Behavior tools, like the baseline, have some limitations. Very smart children see your strategy and try to go around it or do as they are asked, during the specific time it is asked, and then immediately misbehave right after. For example, Tommy may get into the bath on time so that he can watch his favorite television programs, but right after the bath, he may become rude and obnoxious to his little sister. This is a weakness in the tool, not you. Ignore the weakness for now. All you are concerned with is increasing getting into the bath on time. Later you will address, with the baseline tool, the rude behavior.

The value of this parenting tool is in its ability to get a baseline measure of a child’s behavior and to test the validity of the parenting tools your are using. It allows you to cope with feelings of frustration and target behavior objectively and without negative attention to the child. This allows the parent and the child to concentrate on more enjoyable activities together.

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