In the last lesson, we talked about how to behave when your child is displaying appropriate behaviors. Now let's talk about what we should do when your child is showing you inappropriate behaviors. But first, a little disclaimer, these are not going to work 100% of the time and these are not for a full on level 10 tantrum or for a child who's endangering themselves or others. These are for behaviors like hitting or pinching or non compliance or winding behaviors. The first few are things we're going to talk about much later on and more in depth. These are things I cycle through around the clock when with my own children were with children I work with, if one doesn't work, I try the next one.

And often or not, it works like a charm. So it replaces those boss analogy phrases we talked about earlier. These these methods are much more effective and much more positive. The first way to reduce or stop inappropriate behaviors is to redirect, we get our child's attention away from what they're currently doing. And later on, we can discuss about their behavior. But right now I just want to get their attention on something else.

The second way to deal with a minor inappropriate behavior is to ignore our children, which is another funny one I like to talk about with parents. We'll talk about this later as well, but we want to ignore those specific behaviors. The next one I like to do is give my child two choices, and only two choices. So rather than asking them open ended question do you want this one? Do you want this one? Can we read a book?

I just offer them two specific choices. Which book do you want to read this one or this one? And when they make a choice, we move on. We also want to harness their motivation. What motivates this child, what is something that's going to entice them to complete a given task, oftentimes, there needs to be an incentive at the completion of a task just like adults, we need an incentive. And oftentimes, it's going to be a paycheck.

The next strategy I like to use is teach appropriate behavior. So when we talked about those functions of behavior, those purposes, when a child is doing things in an inappropriate way to get an outcome, I'm going to teach them a much easier way to get that outcome and a much more efficient and effective way to get what they want. And when it's more effective and efficient, they're going to use it the other way is going to become much more ineffective, whining, crying, yelling, all those are going to become very ineffective. Your child is not going to get what they want. They're going to realize they're wasting their energy. The last thing I like to do when a child is doing inappropriate behaviors is to you a neutral tone and neutral body language.

When I'm talking with young children, maybe one year two, three years old, I really only use two tones. I use neutral, and excitement. When I use neutral. I'm, I'm giving a direction. Go get your shoes. Let's brush our teeth.

There's minimal inflection in my voice. And when they're doing it, I might get excited. Hey, all right, let's brush, okay. And when they're not doing it, I'm gonna help them do it with a neutral tone of voice. So even with my behavior, I'm letting my child know that what I'm telling them right now is a direction. It can be confusing for younger children.

When we use a sing songy voice when we're giving a direction. Go get your shoes. The child may be thinking what what are you doing right? Are you telling me what to do? Are you excited about shoes, so avoid sing songy when you're giving it to If you really want them to do something and just use a neutral tone, which takes practice, those are some specific things you can do to help your child in those moments of inappropriate behavior. I can't wait to see you in the next lesson.