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From: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: How to discipline short of spanking
Message-ID: <296@desint.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Jan-85 02:18:25 EST
Article-I.D.: desint.296
Posted: Tue Jan  8 02:18:25 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jan-85 23:43:47 EST
References: <286@ho95b.UUCP>
Organization: his home computer, Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 150

Boy, this one sure got us going!  And, by and large, the responses have been
outstanding.  Ken Arndt, in particular, gets kudos, as does Henry Mensch and
just about all you others.

But of course Noisy here (me) can't resist putting in his two bits worth.  As
with many, it hits close to home.  My crisis came at about 2 AM one night,
when I couldn't get Alyssa to go potty.  So I spanked her.  She stiffened her
body and refused to sit on the toilet.  Ever try to get a stiff three-year-old
onto a toilet?  Doesn't work.  So I spanked her harder.  So she got stiffer.
So I spanked her harder.  Needless to say, it didn't work.

At that point I realized I was way too close to hitting her as hard as I could,
and I just wasn't going to win.  I walked out and turned her over to her
mother, who comforted her and cajoled her into going potty.

I'm not sure I've spanked a kid since (not that I've ever been much of a
spanker).  A friend who has taught me most of what I know about the B-word
(I'll define it later) summed it up quite simply:  "You can't get somebody to
do something by punishing them.  You can get them to *not do* something with
punishment, but it is almost impossible to encourage a behavior by punishing
its absence."

(I should mention here, in case people think its relevant, that Alyssa isn't
mine and I no longer live with her, my worse luck.)

If you want to know how I have given up spanking (well, not 100% -- it's just
that I've been fortunate enough to avoid any really horrible situations
lately -- but it's been two years), I have a book to recommend for you.  If
I remember the title correctly, it's called "Anyone can have a Happy Child."
It's a cheap, readable paperback.  You should be able to find it in "Books
in Print."  I found it to be outstandingly helpful.  I was pretty good with
handling Alyssa before I read it, but the tricks I learned from it are the
reason I could stop spanking entirely.

The best thing I learned from that book is that the best punishment is
boredom.  Take the child and sit him/her in a kid-sized chair, facing a blank
wall.  Explain to them that they will be allowed to leave the chair as soon
as they stop screaming/crying.  If they try to leave the chair, firmly but
impersonally put them back.  Repeatedly.  If you have spanked a lot in the
past and have a defiant child, you may find yourself resorting to spanking to
keep them there.  That's fine (at first), if it works.  As soon as they stop
crying or whatever, go to them, hug them, and tell them that you love them.
At first you will probably have to settle for only one or two seconds'
silence, but you should work up to a goodly amount of time, like a minute.  I
have found this one to be a remarkably magic wand.  Alyssa is *considerably*
more impressed by the threat of "the chair" than she used to be by the
occasional spanking.  It is important, though, that there be *nothing* to
do -- no knicknacks within reach.  If they try to talk to you (I've had two
brothers each try to justify their side of the story), ignore them.  Don't
*tell* them your are going to ignore them and so they should shut up, because
then you've validated them a bit and they will press their case further.
Just ignore them completely.

By the way, I don't recommend telling them to think about what a bad thing they
did or what bad kids they are.  The latter unnecessarily strikes deep into
their self-confidence (and I doubt they *are* "bad" kids, in most cases).  The
former gives them something to think about and dwell on, which defeats the
prime goal of boring them.  I think the boredom is why it works so well.  A
spanking gives you an opportunity to feel sorry for yourself and wallow in
tears, which isn't much fun but it's a lot better than being bored.

An advantage of "the chair" over sending the kid to her room is that
sending to the room makes the room a place associated with punishment, so that
it is harder to get her to go there to play when you need some *QUIET*.  And
the room has toys to play with, so that the punishment can become an
unintentional reward.

With respect to her sitting on the bed screaming, Joe, I wonder what's her
payoff?  Why does she do that?  My theory is that even adults don't do many
things unless they are getting *something* out of it, and kids essentially
never do.  My suspicion would be that the payoff is attention from her
parents.  After half an hour or more, your head is ready to split, so you
decide to try something else -- which means you just proved to her that
screaming works, because *eventually* Mommy or Daddy will notice you did it.
Sure, they spanked you again, but maybe next time they'll give in early.
And you know they are paying attention to your screaming.

With behaviors that are 100% attention-getting, the best way to suppress them
is to not give them what they want.  Ignore them.  Be stoic.  Then be more
stoic.  I remember one night when Alyssa was sent to her room (this was before
I learned about chairs).  There was a loud crash from the room.  Her mother
jumped up, dashed into the room, and (calmly) asked Alyssa if she was all
right.  A dresser drawer was scattered all over the place.  Alyssa said she
wasn't hurt;  mom said "OK," it the most matter-of-fact tone imaginable,
turned around and went back to her crossword.  Alyssa stopped crying shortly
thereafter, and after things had been well forgotten she had to pick up most
of the mess by herself.  Hasn't happened again.  Mom made sure she didn't
have a hospital problem, and then didn't provide any other payoff.  A smart
lady;  I'm still learning things from her.

One final thing that may help is to profusely recognize the nights when she
*does* go to bed quietly.  There must be some of those -- maybe once a month
or less, but at least some nights she must be too sleepy to put up a fight.
On those nights, don't say anything, but give her an extra long hug (by the
clock if you can) or some other small non-awakening warmth.  In the morning,
(here I'm paraphrasing the book so bad I'm almost plagiarizing, because I
had to damn near memorize this part to get it right), go to her and tell her
how pleased you were that she went so quietly.  Something like this:

    "Honey, I wanted to let you know how proud I was of you last night.  You
    went to bed all by yourself, and you went right to sleep with your
    teddy bear [make it as vivid as possible].  I was really pleased because
    you were so grown-up.  You sure are a nice little girl, and I'm sure glad
    I get to be your Mommy/Daddy."

A little later (NOT right away), go to her and spend some time with her doing
something she likes.  The idea is to do is soon enough that she develops
an unconscious association between the praise (which is associated with
behaving) and the time spent.  But you don't want to do it so soon that she
figures this out consciously, or she will start to expect it.  And you don't
want to get trapped into doing this forever -- when she starts behaving, you
should get more and more intermittent until she is "weaned" on this issue.

Some don'ts:  don't be negative, especially when you are trying to be positive.
My rule is to avoid the word "didn`t".  In other words, DON'T say "you were
so good last night, you *didn't* do this bad thing, you *didn't* do that
bad thing."  You don't want to remind them of the misbehaviors, and you don't
want them to feel like they are irretrievably bad.  In fact, at this point you
don't want them to feel bad at all -- you are trying to reinforce a good
behavior by making them feel good.  Far better to be lavish.

And don't contract with the kid.  The classic mistake is "if you go to bed
tonight, I'll buy you an ice cream cone tomorrow morning."  Now you've
established a price.  One quiet bedtime buys one ice cream cone.  Next comes
raising the ante...

Those are my basic rules.  There's a lot more in the book, and in other books
by (and for) people who don't get excited at the B-word, but those are the
ones I remember and live by.  I expect I will spank a few more kids before I
die, but I don't expect there to be many.  You gotta be incredibly stoic at
first, but just keep asking yourself "what's the payoff?"  There always is
one.  In young kids, it's usually attention, positive or negative, which is
neat for you and me because it's easy to take away.  If you can effectively
take away the payoff, that is frequently enough to get rid of a bad
behavior.  If not, find a payoff for a behavior that is incompatible with the
bad one (by this I mean rewarding something that is truly incompatible in the
sense of swimming and riding a bicycle simultaneously, not an "if you don't
misbehave you'll get rewarded" double-negative contract).

Enough.  I've bent your ears too long already, and half of you are probably
wondering what this guy with no kids of his own and not even living with any
anymore is doing shooting off his mouth like this.  I wonder myself, in fact.

Oh, yes -- the B-word, which strikes terror into the hearts of weak men:

    Behaviorism.
-- 

	Geoff Kuenning
	...!ihnp4!trwrb!desint!geoff