Lesson 6 — Preventing Misbehavior

Teaching Guide

Lesson Materials

1. Teaching guide: Preventing Misbehavior

2. Handout: Setting Limits

3. Handout: Setting a Good Example

4. Handout: Gaining Cooperation

5. Handout: Changing the Environment

Preparation for the Lesson

1. Read the handout before presenting the lesson, perhaps marking or highlighting what you think are the most important points to stress.

2. Distribute the handout a week or so before the lesson and ask clients to read it in advance (if possible and if it seems appropriate for the client).

Suggested Lesson Outline

Following are some ideas for discussion and activities. In a limited time, you will probably be able to do only one (or part of one) of the activities. Select the ones that you believe will lead to a point you want to stress, that you are comfortable with, and that you believe will interest your clients.

1. Discussion: Ways to prevent misbehavior

   1. Point out to the parents that it is easier on both the child and the parent to prevent misbehavior rather than deal with it afterwards. Many child behavior problems are really parent problems.

   2. Brainstorm with the parents ways to prevent misbehavior. Be sure to let them offer suggestions. You may offer some of your own along with those offered by parents.

   3. Review each suggestion. For each of the suggestions offered, talk through what it means to the parents, whether it makes sense, and how it could be applied.

2. Review the handouts

   1. After the parents have expressed their thoughts about ways to prevent misbehavior, if time permits, review other suggestions in the handouts. Again, talk through these suggestions in terms of what they mean to the parents and how they can apply them.

   2. If you want to emphasize particular points from the handouts, you may want to offer one of the following activities or discussion topics.

3. Discussion: Setting limits

   Ask parents to think about and discuss the following questions:

   1. What kinds of rules did your parents have for you when you were a child? Write down as many as you can remember, starting with your preschool years.

   2. How did you typically respond to these rules? Which ones were unfair?

   3. What impact did these rules have for your own children? That is, how did your own childhood experience influence the way you set and enforce limits for your children?

4. Activity: Evaluating your present limits

   1. Write down as fully as possible two limits you have for one or more of your children.

   2. For each limit, ask yourself: is it important, reasonable, positive, and clear? Do you enforce it consistently?

   3. If necessary, rewrite the limit to make it more effective.

5. Discussion: Parental example

   Ask parents to think about and discuss the following questions:

   1. In what ways did your parents affect your moral development—your beliefs, values, convictions, behavior?

   2. What were your parents' values? How did your mother and father deal with various aspects of life—money, work, leisure, intimacy, life's underlying purpose, children and parenting, discipline, school achievement, responsibility, sexuality?

   3. How much of these approaches have you incorporated into your life and in what ways?

   4. How may this in turn be influencing your children's development?

   5. What other significant people in your life influenced you? In what ways?

6. Activity: Parental example

   1. Use this activity if you want to emphasize this point. Refer to the "Setting a Good Example" handout.

   2. Have the clients offer their suggestions for correcting the parent's behavior in the following exercise:

7. Activity: Giving choices

   1. Use this activity if you want to emphasize this point. Refer to the "Gaining Cooperation" handout.

   2. Tell parents: Sometimes, perhaps because we want children to like us or because we want to be polite, we offer them too many, or inappropriate, choices. Children take us seriously when we offer them a choice, and often a difficult situation occurs because adults may have offered choices they didn't really mean.

   3. Go over the first two examples in the exercise.

   4. Have the parents offer their suggestions for the remaining situations.

8. Activity: Changing the environment

   1. Use this activity if you want to emphasize this point. Refer to the "Changing the Environment" handout.

   2. Tell parents: Occasionally, misbehavior or adult-child conflicts arise because some part of the physical setting is not appropriate for young children. Or sometimes adults expect more control or more mature behavior than children are capable of.

   3. Go over the first three examples in the exercise.

   4. Have the parents offer their suggestions for the remaining situations.

9. Activity: Additional examples for practice

   1. Present one or more of these examples to the parents.

   2. Ask for their answers or suggestions for solving the problem.

   3. Go over the "answers" provided below.

   Problems:

   1. Mary Smith lives down the street from you. Her son, Terry, has just turned two and is the terror of the neighborhood because he bites other children. Mary comes to your house for coffee one day and asks for your advice. She doesn't doesn't want to follow Janet Jones's suggestion, which is to bite Terry back whenever he bites a child. Which principles for preventing misbehavior can you suggest to Mary to help her solve her problem?

   2. At a parents' meeting, a father shares his concern about the poor eating habits of his four year-old son, Juan. Juan will only eat bananas, hot dogs, and peanut butter sandwiches. Which one (or more) of the principles for preventing misbehavior might help Juan and his father deal with this problem?

   3. Seven-year-old Theresa cannot seem to remember to put her clothes away and to keep her toys in order. Her mother works and finds it very annoying to nag and to pick up after Theresa all the time. Punishments and scoldings have no effect on Theresa's behavior. Which of the principles for preventing misbehavior could Theresa's parents use to deal with this problem?

   4. J. J. is an active, energetic 15-month-old boy. He is into everything and has already been taken to the emergency room three times as a result of his explorations. The last episode involved a stomach pump because J. J. drank from a bottle of cleaning fluid. Before that he had received a severe electric shock when he poked his fork into the toaster. Which of the principles for preventing misbehavior can J. J.'s family use to keep J. J. safe?

   Answers:

   1. First of all, it is not a good idea to bite the child back. That merely models the very thing the parent does not want the child to do. A few suggestions:
      • Monitor the child's behavior to determine when or under what circumstances it occurs. Use that information to anticipate biting episodes and stop them before they happen.
        
        
      • If the child does bite, immediately remove him from the situation and briefly, but firmly, explain that biting hurts and will not be allowed.
        
        
      • Praise him when he behaves properly and plays well with others.
        
        
      • Change the situation so it does not frustrate him—for example, provide easier or more toys and activities, shorter play times.
        
        
      • Teach acceptable alternatives to biting. For example, teach him to say "no," instead of biting or hitting, if another child is doing something he doesn't like. The child will learn better ways.

   2. Model enjoyment of a variety of foods yourself, including those that you especially want the child to eat (such as fresh vegetables). Continue to offer and to make it clear that you want him to eat an array of foods. But don't try to force it by nagging, yelling, or punishing the child. Praise even small steps that show a change (even one bite of a previously refused item). The child will expand his choices, if you avoid attempts to force the issue.

   3. Punishments and scoldings have little effect on any misbehavior. Model and point out (gently) your own efforts at tidiness and putting things in their proper place. Be sure the child knows where things belong and that there are easy and convenient places to put clothes and toys. As a general principle, where possible, do not permit her to take out a new toy or set of toys until the previous ones are put away. Do not do the job for her. If clothes or toys are left in a place that you feel is dangerous or unacceptable, put them in a box or bag in a place convenient to you (but perhaps inconvenient to her)—the basement, closet, or garage. Then if she wants the missing item, she has to go find it in the box. Praise even small steps in the right direction. Consider whether your standards are too fussy.

   4. Managing the environment is the most important guideline for a child this age. (Refer to the "Changing the Environment" handout.) Carefully put dangerous or not-to-be handled objects out of reach—in locked cupboards or high shelves. Cover electric outlets, keep pan handles turned in when cooking on the stove, etc. Also, when you see the child looking at or approaching a forbidden object, distract him and offer substitute activities or objects. If he does reach a forbidden object, say "no" firmly and calmly and remove him (but don't let it seem to be a game).

Follow-up/Homework

1. Ask the parents to set a goal for preventing misbehavior—an idea, strategy, or tactic that they will try in the next couple of weeks. If they and you are comfortable with this, you might have them share their goal with you—in oral or written form. (This could be a good basis for evaluating the lesson.)

2. Whether or not they share their goal with you at lesson's end, check back with them in two or three weeks about how they did with their goal.

3. If you emphasized "Setting Limits" ("Setting Limits" handout), you might want to give this homework assignment:

   Ask each member of the family to list what they consider the family's most important rules. Write them down for young children who can't write. Then have a family meeting. Discuss which items on the lists are the same and which ones are different. Try to find out why children are unsure of some rules or why they think there are rules even though the parents have not listed them. Try to come up with a mutual list of important family rules or limits.

4. If you emphasized "Giving Choices" ("Gaining Cooperation" handout), you might want to give this homework assignment:

   Listen to yourself carefully for a week. Count the number of inappropriate choices you offer your child in the course of a day. On the next day, try to catch yourself before you offer an unfair choice. At this point, you may be feeling discouraged and unnatural. But remember you feel self conscious anytime you learn a new skill. Learning to be an effective parent takes skill. When you learn to drive a car you have to stop and think about every move you make. After a while you drive almost without thinking about it and talk, sing, or listen to the radio as well. After a while new parenting skills also come naturally and without self-consciousness. In the beginning, however, it's really hard!

5. If you emphasized "Changing the Setting" ("Changing the Environment" handout), you might want to give this homework assignment:

   Change at least one thing in your home to make it easier for your child to behave well. Is it placing a box next to the sink so your child can wash and get a drink without help? Is it clearing out a low kitchen cupboard and stocking it with pots and pans that your baby can play with while you cook? Is it asking an appliance store for a big cardboard box so that your children have something that's O.K. to climb on instead of being yelled at for climbing on the furniture?

Application to Nutrition Lessons

This material can be applied to any situation involving food or nutrition where child misbehavior occurs—table behavior, food dislikes, eating problems. Ask the parents to apply any of the suggestions offered in the lesson to these situations.

References

Bjorklund, Barbara R. and David F. Bjorklund. Parents Book of Discipline. Ballantine Books, 1990.

Developmentally Appropriate Guidance. Minnesota Association for the Education of Young Children.

Faber, Adele and Elaine Mazlish. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. Avon Books, 1982.

Gootman, Marilyn. How to Teach Your Child Discipline. National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse, 1990.

Satter, Ellyn. Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense. Bull Publishing Co., 1986.

Wyckoff, Jerry and Barbar C. Unell. Discipline Without Shouting or Spanking. Meadowbrook Books, 1984.

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