Planned "Together Time"

One of my favorite stories from my work is about a child who frequently had severe tantrums and disruptive behaviors at home. The problems weren't quite as bad at daycare, but when he was home after daycare, he would often seemed to suddenly engage in disruptive behavior (like screaming, slamming the door, hitting/kicking the wall or couch...) with little apparent reason. The mother and I brainstormed for a while trying to figure out what was setting him off. It's not rare for triggers to be things we don't notice, so we have to take time to really sit and think of all possibilities and rule them out.

In this case, the child was being raised by a single, working mother. She dropped him off at daycare in the morning and picked him up at about 5pm. Then she made dinner and let him play. After talking for a while, we noticed that whenever he would engage in these tantrums and disruptive behaviors, his mother would go over and talk to him to try to calm him down and find out what was bothering him. He would usually calm down after a bit, but then might start up again later. We thought that maybe it was in fact the mother's response (direct attention) that was maintaining the behavior. Essentially, he was acting up to get her attention.

We came up with a plan for this child that involved a planned period of "together time with mom" every day after daycare. They would simply sit down and enjoy an activity together. The activity isn't terribly important, and if it is TV, then that's fine (we'd rather it be something interactive, but TV is better than nothing!). The mother also taught the child a different way to ask for attention: he could come sit by her, tap her, or hug her. Any of those would start some "together time with mom." (Using words to ask for attention is fine too, but if the child doesn't have good language yet, then these alternatives are easy for them to do.)

Later, if his mother noticed the child getting upset, then instead of scolding him, she would happily call his name and ask him to come sit with her. This is preempting the behavior (catching it before it escalates) so that behavior doesn't get rewarded. To preempt a behavior we have to be especially observant to notice before it occurs. That can be hard to do, but if we can prevent the behavior from even occurring, then it is not rewarded, which is good!

The theory behind this solution:
When a child is engaging in a "bad behavior" to get something (tantrums in this case), it's often helpful to see if we can find an alternative behavior they can do to get the same thing. We want that behavior to be as easy or easier than the original target behavior. That's not always possible, and if it isn't, then we want to make the reward (the payoff) even better to compensate. Ideally, the child also won't have to do the new behavior for as long or with as much energy as the original (basically like just saying one word to get the reward as opposed to a whole conversation).

This story shows an example of addressing the "antecedent" (things that occur before the behavior and maybe cause the behavior to occur) and identifying the reinforcement (the reward that maintains the behavior). Additionally, there is a lot of value in promoting a close relationship with a child: the child listens better, pays more attention to the parent, values the parent's opinion, and the parent feels less stressed and more patient with the child.