‘Three Strikes’ Helps Modify Poor Behavior
Q. Our 8-year-old smacks horribly when he is eating. We have tried nagging, threatening and sending him away from the table. We obviously are not doing something right. It’s driving us slowly insane, not to mention ruining the atmosphere of our meals together.
A. When Eric, our now 31-year-old married corporate pilot son, was about your son’s age, he drove us crazy at every meal by slurping his drink.
He’d pick up his glass, hold it horizontally to his mouth, and then try to suck the liquid up the side. That’s what it looked and sounded like, anyway. Every family meal would be interrupted every few minutes with this loud, wet “slurrrrrrrrrrrp!” that sounded like that tube thing the dentist uses to keep your mouth free of fluid.
Like you, Willie and I nagged, threatened, sent Eric away from the table, and even offered to buy him expensive things if he’d stop torturing us. Nothing worked.
It was around that same time that I came up with my “three strikes, you’re out” method of curtailing behavior problems. Not an original idea, really, just a variation on the old Boy Scout demerit system.
After identifying a specific behavior problem — tantrums, whining, ignoring instructions, interrupting conversations, etc. — the parents cut three rectangular “tickets” from colored construction paper and clip them to the refrigerator. The child begins every day with the same three tickets. Every time the specified misbehavior occurs, the parents take a ticket. When, on any given day, the child loses his third ticket, he spends the rest of the day in his room and goes to bed immediately after supper.
The success parents in my practice were having with this simple technique caused me to think that maybe a modified version would help Eric become more aware of his slurping and, therefore, control it.
So, I made three tickets and put them at the top of Eric’s place setting, explaining that when he slurped, I’d no longer nag or even make mention of it. Instead, I’d just reach over and take a ticket. Each ticket represented 30 minutes off his normal bedtime of 9. So, if he lost one ticket, his bedtime became 8:30; two tickets, 8, and so on. Several early bedtimes later, Eric was no longer slurping. We kept the tickets on the table for a while, just to make sure he didn’t have a relapse, then let him go “ticket free.” Every once in a while, he’d slip, but a brief “Do you need your tickets at tonight’s meal?” would straighten him right out.
This method, which can be modified to deal with a variety of discipline issues, helps the child become aware of what he is doing and provides the child with a consequence that motivates him to bring it under control.
Remember, folks, you can’t talk, nag, cajole, or threaten a child into controlling misbehavior. The only thing that persuades is a consequence, and the more matter-of-factly the consequence is delivered, the more effective it will be.