Parenting is not a series of "techniques" or "manipulations" designed to gain control over another human being. When parents are in control of themselves and [the way they interact with their children], children will learn to control themselves. – Jamie Raser, Raising Children You Can Live With

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select–doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years. John Watson, Behaviorism (1930). Thanks to the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysis for the complete quote (see the final sentence – italics mine).

Resources on Parenting

• You can contact Jamie using his email address: jraser AT dpisd DOT org.
• Research showing that spanking children does not work:
• Gershoff, I. (2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 539-579.
• Kazdin, A. E., & Benjet, C. (2003). Spanking children: Evidence and Issues. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 99-103.

Although physical punishment may produce immediate compliance – children typically stop the behavior spanking is meant to end – there are a number of serious long-term side effects. For example, spanking is associated with lower quality parent-child relationships, poorer mental health for both child and parent, higher levels of delinquency, and more antisocial behavior. In addition, children who experience higher levels of spanking are less able to develop their own inner sense of right and wrong…Spanking also teaches children that violence is an acceptable solution to prolems by serving as a model of violent, aggressive behavior. – Robert Feldman, Development Across the Life Span

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Resources for this Episode

Zero Tolerance Policies: in this interview, Dr. Green and I briefly discuss our doubts about the effectiveness of zero tolerance policies in schools. A recent publication in the journal American Psychologist confirms these doubts. From the abstract of “Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools?: An evidentiary review and recommendations” by the American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force (December 2008, Volume 63):

…zero tolerance policies may negatively affect the relationship of education with juvenile justice and appear to conflict to some degree with current best knowledge concerning adolescent development. To address the needs of schools for discipline that can maintain school safety while maximizing student opportunity to learn, the report offers recommendations for both reforming zero tolerance where its implementation is necessary and for alternative practice to replace zero tolerance where a more appropriate approach is indicated.

Here again are the resources on this topic that I think you’ll find useful:

Collaborative Problem Solving Books and DVDs

• The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

• Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach

• Parenting the Explosive Child: featuring Drs. Ross Greene and Stuart Ablon

• Calming the Tempest : Helping the Explosive Child

• Check out the Thinkkids website where you can find more information on collaborative problem solving.

Related Episodes on The Psych Files

• Episode 28: Is Timeout Really Effective?

• Episode 33: Timeout Revisited – Dealing with Challenging Kids Part 1

• Episode 34: Timeout Revisited – Dealing with Challenging Kids Part 2

Site Search Tag: Development, Parenting and Childcare

In this episode I interview Dr. Ross Green, author of The Explosive Child and the upcoming book "Lost in School". He’ll tell you how to use collaborative problem solving with your students. This episode is also for parents, daycare workers, babysitters – anyone who wants to help young people learn to think their way through everyday behavior problems.

(If I sound like the “chipmunks” on your computer, try this link instead.)

Collaborative Problem Solving Books and DVDs

• The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

• Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach

• Parenting the Explosive Child: featuring Drs. Ross Greene and Stuart Ablon

• Calming the Tempest : Helping the Explosive Child

• Check out the Thinkkids website where you can find more information on collaborative problem solving.

Related Episodes on The Psych Files

• Episode 28: Is Timeout Really Effective?

• Episode 33: Timeout Revisited – Dealing with Challenging Kids Part 1

• Episode 34: Timeout Revisited – Dealing with Challenging Kids Part 2

Site Search Tag: Development, Parenting and Childcare

Resources For Timeout Revisited

• Make sure to check out the ThinkKids website for more information on collaborative problem solving.
• There’s some interesting information in Wikipedia on the topic of timeout.

Related Episodes

In case you didn’t catch part 1 of this episode on alternatives to timeout, here’s the link:

• Part 1 of the interview on timeout revisited.

Resources For This Episode

• Make sure to go to the Think Kids website for more information about collaborative problem solving.
• The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children
• Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach

Relevent Previous Episodes on The Psych Files

• Make sure to listen to the episode entitled Is Timeout Really Effective?
• An early episode of The Psych Files covers the basics of rewards and punishments.

Related Episodes

Be sure to listen part 2 of this interview with Stuart Ablon called “Timeout Revisited”: dealing with challenging kids:

• Part 2 of the interview on timeout revisited.

Resources and Links for this Episode

• Listen to Jane Nelson (author of Positive Discipline) talk about her views on time out and spanking. This is an mp3 file from episode 28 of the Focusing on Solutions podcast.
• Here is the link to the Positive Discipline website, and here is the link to their podcast.
• Here is a link to the book Positive Time-Out: And Over 50 Ways to Avoid Power Struggles in the Home and the Classroom.
• Here’s the link to 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (123 Magic)
• Here’s the link to Smart Love
• If time out has not worked for you, consider this book: The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

Quotes of Interest

From Positive Time Out (Nelson):

• Where did we ever get the idea that we have to make children feel bad in order for them to act good?

From Smart Love (Pieper and Pieper):

• We believe that discipline makes children miserable without offering them any genuine benefit, because punishing children whose behavior is out of control actually interferes with their ability to learn self governance. We advocate the use of loving regulation, a way for parents to guide their children away from missteps without adding to their unhappiness or interfering with their development of inner happiness.
• The best way to respond to a child’s harmful or dangerous behavior is to stop it without imposing added unpleasantness.
• Parents are frequently advised to tell their child that her behavior makes them angry. But children cannot distinguish between their parent’s anger at the behavior and their parent’s feelings about them. When children repeatedly experience their parents as being angry at them, they copy their parents and develop needs to feel angry at themselves.
• Unfortunately, most people don’t recognize that many of the vulnerabilities and out of control behaviors that children engage in are both temporary and appropriate for their age (you can’t expect children to act like adults).

The Explosive Child:

These authors discuss children whom they refer to as “inflexible-explosive”: children who find it difficult to “go with the flow”. These children get “locked up” and don’t handle change easily. Also, typical disciplinary procedures such as time-out only lead to a deterioration of their condition and probably a “melt-down”. The authors encourage a more problem solving approach to working with such children. I encourage you to take a look at two web sites related to their work:

• Find out more about their approach at the Center for Collaborate Problem Solving.
• The authors have established a non-profit institute called “Think Kids” and I encourage you to visit this site.

Related Episodes

Be sure to listen to the Interview with Stuart Ablon called “Timeout Revisited”: dealing with challenging kids:

• Part 1 of the interview on timeout revisited.

• Part 2 of the interview on timeout revisited.

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