Last week’s parent meeting and last night’s tele-meeting pretty much covered the same territory. I reviewed the website, including how parents can log on for LUNCH Points, view tutorials that provide an overview of the website (under video tutorials) and also view a new tutorial that details how the LUNCH Points program works. We had a total of five families at the tele-meeting, and the parent groups were nearly full for both the child and the teen groups.
Other topics discussed included how to support your child outside of group. I focused on a few techniques. 1. Social praise. You may think that what we do in the group is use raffles and do other cool things… No; what we do is we praise your kids. We praise them meaningfully; we praise them frequently. For example, when they come in with a certificate showing they have done something exceptional, the entire group rallies. And when that happens, that is a level of peer reinforcement that is very hard to mimic with a tangible item. As their parents, you can also deliver genuine, meaningful social praise. This doesn’t mean simply saying, “Good job.” It means that you specifically state what they did, and you say words like, “I’m really proud of you.” Who doesn’t want to seek parental approval? Now certainly there have been books written for eons that suggest that you can go overboard on this. But a certain amount of parental approval helps motivate and drive us and keep us on track. So, enjoy your power; use it; but use it for good, and increase your level of social praise.
2. The idea of prompting your child a second time to help him or her be successful, rather than raising your voice or suggesting a negative consequence will occur if he does not comply. Ultimately, skill building is going to produce more generalized independent behaviors, and we talked about this. 3. Behavioral momentum. You can think of behavioral momentum as a way to get your child started and keep him going. This technique works for children who are shy and resistive as well as those who are oppositional, or just for individuals who are unmotivated. You start off with a small, easy request, then gradually build from there; hence the momentum. You can read up on this, and I will attach links to a couple sites for you to peruse as well. 4. Giving your child a choice before making a request. So, asking your child if he is ready to clean his room, and having your child respond, “No,” in a loud voice might fall under what
5. On the parent LUNCH Points form, notice that you can do a “parent review.” The fact that your child gets points for it is certainly one part of it, but it is also meaningful feedback for you. Are you raising your voice? Are you threatening? Are you repeating commands? These are things that are counter-productive. And do remember that, whenever you try a strategy, figure that you have to do it one hundred times. So one hundred times of praising your child at three times per day means that, in approximately less than a month, you are going to be able to see considerable behavior change.
