I've only just begun with this but... The DVD NHA suggest to get creative so it's easy to show the child success. If you could get someone to help you with some planned phone calls that would help.Make a very quick phone call to a friend as soon as you hang up say "you were so good to let me have an uninterrupted phone call, I appreciate that." When he interrupts try to avoid any attention to his undesired behavior, just walk away. NHA would say talking to him about leaving the room is fueling the undesired behavior.

This is not on NHA but...
You might use a signal of quiet or one minute when on the phone. The point is to give as little attention to undesired behavior as possible.

If a child does something wrong they get a quick time out. I am not ready to use time outs for phone interruptions because I need to save the time out for other stuff. I don't think it is good to overdo time outs. After the time out is done, compliment them on a good time out - "you did just what I asked, I appreciate that". Don't talk about the bad behavior now. Don't ask for a appology, that will come in time. Just focus on the good.

This is not on NHA but...
I find my DS to have strong motivation and he takes in more of my messages away from the moment. When there is a repeating undesired child behavior situation it works best for me to have a short talk with him that suggests why our family/freindship would benefit from a change. I find this hard to remember to do but very powerful. My son does not always notice I am on the phone becuase he is looking at what he wants to show me. I have been trying to encourage him to look at people when he talks to them.

One of the NHA examples was a Dad started this approach with a boy who was good about putting on his seat belt. As soon as the boy did it the Dad said "Please put on your seat belt". Boy responded "I've already put on my seat belt." Dad - "That's great I appreciate you knowing what was needed and you just did it with out me asking." This boy was doing so many things wrong that the Dad had to look for something right, that we normally don't notice.

This kid hardly got to hear he was doing a good job. This was a start to fuel good behavior with attention that kid's crave. Bad behavior attention fuels bad behavior.

If anyone would like to comment on my "not NHA but...approaches" please do. I'm thinking that the NHA approach could work with a little flexiblity.

Last edited by onthegomom; 07/27/10 08:25 AM.