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Grinity..
yes I would say the warning would be in line with reset. The neutral emotional approach I think is tantamount to any effective parenting approach. I am most familiar with Glasser' book and a training I attended years (sigh...I'm getting old) ago. So I'm sure that he may have reyoolef some areas since then. I would also assert that most "teach a lesson" punishments fail miserably with almost ANY kid. Lectures amount to wasted breath...and so much of what kids do needs to be practiced and repracticed before they get it right. Someone may have told me a multitude of times how to drive a stick shift, but until I go about trying it myself, I'll be going nowhere.

I'm so glad so many parents on here are so invested in finding a healthier way to reach their kids.

I agree that reward systems aren't ideal long-term. We used one from TTDC for a while, which helped calm down the household. We then transitioned to a more informal system, whereby when the child misbehaves, I bellow at him that his privileges are revoked, then give them back soon after if he toes the line. :|

I don't think the rewards in TTDC need to be increased in order to have the same effect, though. The way it works is that harmful stimuli are removed from the system, and the child is essentially empowered to make choices about how his day will go. If the child doesn't want privileges, the child can choose to misbehave. It's based on very gentle but sustained pressure and the idea that over time this will trigger a change, like using dripping water torture to convince a prisoner to conform. But in a nice way.

I don't know that the consequences are so false. Many rules under which parent punish children may not be natural or directly logical consequences, in terms of directly taking away the abused privilege or object etc., but sometimes there are no truly natural consequences to impose, just as raping a rapist is not a good or natural punishment.

What TTDC does, in part, is to create a behavioral currency that, when implemented correctly, can completely take the animus out of parental corrections. A child can learn from his mistakes in a thousand small ways without a huge deal being made about it, since the system when correctly implemented prevents overreactions by parents. For families engaged in daily battles this can be a huge emergency improvement, and allow breathing room for further tweaks.

La Texican...

Yeah reward systems are hard. The most structured ones seem to be best suited for seriously behavior disordered kids because they often have lost the intrinsic desire to please adults (or avoid dissapointment). Same can be said for kids who've dealt with serious trauma and/or attachment issues.

I think an approach is only as good as a parent can use it easily. If a child does not respond to ANY consequences, a strict system can help get a child motivated again. But of course, a reward system also only works if the child is already NOT getting the things they are to earn (think allowance...they often fail because money means nothing to kids - we forget to stop paying for their Redbox rentals or McDonald's smoothies, or Lipsmackers lipgloss because it's so ingrained in us providing for our kids).

Glasser's most effective reward is kids getting positive praise and attention from parents (something they actually may NOT be getting). I know I fall into the trap of only being negative...it's so hard!

Another drawback is that by teaching your child to covet pieces of eight, he may later choose to pursue a career in piracy on the high seas.

I don't think that the TTDC system is really complicated to administer. We had a sheet of things to check at the end of the day (anyone is free to PM me if they want a copy) and we would run down it in a couple of minutes at the end of the day. Certain types of severe misbehavior would suspend privileges immediately. I initially thought it would be complicated, but it really wasn't.

Exactly!

Yep...and sometimes we can't let our kids face the natural consequence of, say, playing in the street. Logical consequences (which relate to the issue in some way) sometimes need to be created instead (ie: your kids can't play out front anymore since they can't stay out of the street).
Our failure to be consistent with any approach id usually or downfall...what am I the most consistent with - why yelling comes easiest! Which is why (when I'm not careful) my kids can play me like a slot machine (spewing delicious and fascinating angry entertainment) when I'm not being vigilant

Good, then I'm going back to the pieces of eight because it was working well for us and we all three thought it was fair. The only time he had to earn his coins was if he didn't rein in a spiral, then it was community service to get it back over five. I just gave him his coins back every day, he didn't have to earn them unless he spiraled.

Re: the wiki link... Lmao @ brainwashing the kids into thinking they're awesome. Easy enough because I reallly think they are. Also, what I read in "Playful Parenting" is to make your eyes really big sometimes when you're looking at them. I don't like the way that makes my face look. I've seen it on a few other women. But it fit in with the TNH spiel of "show them you're paying attention when they're not doing anything terrible or extraordinary". Those big eye stares do seem to make a difference my kids feel. They are really young. The boy still always likes to literally say "looook AT Meeee!". (eating a bite of food?! wow).
I mentioned once I feel guilty that Espy never got my undivided attention like Wyatt did, and Wyatt had to share it after Espy came. My grandmother said the only way I could give my kids more attention is if I became their Siamese twin and she renamed my daughter Vel, which is short for Velcro because she was always stuck to my hip. It was in some parenting books, if you give them enough security when they're little they'll be brave enough to venture out and explore when they're older.

Luconu, your phrasing almost made me think of a code word for TNH discipline. I keep hearing "con animo" to mean with more enthusiasm I think the new code word in my house is "sin animo".

Anyone else having Dr. Strangelove flashbacks? XD

As is usually the case with generalizations, the above is often but not always true. There's a conflict dynamic that is all too common between adults, usually married, wherein one partner shuts down as a defensive mechanism. The vocal partner escalates their aggression, in an effort to get the quiet partner back into the discussion. The quiet one retreats further, the vocal one escalates yet again, and it becomes a destructive feedback loop. In this scenario, the vocal one is escalating not out of a need to "steal energy," but because of growing insecurity about the relationship. "Do you even care?"

And, the reason I bring this up is because I noticed my DD7 and I caught up in this same dynamic during a meltdown, where with my calm demeanor I was cast in the role of quiet one, and she played the vocal one. The meltdown was triggered by a new skill on the guitar she was having difficulty with. We gave her a few minutes of timeout to gather herself, and when I went to check on her it seemed she was getting worse, not better. I tried to talk her down from it, but she kept escalating further, and by the time she was shouting over me every single time I opened my mouth, I knew that this approach was going nowhere, and I needed to try something else.

So, I decided to poke the bear. I didn't get all shouty with her, but I did start making some deliberately inflammatory statements. "As long as you maintain that attitude, you are absolutely right, you will never learn to play this," etc. It gave her the reaction she was looking for, and by the time I suggested we immediately throw her guitar in the trash, she'd been given a new worry to short-circuit that feedback loop. The meltdown abruptly ended, a couple days later she initiated a guitar practice with those skills without being told to, and by the end of the week she was not only playing the chords passably well, but enjoying mixing them around to create her own tunes.

I wouldn't endorse using the "poke the bear" play on a regular basis, but it can be useful when the "don't energize the energy" play is backfiring.

We have been exlicitly labelling things "tantrums" and "meltdowns." Today he's having a tantrum, it's mild, but has been going on since 2:30 I got home feeling beat, and worried I wasn't handling it very well. Their dad took him 20 minutes ago, and he's already yelling. He's usually better at not yelling than me. But still, everytime he gets attention things escallate.

When he has meltdowns, it goes the other way, it escallates untill he gets attention.

The problem is I don't think it's either possible or desirable to ignore him long enough for it to be a real deterrant. I did that this morning, while trying to get his brother to sleep, because I had no real choice at the time. It took an hour before he was quiet enough that the little one could sleep. But it worked. Ultimately, he cleaned his room on his own initiative to earn my attention back (wich worked darned stinkin' well).

I worry that any consequence serious enough to be a deterrant is abusive. Like ignoring a 3 yr old for an hour.

Positive re-enforcement is hard because he feels any absence of positive re-enforcement as punitive. Like if I pause when turning the pages of a book to take a sip of coffee, or to pass the little one another toy.

And then I worry that he has a genuine disorder of some type. But I think he's generally subtantially better behaved than agemates. It's just incredibly difficult to adjust his behavior, including for reasons of safety.

I like the idea that people should be intrinsically motivated, but can that get to the level of a disability?

I notice he's in his room now, telling me tearfully that it isn't fair at all. I offered attention if he stopped three things, and he immediately stopped. I guess I gotta go now. He wants attention -- just more than we can give.

ARG.

RE: sweetpeas post- 1 2 3 Magic was also recommended to us by my son's preschool. It's worked great for him, and our other two children. It's super simple to use.