Not necessarily. I *try* to do this with differently levels of success. It works more on DS5 than DS2. DS5 likes to have classic meltdowns and getting him to talk about his emotions and his feelings really works. There is a book that we have that goes into details on why this is a better approach (sorry! I don't have it handy and can't recall its name!) but it has to do more with getting kids to talk about their feelings. So you might hear me say things like...
"I see you're really upset"
"You're frustrated. I can understand that."
"Well I wish we could do X. But we can't. Makes me mad too."
etc. And then using that to open up a dialog to explain the situation. This maybe works with DS2 25% of the time and with DS5 50% of the time... though while DS5 is emotionally mature he's pretty darn intense so 50% of the time is not bad in my book.
That's not to say we don't also use stimulus/response approach a lot.
"Don't do X"
>>does X<<
"Don't do X"
>>does X<<
"Don't do X"
>>does X<<
"You're on restriction for the morning"
JB
