For our next episode, we get into the nitty-gritty of so-called “bad” behaviour in neurodiverse kids, emphasizing that there are no bad kids—just unmet needs.

We'll break down how to identify and tackle these behaviours both at home and in clinical settings, offering practical tips for parents and professionals alike. With a mix of personal anecdotes and clinical insights, we'll highlight the importance of understanding the underlying reasons behind a child's actions rather than simply labelling them as “bad.” Whether it's figuring out how to manage hitting between siblings or navigating the complexities of communication, we've got you covered with strategies that promote empathy and effective intervention. So grab your headphones and get ready to learn how to turn those challenging moments into opportunities for growth!

Timestamps:

(01:10) - Welcome

(06:50) - Unmet Needs Behind Actions

(19:53) - Friman: No Such Thing As A "Bad" Boy

(33:38) - The Importance of Skill Building and Reinforcement

(46:19) - Balancing Feedback for Neurodiverse Children

(52:00) - Tips When Dealing With "Bad" Behaviour

(01:03:51) - Creating Predictability for Children

Mentioned In This Episode:

Articles:

• Chan, C. Y. Z., Williams, K., May, T., Wan, W. H., & Brignell, A. (2023). Is language ability associated with behaviours of concern in autism? A systematic review. Autism Research, 16(2), 250–270
• Friman, P. C. (2021). There is no such thing as a bad boy: The Circumstances View of problem behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 54(2), 703–715

Blogs:

• Fostering Positive Behaviour in Children with a "Caught Ya Being Good” Jar

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What do I do?

My.

The boys are hitting each other.

And often she thinks they're trying to get her attention, but then her consequence is then, okay, iPad, because that's something that's so important to them. So she's saying, okay, you hit your brother tonight. So then on Saturday, you get like, 15 minutes less of iPad time.

Hey, everyone, I'm Brittany, speech language pathologist.

And I'm Shauna, behavior analyst.

And we're your hosts at Neurodiversally Speaking.

This is a podcast where we bridge the gap between research and practice, exploring autism and neurodiversity through the lens of speech and behavior.

Whether you're a parent or a professional, we'll give you practical tips to bring into your home or your next therapy session.

Let's get started.

Welcome to the neurodiversely Speaking podcast with Brittany Clark and Shauna Fleming from lmno, brought to you by the Sensory Supply. While we aim to make neurodiversity speaking suitable for all audiences, mature subject matter can sometimes be discussed.

Suitable only for those over the age of 18.

If you're under the age of 18, please talk to your parent or guardian before listening to our show or listen together with them to stay up to date on new episode releases and show updates. Connect with us on Instagram Neurodiversity Speaking.

You can also send us listener questions to address on the show@helloeurodiversityspeaking.com neurodiversily speaking starts now. Hey, listeners, welcome to episode three. We're so glad that you're listening today. Thanks for joining us. It's Brittany and I'm here with Jonna.

Awesome. Today we're going to be talking about unpacking bad behavior. You can't see, but I'm doing an air quote there.

Bad behavior and what are kids really trying to tell us?

So excited for this episode and something that's so close to my heart as a behavior analyst and something that I feel very, very passionate about. So I'm excited to dive in today.

Yeah, me too.

And I would say as my training as a speech pathologist, I know I talked about this in the last episode, but I did not get this training and I feel so good now as a mom that we've been working together that I have these really cool tool. Tool. I truly believe there are no bad kids.

Exactly. It's like, and we say that to our kids all the time, right? There are no bad kids.

And it helps our kids also understand what other that their peers or have different feelings than them or have different perspectives and really laying that foundation early.

Absolutely, absolutely. Can you think of a time this past week where you maybe told that to one of your kids?

Oh, goodness. Well, at school, of course, there's always something going on. My 4 year old is in junior kindergarten here in Ontario.

Um, and at school there's always interesting dynamics that you're trying to figure out. Right. And so this one friend wanted to play with him, but he was busy playing something else.

And then his friend said, oh, gosh, I can't even remember, but it really hurt his feel, my son's feelings that the friend had said that.

And so I was trying to explain to him, like, I don't think he meant to hurt your feelings, you know, and sort of talking about what he can do in those situations and how to navigate those complex social situations at school is so tricky.

Yeah, I love that. Absolutely. And not everyone's going to be raised the same and act the same, but at the same time, there's no bad kids.

And so really there's something behind that behavior. And that's what I try to teach my kids too.

Exactly.

Yeah. Very cool. All right, so you had a funny anecdote you're going to share.

Tell me a story about an example, something that you've, like a client that you've worked with where the behavior was so challenging or frustrating to the family that as a behavior, unless you were able to come in and help them.

Yeah, I, like I said, I really love this topic. Topic.

We're looking to dive a little bit more into what is bad behavior and what could it maybe be telling us, you know, and so as a behavior analyst, of course I often am dealing with bad behavior or people will contact me about bad behavior problems at home.

And so I had this one guy that I was working with in his home with his family, and his mom stopped me one day on the way out the door and was just like, shauna, I do not know what to do. He is taking 40 minute showers. This is the only bathroom in our house. We gotta get to school. Like, we don't have time for a 40 minute shower.

And I said, okay, yeah, let me think about that. And came back the next week and I had a plan ready for him. And this guy was on the autism spectrum.

And so I met with them and I was talking to him about the water usage and like that it's important to conserve water for the earth.

And then we talked about how there's only one bathroom in his house and just said that it was important to share the bathroom with the rest of his family.

Uh, and so we put in this intervention for him where he was gonna start a timer right before he got into the shower, stop the timer when he left the bathroom, and graph his progress. So graph how long it took him.

And so we put the intervention in place that day and the next day he had a 10 minute shower and never took a long shower after that moment.

Oh, wow.

And so in his case, he just like really didn't understand the implications.

Right.

Of his actions and how it sort of impacted the rest of his family. And his, I think, was thinking she had to do this big intervention.

And then really it just came down to communication and meeting with him and chatting about what the expectations were and the impact to others and really spelling that out in a way that was so clear to him that then he was like, oh, okay, sure, that makes perfect sense. I can take a 10 minute shower.

Oh my gosh, that's amazing. And he was a teenager kind of thing.

He wasn't, he was young, actually. I think he was seven.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

He was like extremely intelligent seven year old. Like a gifted autistic individual. And so very fun guy.

Yeah.

And very interesting conversations back and forth. And it was just like as soon as a light clicked on for him, he was like, okay, got it. Thanks for letting me know that.

So cool. Oh, thank you. That's an amazing story.

And reminds us, of course, the things that we're going to talk about today, that there's something usually behind that behavior. And that's why we, again, as moms and as clinicians can think it's not the child that's trying to be bad or trying to, you know, it's usually.

What do you usually tell me is the environment, not the organism?

Exactly. In behavior analysis, we're always looking at the environment. And we don't blame the organism. Something in the environment is not working for them.

And in this case, the individual just didn't know. Right. They didn't think about their impact because they're a seven. Right. To the rest of their family. And so by spelling that out for them.

And I think that's something that should be a theme throughout our podcast today, is we'll talk about some really simple strategies that you can use with typically developing children or neurodiverse children to really help them to learn how to manage their bad behavior or to help build up this skills so that then you're seeing less bad behavior.

Yeah, amazing. All right, so three things we really want to your take home Messages are three things we're hoping to explain in this podcast.

We want you to understand that bad behavior is usually a sign of an unnet me unmet unmet need. I. I'm a speech pathologist. Why was that hard for me to say?

So bad behavior, it's usually there's some sort of underlying need that's not being met or undeveloped skill. And so there's something that you can do about that. And then a second would be as a society, we turn to or we tend to lean towards that blame view.

Absolutely. We're like looking at problem behavior as a problem and then we're not necessarily looking at the circumstances, that there's something behind it.

And that circumstance view is more empowering really. And then the third thing is why are individuals who are neurodiverse more likely to be labeled as having a bad behavior or a bad kid?

Exactly. And again, as a behavior analyst, I feel so empowered by the circumstances view versus a blame view. And I'm excited to dive into that today.

Amazing.

So when I was looking at this topic you and I discussed, okay, this is certainly more your domain looking at behavior and certainly that bad or challenging behavior, but I think there's such an important language component to it as well.

And so I looked at a systematic review that was conducted to investigate the connection then between language ability and then behaviors of concern is what they called them specifically in neurodiverse children or kids with autism. And so in that review they looked at this structural language ability and they explained that this refers to the content and form of language.

So this is something you and I talk about a lot, content versus form and how, you know, in speech pathology we look at content and form and function, but the form, so things like semantics, like word order, word meaning, morphology, syntax, all of these are different from social communication. And then they also looked at what are these behaviors of concern. So examples being like self injurious behavior.

And so what the findings showed were that there was an inverse association with expressive language.

So expressive language just being like our, our ability to communicate, whether that's in words or sentences, whether that's spoken or written or any other method.

But they emphasized that this is a significant finding, that lower expressive language ability was more consistently linked with increased serious injury self injurious behavior specifically. And then also these other behaviors.

Yeah. And that's not surprising based on what I've seen clinically as well as with my own kids.

Right.

Seeing as they develop language. I have a sweet little story.

My 2 year old was really Upset the other day he's like yelling at us at the stairs and my husband and I are just like staring at him, trying to figure out what he's saying to us. And eventually I figured it out. He was yelling, I'm frustrated.

Yeah, of course. And so if you couldn't understand what he was saying, then he's getting even more frustrated.

Right, exactly. But I would say like three months ago he would have hit us or bit us or something like that. So for me, I was so excited.

Like he's only two and so saying like I'm frustrated is a huge milestone for him that he's definitely picked up from his four year old brother.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, true. But also from good teaching. Right. That way we can express how we feel.

And you're teaching him that language, which is exactly why we teach functional communication at the office and at the clinic. Right. And so we're trying to always think about, hey, what is that? Unmet me, I'm really having trouble with that unmet need.

And then what words can we give you?

Whether that's pushing it on an sgd, like a speech generating advice or telling us with your words or an approximation, saying open or help or something. Right.

And so that's like with your example with your 2 year old, you're saying, hey, I just want you to say I'm frustrated and then I get it and I can acknowledge that.

Yeah, exactly. Or like gestures are really helpful for our limited vocal communicator.

So even my 2 year old, when he was biting, we would have him like tap his chest to say mine or something like that. Or like to even put his hand out. Like I'd rather you gently push someone than bit them.

So trying to pick some replacement behaviors for what he's currently doing. And I think we'll dive into that a little bit later.

Yeah, absolutely. And so you've taught me so much too about thinking about what's the function of that behavior.

Like, and I know that it's not always one easy answer, but when we take data and look at why do we think that child is doing that thing, if we look at what they're doing right before what the behavior is and then what someone does after that, whether it's them or someone else. Right.

And that really helps us guide to know, like, hey, is that because you have, you need something or you want something or you're frustrated or you can explain this better, but that really tells us what to do next, right?

Yeah, exactly. I think that observing and being thoughtful around what's happening surrounding the behavior of concern. Clinically, we're trying to use terms like.

Like behavior of concern instead of bad behavior, because there is no bad behavior.

Right.

Right there. My. Or our sort of feeling or thought is that they're really trying to communicate something to us and that this behavior means something.

And so a behavior of an unmet need, a behavior of concern.

So those things that are concerning as a parent, because they would hold them back from fully participating in life, are really what we're talking about here and often looks like tantruming or aggression towards others, aggressions towards self.

Right.

And so when we see those behaviors, what we really want to do is be a detective.

And I'm so thankful, really, for my training as a behavior analyst, as a mom, every single day, because as soon as something happens, I'm immediately thinking, what happened right before that? To identify what was the trigger.

So as soon as I can figure out what the trigger is, then that helps me figure out where my intervention should start.

I love that.

And then also, I'm being kind of thoughtful about how I'm responding to that problem behavior or that behavior of unmet needs, because I want to try and figure out, like, are they doing it because they don't like what someone's doing to them? And then can I help them get that thing away from them? You know, how can I help solve that issue? And in these moments, I'm never doing teaching.

I'm really investigating and trying to be a detective. And so in behavior analysis, we think about behavior serving one of four very broad functions.

And like you said, it often is not one of these functions. And so I'm looking at, are they doing it because they want access to something? So, like, did I just turn off the tv?

And then they're screaming at me, so they want the TV back on? So that would be an example of access, right? Are they doing it because they don't like what someone is doing?

So, like, to escape a situation, I've asked them to come and sit at the dinner table. They don't want to come, so they're running away. Are they doing it because they want attention?

And so sometimes we'll see that hitting with siblings, for example, if parents are cooking dinner and you're often having times where the one sibling is hitting another, the function there could be attention because usually hitting, of course, parents have to come and rush and intervene, right? And then the final function that we're looking at are like, are they doing it because it's.

Call it automatic reinforcement or, like, sensory Seeking behavior. So things that we do because they feel good to, like our nervous system.

And a lot of the time neurodiverse individuals and just typical people don't even. Aren't even aware of those things that we're doing that are like sensory seeking.

So like if you click a pen or you tap your toes or whatever sort of your thing is to do while you're waiting for. For things. That would be an example of that one.

Yeah. Okay. Amazing. Thank you. Obviously, you explained that much better than I ever could.

But I love thinking about it and using that framework and especially how you said investigating, my first step isn't fixing or teaching, it's investigating.

And I think that's a really cool takeaway tip that for parents of neurodiverse children and all children, really think about what is happening here, what happened just before, and then investigating it leads us to that what happened? What are we going to do next?

Yeah, exactly. And it's not a clear and easy process either to do that investigation. You know, it's a big ask.

And certainly, of course, I have a master's degree and 10 years of clinical experience doing this, so it's not an easy thing. But one thing that we want to be mindful of is like mentalistic interpretation.

So sort of inferring what we think our kids are thinking can be a dangerous path to go down.

Yeah, true.

Because we don't know what they're thinking. And we might be overlooking something because we've sort of inferred our perspective onto them.

And oftentimes kids perspectives are much simpler because they have less understand of how the world works.

Right.

And so I'm really focusing on what happened, like what was observable right before the behavior happened, versus like trying to think of certainly setting events and like things like not sleeping or they're hungry or they're constipated or whatever are important factors. But we want to sort of tease apart these external factors as well as what happened right before.

Yeah, amazing.

All right, so then kind of wrapping up this section we're talking about, again, looking back at the systematic review that we see with individuals, whether they're neurodiverse or not, that individuals, whether they're younger or older, if they've got less language ability, like lower skills in their expressive language ability, we're more likely to see these other behaviors. Right. And so we're seeing that that behavior is a form of communication in that gaze and that they're occurring because of frustration.

And so if I can't express myself and I'm frustrated. If I don't have those words, I'm likely gonna do something else. And that something else might be hitting or bit.

Right, exactly. And again, we'll dive into this more, but the brain is just not fully developed. Right.

And so you've got those impulsivities and us as grown ups even sometimes have trouble. Right. Inhibiting our response when our emotions are heightened.

And so for children, of course we have to appreciate that that would be even harder for them because their brains are not developed.

And so if they don't have that communication, or even if they do have that communication skill, maybe outside of the moment, in the moment, using it is very, very different.

Yeah, I love, I love my husband.

I'm coaching him sometimes with this because I'll say to him, if my 5 year old's really upset about something and he's trying to rationalize with her and he's trying to tell her like, hey, what? Why are you so upset? Or why are we crying right now? We need to stop crying. And I'm like, she can't do that.

Her brain is not fully formed like yours is. And so that emotional regulation piece, I love that you tied that in. It's the language.

And even if sometimes we have those language skills, when our emotions are high, we don't have those emotional regulation skills. And so the other day I was actually helping my daughter at the drop off.

She was having such a hard time and I just held her and I just would was doing some of these forms of co regulation. She was crying, she was really upset, but she couldn't tell us what was wrong. And he's like, oh, the bell's going, we gotta get there.

And I just sat with her and I just held her and I held her little hands and I said to her, we're just gonna breathe right now, we're just gonna breathe together and that's what we have to do. And I could feel her body regulating with my breathing. And then she said, was able to tell me, hey, some kid kicked me last night.

I was like, yeah, man, I know, totally. I can see why you wouldn't want to go to school. And I'm so glad that you shared that with me.

And actually just sharing that with me brought her right down. But she was so upset and like it all just came out as tears and I knew there was something more to it.

And then again later that night I was like talking about this kid who kicked her and again emphasizing that he's not a bad kid because he kicked her he probably was trying to get somebody's attention or, you know, there's probably some other circumstance. So I love that we can teach this to our kids.

Kids.

Right. From an early age too, that he's not bad.

And you know, you're telling me what's wrong and I appreciate you sharing with me, but then he's also got something else going on. Right?

Exactly. And so many kind of good lessons in that story there too. Right. As a parent, I also understand. Right.

Like your nervous system is also sometimes in fight or flight mode, you know, and the kids emotions are big and you got to get to work, you got a meeting. Like, you've got stuff you gotta do. You're just like, come on. Like, pull it together. And I get that. You know, I understand why that happens too.

But in this case. Right.

You're able to then solve this problem because you're able to help her calm down, come to a place where she was able to use her words and then it's like, oh, okay, now I as a mom can help you solve this problem.

Exactly.

Because I know what the problem is. When you're crying to me, I don't know.

You know, I'm here for you and like, I'm here to comfort you, but it's impossible for me to figure out what that next step should be. And so really taking the time to help them come back down and be ready to have that conversation. Right.

Is such an important piece to kind of solving those problems that you come across with our children.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you for listening to me. My little story. Awesome.

So one of the things that we were looking at was Patrick Freyman's article, there's no such thing as a bad boy. I love this article.

Let's be clear. You will love.

I do.

So for our listeners, I gotta stop you for a second and just tell you that we got the chance to meet him and it was so cool. But I remember you being like, man, that's. That's him.

But I'm too nervous.

And I was like, oh, I'll go talk to him. And so we met him, we have a picture with him, and he was just so cool and so like Jen. Such a cool person.

But I love listening to his talk because everything that we read about in his papers and online, he lives and breathes this in anything that he does. So cool.

He's a psychologist and behavior analyst, and so a very cool lens that he takes in looking at behaviors of concern.

Totally.

And so I love his view of everything. I think he it's so empowering the way that he looks at the circumstances view, he calls it, versus a blame view.

And so we'll dive a lot into that in the next little bit because as a society, we tend to take this blame view. And the blame view doesn't feel good to the person. It doesn't help you come up with a solution. Right.

And so I really love, again, as a behavior analyst, this idea of, like, there's always just something going on in the environment that can be tweaked or changed.

Like, there's something that we can do to help this and that this isn't the way that things have to be forever, you know, because that can feel really daunting.

As a parent and individual, if you feel like you can't change yourself, you feel like you're always going to be forgetful, you're always going to be whatever that thing is. And so I love, as a behavior analyst, like, we, I truly believe that I can teach most things.

You know, I just got to break it down the right way and we got to build it back up. It might take a while, but, like, step by step, we can make steps towards your goal. Goals.

Yeah, I love that. And so, Pat Fryman, thank you for everything that you've taught us and will continue to teach us.

And I like how you said he's a psychologist and he brings that part in too. And so you're saying, like, there's this tendency to attribute this problem behavior to these internal traits.

And I think again, as a mom, we see this with our kids.

Like, if you're, if I'm going to label your kid as shy or stubborn or manipulative or even just bad, like, that's not the way we want to talk about them. And especially if they can hear us.

Exactly, exactly.

And so one of the things is that in mainstream psychology, we tend to place the blame of problem behavior to those person's internal traits, which feels like something that's stuck forever, you know.

And so I really love, as a behavior analyst that I can focus on what's going on around them that might not be serving them well, or what skills might they be lacking to thrive in this environment or in this situation?

And so one of the problems that comes with the old way of thinking, which is that blaming mentality, is that then we're blaming it on who they are, you know, and again, like, that just like, doesn't feel good, right?

This circumstances view, where we're looking at the environment and this, their skill development really empowers us to find steps that we can take towards supporting that person. Because no one wants to tantrum, no one wants to be crying.

Right.

I don't want to be banging my head on the wall, you know, but I got no other way for my body to get out that frustration.

Right.

And so I think that that's where behavior analysis can be really, really powerful and add value.

When we're looking at behaviors of unmet need or behaviors of concern, challenging behaviors is instead of thinking that this person is that way fore their fault, they're stubborn, they're lazy, etc, is really thinking about what's going on around them, that's not serving them well.

Right.

And again, as parents, we see this with our kids in terms of like, if someone labels my child as shy, then I feel like that's so hard for her to hear. I don't love that label. Because then she's going to think, oh, maybe you know, I am that way forever or something.

Or if they're not making eye contact and then someone's going to label them as rude or I know, certainly with my youngest, she doesn't love to give hugs unless she's like in a really good mood to great parents and that kind of thing. And they kind of take offense to that. But there's usually something else going on.

There is what you're saying or like we need to maybe work on some skills or maybe just also be acknowledging that she doesn't want to hug right now and that's okay. Yeah. Label.

Is that exactly like I would say, is that a behavior of concern? I hope not.

No. Right, right.

That one.

And again, as a behavior analyst, like, that's something we're often looking at is like, what is a behavior of concern and how do we define that and who gets to define it as well as a very interesting conversation, particularly with our neurodiverse learners. Right. If I think about 15 years ago when I was in the field of behavior of concern might have been hand flapping.

Right.

For an autistic child, like we would treat that.

You're right. I would never. Yeah, yeah.

I would never treat that now unless I did have one time recently or not super recent. But in the last three years that I did treat it because it was a teenager and they were in high school and they felt like it was stigmatizing.

Like they felt okay, so they made that choice. Then like that neurodiverse individual said, hey, I know do this, but I think.

I'm like bringing attention, making fun of me for it. So I don't want to do it. And so we had some conversation around bullying, friendship, etc. Right.

That's an important component, is understanding who are your friends and who aren't. Right, Right. But then the second part was we came up with a replacement behavior that felt the same to them. And so that is the tricky part. Right.

You're not going to find the replacement behavior on your first try. You got to try a few different things. You know, what's the same as hand flapping? I don't know. Right.

And truthfully, I can't remember what replacement behavior was. Maybe it was a fidget in the pocket.

Okay.

But I don't remember. But something like that.

And I love here you're saying we didn't impose this on this individual. I don't know if they were teenagers. Okay. So a teenager. We're not saying, hey, you need to stop hand flapping.

We're saying, express yourself as you need to. But if you're saying, I think people are noticing this and people are making fun of me for it, then, yeah, let's have a conversation.

But you're right, like 10, 20 years ago, we would have absolutely put that in as a behavior reduction plan. Right?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so I think there's some interesting discussion around defining bad behavior and who gets to define it.

And for my perspective professionally, what I like to think about is like, is it impacting the individual and what is that impact? So are they not accessing environments because of this behavior? And then what is the impact to the parents and the family as well?

Like, are they not able to do something because of this behavior?

Right.

And is that something really that important? Right. And is there a workaround to make things work without treating it like, I think there's a lot of considerations that you want to make.

And are they hurting themselves or others? Yeah, right.

Like, so biting, kicking, hitting, that kind of thing we would likely address if they're at risk of hurting another child in their classroom or on the playground or something. Right?

Yeah, exactly. And I would say it's challenging, though. Like, you've got to find usually a replacement behavior, certainly for our autistic learners.

That tend to have.

Be minimally vocal. Sometimes if you treat one behavior or something else will pop up.

And so again, you just got to be mindful about choosing which behaviors to intervene on because you don't know what's going to come from your. Like, there's risks to your intervention.

Right.

And so that's where, again, we always want to be thoughtful around what actually needs treatment. And what is just fine as is, you know.

Right. And again, we know better. We do better. Yes, for sure.

And so I find that along that lens that the blame based approach really impacts our neurodiverse learners the most.

Yeah. Right.

For a variety of reasons. Right. The. We know the executive functioning part of their brain is different.

We know that there's areas of the executive functioning that are generally impacted when someone is neurodiverse. And so because of those things, their brain maybe can't inhibit their responses as much and is more impulsive.

Or maybe it can't process information that quickly. Maybe it doesn't understand perspectives of others intuitively. You know, all of these things could be really challenging for them.

Right.

And so if we started blaming them, then they might just think I'm a bad kid.

Right.

And that hurts my soul.

I know. Same, same.

And I was thinking too, as you were speaking there, about the executive functioning and inhibition and all of those parts that may be different. We've also got speech and language that's different. Right.

And so some of our learners, I can think of in the clinic where they don't have the expressive language to share what they're feeling and that they're frustrated. Like your little guy. The story you shared earlier. Or we have kids at the client too. Or at the clinic. Sorry. Too. Where they're.

They can express themselves but their speech isn't clear. And so other people don't understand them. And if I'm communicating to you and I'm telling you this is hard or I'm asking you open the door, but my.

The way that I say it is not clear to my communication partner. That's so frustrating too.

Exactly. And like, again, I think as grownups, we can appreciate, like it is frustrating to me when my husband doesn't understand my point, you know?

Right.

It's like maddening to me. Just calm down. If you say that to me, I will punch you. Yeah.

And so I feel like for small children, like, we have to appreciate how much worse that is because their brains are still developing.

Right, Right.

And so we see these autistic children who maybe aren't making eye contact and they're maybe labeled rude.

Ye.

But it's a sensory overload for them to make eye contact. Or we're seeing children with ADHD that are interrupting and really it's that impulse control. Right, right. And so they're not bad kids.

They just need some support to develop some of these skills if they're important, like the eye contact. Again, probably not that socially significant. Most of the time.

But if we're looking at something like interrupting in the classroom, that's something that would be a barrier in the classroom and probably stigmatizing for that child too. Right. He's going to get labeled in the classroom as a bad kid or an interrupter. Right, right.

And so then what can we do to teach him to support that impulse control? You know, and this is the long game that I'm not going to.

I'm not gonna be able to fix that overnight, you know, but there's small little steps he can take and ways that we can help his brain to develop that impulse control.

Right, right. That's such a good example.

The other problem I have with blaming the individual is that it often leads to the wrong intervention attention. It's not getting us closer to figuring out what was the trigger for that. What are those underdeveloped skills?

Well, we're labeling this person as lazy or aggressive, you know, and then as soon as anyone else hears those words, they've labeled that kid too.

So the kid doesn't even have a chance to develop those skills or show what they're capable of because people stop expecting that of them and are blaming them.

Right, right.

So when behavior is seen as a defect in the person, what we see is that the interventions or the approaches that we take as parents tend to focus on control and compliance rather than really understanding and supporting the person. And so what we see that lead to is really punishment strategies.

And as a behavior analyst, like punishment, I got to tell you, just like, almost never works.

Right.

And so we see punitive discipline styles like, I'm taking away your iPad.

Yeah, yeah. I would say a generational thing, too. We're always thinking about how we're doing better as parents than previous.

You know, we look, we know better, we do better.

I certainly grew up in a very punishment heavy house where sometimes I didn't even know that I was doing something that was wrong and that I'd be penalized for it. I don't know. You might have the same experience and some of our listeners.

But I'm thinking also about a friend of mine who was asking me, what do I do?

My.

The boys are hitting each other. And I think one of them, she suspects, maybe neurodiverse, not sure, but she's saying they're constantly hitting each other, and often they're.

She thinks they're trying to get her attention, but then her consequence is then, okay, I. Because that's something that's so important to them. So she's saying, okay, you hit your brother tonight.

So then on Saturday you get like 15 minutes less of iPad time.

And so I was chatting with her and saying, my, I wonder if the boys will see that this hitting is then, like, connected to the sort of punishment that's happening on Saturday. Because there's a time gap.

And like, I would imagine that's not going to be teaching them, hey, I got to stop hitting because I might lose my iPad on Saturday. But I. I'm not the behavior analyst. I can't explain why. Why.

Yeah, exactly. And so in this case, I would say one, the consequence is too far away. Right? Like, it's Wednesday and this is happening on Saturday.

That's very hard for a small brain to connect those two things. The second thing I would also say is, like, the punishment is not connected to the behavior.

Right.

They're not related in any way. And as much as we can, if we are going to use punishment approaches, we should tie them into being related to the behavior as much as possible.

Possible. And then I would also want to think about. Most kids know they shouldn't hit, right? Like, if you ask them, like, should you hit your brother?

They're probably gonna say no.

Right.

And so the punishment there is kind of tricky because you don't have any skill building here. Right. And so in his. I'm sure in this child's case, he knows he shouldn't hit his brother.

Yeah, yeah.

But then in the moment, something happens in his body that then sparks them to hit his brother rather. And so. Right. What you. One of the problems that's in this idea is that we're missing the replacement behavior. We're missing the skill building piece.

Right.

And so if we think it's that they want attention, right. Then I'm going to think about, okay, what are the common times this is happening during. It's happening when I'm cooking dinner. Right. Okay.

So cooking dinner, they want my attention. I've got to cook dinner. What can I do? Right?

Right.

A kind of simple strategy I'll often give parents in this situation would be to do like timed check, check ins.

Right.

And so initially you might think about, like, how, when does the first hit usually occur? How long could I cook for before they're likely to hit? And then I'm gonna come and check in on them kind of just before that.

So let's say every five minutes, I'm gonna check in on them and I'm gonna just. While I'm cooking, I'm just gonna quickly walk over and say, hey, guys, I love how you're playing together, that is awesome.

I'm just gonna go cook and I'll be back, you know, and then I'm gonna come back five minutes later, give that check in. And again, that's where my skill building comes from. Right.

I'm telling them, I love that cooperative play, you guys giving them that attention that they want. And I'm going to see if that curbs their behavior and decreases the hitting.

If that doesn't decrease the hitting, then I'm going to get a little bit more investigative and think about what could be under. Maybe it's not attention based. Maybe my interval's too long. Maybe this isn't the type of attention they want. And this is where I think as a.

In behavior analysis, like, the four functions are so reductive. Attention, access, escape, sensory seeking. They're so reductive to really the complexities that come from human behavior.

But if you can find a broad category, then you can start sort of divvying it up into like, different types of attention buckets that you might be able to fill or that sort of thing.

I remember I was thinking back when you were saying that example, and you gave me that strategy I did a couple years ago, and I loved it.

The girls were in the bath, truthfully, a couple years ago, and they'd be in the bath together, and I'd be like, folding laundry right outside the bathroom door, but not like letting them, you know, kind of play together. And my youngest would just scratch the older one. And I remember I was like, there's always fights.

And I think our the solution go to solution as parents would be like, oh, pull one out of the bath. Would you call that a punishment strategy?

Depends on whose perspective you're taking. Like, for the child who got hit, we would call it negative reinforcement.

For the other child, if the removing them from the bath is aversive, then punishment. But in behavior analysis, true definition of punishment has to decrease the behavior.

Okay.

So in this case, it might have felt like punishment to the child because I think there was some like, abrupt, like, you're getting out of the bath right now.

Right.

And like, they probably didn't enjoy that.

And so anyway, this strategy, I'm thinking about how you taught me to like, go in and check on them and say, peek my head around the door and say, hey, I love how you're playing right now. Oh, I'm hearing such nice cooperative time. Yes.

And like, it would be appropriate if they do hit too. I'm not saying we never, like, have functional consequences but getting out of the bath. Right.

As a punishment strategy in that case is directly tied to the behavior in the bath. Right. So it's all right with me. Right.

As a behavior analyst, if we're ever going to put in punishment strategies, we always have a reinforcement strategy in place as well. And so my reinforcement strategy in this case is your timed check ins with attention.

Right.

And that's my skill building. I might also chat with my child depending on their age. Right. And be like, hey, hey, if you need me, you can call my name and I'll be right there.

Right, right. And again, I'm just being super explicit about what the strategy but what they should do. You know, what my expectations are.

Ah, that's fair.

And so I. You want to have some skill building and reinforcement built in.

But if they hit their sibling like it's perfectly appropriate to also take them out of the bath.

Right.

And protect the other siblings.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we'll use words like I can't let you hurt your sister and then we've got to remove you from that situation. Okay, all right, I like that.

But what we're just saying here is the example with the bath being removed from it. The bath is like tied to you hit. Then you're going to be immediately removed from the situation. Exactly. Yeah.

It's not like a, like not the same type of punishment as taking the iPad or like you know, like a delayed consequence that's unrelated. Like taking the iPad can lead something like that could definitely lead to like coercion.

Yeah.

With the end with the child. Right. Because they start to feel like you're taking from them. You being become aversive.

Ah.

And so then they're not really even willing list willing to listen to you as a coach potentially.

Right.

Because you've now taken on this other function that's punitive.

Oh, interesting.

And so that's where in behavior analysis like we really see punishment sometimes. Like in this case like with the bath. Sure. That makes perfect sense. Right. It's often not the most effective long term strategy.

You might see immediate behavior change with a punishment procedure. But you'll probably see over time it'll stop working.

Ah, so interesting. But what stuck with me there?

As you said, if we're ever putting in some sort of consequence, let's call it, let's also put in a reinforcement strategy. So I'm going to come in, I'm going to say you're doing amazing. I love the way you're playing with each other and that's equally important.

Or Maybe even more important.

Exactly. Or like, I'm going to think about. So again, as a behavior analyst, we call them antecedents. So what we're doing kind of before the behavior occurs.

So I'm going to try and set them up for success as. As well by giving them activities they can do in the bath. Right. Maybe they always end up hitting each other because they place.

This is what happens at my house, actually. They're splashing each other with water, and it's really fun for a minute. And then one of them gets annoyed, and then our bathroom is soaked.

That's exactly. Thank you.

And so in those cases, I want to then think about what toys am I putting in the bat? Like, maybe I get rid of. We have some sort of, like, water gun toy in the bath is quite problematic.

Like, maybe that toy should just be going out the door, you know, And I'm gonna set up fresh. We're gonna have some bath bombs today in the bath. And it's just I'm really gonna break. Shake up our bath routine.

Right.

To kind of set them up for success, too. So as a parent, I'm taking ownership of this problem by thinking about how can I change the presentation of this task?

How can I give them some new behaviors that they can engage in that I want them to be doing? And then how am I going to come in and reinforce them and let them know they're doing a good job?

I love that. And I feel like that's. Again, the. We know better. We do better.

The boys or the girls, whoever we're talking about, aren't bad because they hit in the bath.

Exactly.

You know, but as the parent, hey, maybe if I gave them some bath crayons. Now we're on to a different thing.

And that's going to be really cool, but I'm actually teaching them some new things that you can do rather than just getting bored in there and then hitting each other.

Exactly. And I think it's important to remember something that we think might be a punishment.

So, like, yelling at our children can actually function as a reinforcer.

Ah, yes.

And so when we think of kids, like, if they want your attention, for example, with the hitting examples, I think anyone who has more than one child has probably had a sibling disagreement, where the parent comes in and immediately says, no, no hitting. I can't let you hit and go. You. We don't hit in this family. And goes on for, like, two minutes straight about why they shouldn't hit. That's attention.

True. Right. And for children, they love Positive attention, they love it. But if they can't get it, negative attention is pretty good.

Yeah, that's true.

And so I think it's important to remember as par, too, that even something that we might think is aversive to them might not even function that way. And so being sort of thoughtful in the way that we're communicating and responding to these things.

Right, right.

So would you say, you know, as we're doing this research, preparing for this podcast, you would say that neurodivergent kids might experience punishment more often than I would think. So, and why do you think that.

Is more likely to have bad behavior?

Right.

Because of the front part of their brain. That executive functioning part is really like our control center of the brain. They are control center in some ways. So superior. Right.

We've got some kids that have incredible memories or can do amazing math so fast or recall these, like, really minutia details of something. Right. So in some ways, their brain can be in, like, hyperspeed.

Right.

And then in other ways, their brain can be impacted and it can be so much more challenging for them to like, if you say, go brush your teeth, their brain can't do the planning for that. It can't break that skill down into the six steps they need to take to go brush their teeth.

And so they start up the stairs, and then they get distracted by the poster on their wall and never end up going to brush their teeth. You know, they're not a bad kid.

Their brain is just easily distracted in this case, you know, and so at school, for sure, we'll see a lot more punishment or. Or I guess just punishment because. Because in the school system, they often don't have a lot of resources. They got to make quick decisions.

They don't have the time to really investigate into the problem behavior that's occurring.

Right.

And so this child is yelling out every day, right. The teacher's saying, johnny, stop yelling out. Johnny's not doing that. He's still yelling out just as frequently.

What the teachers missed is that she never built up a new skill. Right.

She just kept telling him not to do it, but didn't tell him what to do or how to do it, you know, and so now Johnny's getting sent to the principal's office because he was interrupting in the class all the time. And it in real. In reality, it's not his fault that adults should have stepped in and taught him that skill.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. I love that. I love that.

Another thing, that this often impacts neurodiverse children is that they're more likely to see. Receive corrections than praise. And so, like at school, for example, be like, you gotta raise your hand, you gotta. Where's your pencil?

Why didn't you grab your notebook? Why'd you forget your jacket at school today?

You know, and so the interactions with them, because they're neurodiverse and have difficulty with maybe planning an organization or implementing impulse control, ends up leading to this, like, learned helplessness that they're like, learning that they just, like, can't do these things and that people are always disappointed in them.

Right. Yeah. That's got to be so tough.

Exactly.

And so, like, why even try if I'm always going to get it wrong?

Exactly, exactly. And so if reinforcement is lacking and they're just so reinforcement by that, in this case, I mean positive praise. Right.

Or even just like, positive interactions.

Right.

If that's not happening, then like I said before, kids love that positive attention. But if that's not coming, I'll take anything.

Right? Right.

And so then that's when we see them start acting out and like, kind of, if you can't win, then I may as well lose. Really good.

Right. And then they sort of internalize that. Do you think? And think like, I'm not enough?

Exactly. And then that's.

In behavior analysis, what we'll see is what we call a counter control, where we're seeing them push back even with the smallest requirements, requests, and diagnosis that goes along with this. Sometimes it's called oppositional defiant disorder and just hate to see that come through with a young kid. I just think it's such a terrible label.

It's a terrible name for a diagnosis.

Right.

And it puts these children in a box that they're oppositional and defiant.

Right.

What kind of success does that set.

This kid up for internalizing that shame? And again, I'm not enough and I then sort of become this thing.

Exactly.

I'm gonna push back on everything that you say. So we were talking about this prepar for the podcast again, and I sort of said, like, what is counter control?

We were talking about this, and you said, it's like pushing back on anything, on anything. But it even could be something that I maybe want to do. Like, if you're saying, hey, you want to go to the park? Then I'm going, nah.

Exactly. And like, you'll hear this from parents all. They don't like anything. Anything I offer them, like, no reward is a good reward for them.

And again, as a behavior analyst, I know that that means that the Reward probably wasn't put in the right way and there's probably like some counter control going on and maybe a history of some punitive interact not necessarily in an like that the parent or this teacher or whoever was trying to be punitive.

But I think as parents for sure I can appreciate how busy life is and that we forget to kind of point out those good moments and instead focus on those small like those annoyances. Right. Like we gotta get out the door, we gotta go, we gotta go.

And so I didn't say anything to my son all morning about the fact that he got dressed and brush his teeth and ate his breakfast but now he's so slow putting on his boots. Yeah, come on man, we gotta get out the door. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Right. And you didn't pick up your lunch and there's a Cheerio on the floor and all these things. Right, exactly.

So then like why, why did I do all these other amazing things? No one said anything to me.

Right.

And again I think as grown ups we can appreciate at work like I want to feel recognized, I want people to say like oh thanks for doing that or like you know, those types of things. And so of course our kids want that same recognition technician and for our neurodiverse children because those mistakes might happen more often.

Like we might see even children with ADHD might be more like kind of clumsy and so they spill things more often, are more likely to knock things over like miss that something's right in front of them. Those types of things. Right. And so again they're getting so much corrective feedback.

And so as parents, teachers, educators, etc, we really want to be balancing our feedback and really our positive interaction should much outweigh our corrective feedback.

So not calling them careless, what I'm saying, like how you do that again. Right. Can totally hear that.

Exactly.

And instead kind of teaching and give, making sure to give that praise.

Exactly, exactly. And so I really feel so strongly about this circumstances view where we're looking at what's going on in the environment.

So even those examples of spilling things, I bet you there's environments that it's more likely to happen in or situations that it's more likely to happen in.

So like I'm grabbing my drink and bringing it to sit on the couch and watch a show all in on this show, I'm 5% in on this drink, you know, and so then they're not really paying that much attention and so they end up knocking it over.

Right?

Right.

And so once I know some of this information, like, okay, I know that watching the TV can be something that increases the likelihood of you spilling your milk all over my carpet, that then I have to get my carpet thing out and clean it. And very annoying to me. But now that I've identified this, before I give you that juice, we're going to say, hey, should we put a lid on this?

Right.

Don't, don't lose sight of it, or I'm going to chat with them about like, how to be responsible with their.

Shoes or let's just pause the TV and then we can bring our milk over and then we're good, Right?

Right. Exactly. Exactly.

So once I'm able to figure out where these behaviors occur, then I can come up with some, like, creative options to try to build up that skill.

And I think we talk about this a lot, but that those kind of strategies are so good for our neurodiverse kids that we work with, but also show all kids, right?

Setting them up to be more successful, reminding ourselves to give them some praise for the things that they have done or focusing on their effort rather than just something getting done. Like, hey, you tried really hard on that, or you picked out your clothes this morning by yourself. That was a big thing to do for sure.

Exactly. And like, I use all these strategies with my young children at home.

And like, I think oftentimes if someone was listening to me, they would probably think I'm like over talking things to my kids, you know, like talking about the, like, nuances of the skill or of the thing that we're talking about. So, like, this is why it's important. So for example, my son doesn't really love to eat vegetables, right.

I think many children don't like to eat vegetables. And so with him, what we've started from when he was really, really young, was talking about why we eat vegetables, right?

And so we talk about, like, for him, he wants to be a cheetah and be very fast at everything. And, and so we use that value of being fast and tie it into his picky eating. And we'll say, like, spinach is very good for your muscles.

It gives you energy and talking about how it fills his body. And then a couple weeks ago, he was like, okay, what if I just put in my mouth and swallow it? It was cooked spinach.

And we were like, I guess that's fine. Like, it really tastes like nothing, you know? And like, we even say, like, I actually don't like spinach either. Right.

So Honestly, Yeah.

I eat it because I know it's food fuel for my body, right. And it's important to me that my body has fuel.

And so by really over explaining or like sort of giving him what my brain is thinking, then he understands that I'm not just telling him to eat spinach because I'm a totalitarian ruler of the home and that you must do what I say. Right. I'm saying like, it's my job to make sure you're healthy, you know, and then it's your job to also make sure that you're healthy.

And this is how we make healthy choices.

Right.

So that's like a small example. But I in general, I tend to like over talk things with my children and be like, well, what do you think this person was thinking?

What do you think this person was thinking? And really modeling some of that internal dialogue that I want them to have.

Even though like my children are typically developing, but their brains are, they're young, they still got a lot to learn.

Same. And I do that with my girls too.

When I'm reading to them, I'll be like, I'll pause it and I'll say, hey, why do you think this person's feeling that way? Or why do you think they did that?

And like anyone listening to this think that's such a nice example of saying, hey, let's pause things and just talk about why didn't so and so feel that way? Or why did so and so do that? And again, coming back to it, it's not because they're bad or because they're, you know, they've.

There's likely some other reason behind it.

Yeah, exactly. I have a another anecdote. My son loves to snuggle at bedtime every single night.

Would be his preference to snuggle with us, of course, but I just can't do that sometimes times, you know.

And so for him, I've gotta like set my boundary because I've got things I have to do, you know, it's very important to me to get those things done so that I have an hour to myself before I go to bed.

Right.

And so I'm a better mom if I set that boundary. And so with him, what I again, I'm talking to him about why this isn't possible. I'm not just saying I can't snuggle with you.

I'm like setting up why we can't snuggle today and then setting up a plan for us to do something special later or setting up a snuggling plan, even sometimes we have that each week of like, tonight's a mama night, but tomorrow night is not a mama night.

Right.

And that sort of thing.

And so again, just like, really over talking these sort of behaviors of concern that pop up in my house helps him understand that there's like, kind of more to the household than just your immediate needs. As much as I wish I could snuggle with you every night, man, I just can't.

And all night long is what we're talking about, right? No, just like a quick cuddle. Let's be clear. Your child is very cuddly with your kids.

It's more like, I can't stay two hours with you, which is the trap I'm in right now. Okay, so I digress. We'll talk about that one after the podcast. Shauna's giving me tips.

All right, so let's move on then and just talk about some of these implications of how we're bringing this into intervention. We told you we want to give you these tips that you can take into the clinic if you're a clinician or into your home as a parent.

And so bring it all back together. We know that behavior is communication. So instead of asking, how do I stop this behavior? We're going to ask, what is this behavior telling me?

Exactly. Exactly. And like, that's not an easy feat.

No.

Especially with young children or neurodivergent children, children where communication and language might not be built up. Right. And that's really what the language, or what the research is saying too, is.

Yes, language being a really important component, but it's not the only component. You know, just because your child doesn't have language doesn't mean we can't teach them or develop skills with them.

And I like that example that you gave earlier about the child where wasn't speaking. And so you taught them to just tap their chest.

Right.

To say, my turn or my line. And like, things like that can be so powerful. And so in that case, we're actually changing.

You know, we're teaching them a skill and we're giving them that strategy to do in hopes that then they're going to communicate rather than go to hitting or something else.

Exactly. And again, I think so many great examples at the clinic that we have with our young autistic learners have no communication. Right.

The removal of their favorite items can be something that would cause them to scream, hit. Yeah. And what we'll do is behavior term, shape it so gradually sort of shift the behavior to be a Push.

Right?

Just push me away. Push the item away, whatever it is.

That way you can communicate that you don't like this in a way that's easily understood, does not cause the individual to feel that dysregulation and then is a very clear message for like anyone that they're interacting with. So.

Right, right.

Kind of across the lifespan, lots of opportunities for communication, teaching. And so once we figure out what that behavior. Behavior is telling us, then we can start thinking about what is a good replacement behavior.

Right, Right.

So I'm hitting my brother because he took my toy. Great. Replacement behavior. That's mine. Give it back, mom. Help. Right. Lots of different things I could try out there.

And so as soon as I figure out what is this behavior trying to tell me, then I'm gonna work backwards.

I want to pause you for a second because you said something that I know because I know you. You said the replacement behavior is that's mine. And so I want to pause for a second and remind people that behavior is also talking.

Yes.

And so when you said what's this replacement behavior, I was almost waiting for you to say like some sort of physical movement is what I was thinking in my mind. And instead you said replacement behavior is just that functional communication. Yeah, exactly. And so we both train that functional communication.

But I never thought of it as like replacement behavior. Could just be that functional communication. Communication and like framing it that way. Yes.

And another important consideration with these replacement behavior. So it could be anything that you do is that you want to make it easier than what they're currently doing. Right. Because their reaction. Right.

This is a habit or an impulse probably. Right. Is to hit, push, bite, kick, whatever.

Right.

And so I need to be ready to be your coach. Right. I gotta anticipate this is happening.

Right.

And then I need something that's easier for you than hitting.

Right.

And so for my 2 year old, getting him to say that's mine was too tricky. He was still learning language.

And from a lang. Yeah, exactly. Language perspective, any two year old, they're not going to be able to form that two word phrase beautifully every time.

Especially when emotions are high.

Exactly. And so that's where the gesture was really good for me there. And again, my, even my 4 year old, he's got really great language.

But in the moment, I'm not expecting him to say, I'm frustrated because you took my blah, blah, blah away. You know, I'm frustrated suffices for me, man.

Yeah.

And then we can like work from there and try and solve it. So, yes, definitely. Looking at what is this behavior telling me?

And then looking at how we can change the environment, not the person to set clear, achievable, reinforceable behaviors, replacement behaviors for those ones that are challenging us, or if it's not necessarily a replacement behavior, and you're thinking, they have no skill here, you know, I gotta help them. Like, impulse control is a good one. Right. How am I gonna break this down? What's the.

What's the smallest little thing that we can do and how can I build that up and then finally reinforce the good stuff? Don't forget about it.

Right. And we've talked about that now a couple times in the podcast. Right.

About reinforcing what we want to see instead of always just saying, hey, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. And that's like a trap that all parents fall into.

Exactly.

Definitely.

Life is so busy. And I get it. I was pre children as a behavior analyst, you know, I had no appreciation for how chaotic parenthood is.

Yes.

And now as a parent, I get it. You know, it's easy. Like when life is going good, it's easy to sort of missing anything.

And then as soon as things get hard, it's like your own nervous system is like, ah. And so then you start getting corrective, you know, and miss those opportunities to let them know they did a good job for sure.

All right, so next we're just going to wrap things up a little bit. And as always, we want to give you these practical strategies that you can bring into the classroom or into your home.

So we're trying to embed these tips throughout the podcast.

Podcast today, there's so much information that we're giving you, but we wanted to end again by just some of these practical strategies for you as clinicians or parents.

Great. Yes. And I think we talked. We've talked about a lot of them, so let's just summarize them here. So the first one, we want to shift from punishment.

Not that it's never like kind of a. Not that we're never using punishment, but if we are using it, it's thoughtfully applied and we're using reinforcement.

And the punishment ties to the behavior.

Right.

As much as possible.

Right.

And so we want to use natural reinforcers. So by reinforcers, we mean things that they like and are motivated for. This is a whole other podcast we could probably do on reinforcement.

My own sort of soapbox about it is there's a lot of things that I love. There's not a lot of things I'm motivated to change my behavior for.

Yes, true. I've learned this from you.

Yes. It's like I wish I went to the gym at all actually. But there's not a reinforcer in the world that can get me to go to the gym.

It just doesn't work in my life right now. You know, I would need someone to clear up a night for me where I could leave the children.

Like, there's just a lot of factors that would come into me achieving that goal.

I did for a while put an intervention in on myself to go to sleep earlier where if I went to sleep by 10 o'clock, I could buy myself a special coffee in the morning. I did that when I was in grad school.

Right.

Couldn't do that now and again. That worked for me for a while and really did change my behavior. Behavior.

And so keeping that in mind with your children too, like, you might think, like, oh, they love screen time. Right. And then I'm going to use that as a reinforcer for when they do whatever.

But is screen time that motivating for them or do they get kind of free access all the time? Very true. Some interesting things there. But that's where those natural reinforcers, things that come sort of already.

So things that I like to do do at my house be like special privileges within the activity. So you get to go first in this game. You get to read an extra book or some of those things we'll put in.

And then but also knowing that sometimes artificial reinforcers are necessary. So like the sticker chart, point systems, etc, and one of the ones that we love at the clinic is that caught you being good jar.

And I know you use it.

Yes, I love it. We will talk about that. We're gonna have to save that for our reason enforcement podcast.

Oh, okay. So the caught you being good jar, just for anyone that wants to try it out, is a jar and you catch them being good.

And so you put some sort of item in this jar. We like pom poms for things that you see that are good and what the reason I like it is.

I think it helps parents start to shift their behavior too totally and helps parents focus on the good and then the kids, of course too. And so we'll dive into that a little bit more on a future podcast. But I love that strategy. Very simple, easy to use at home.

And I wrote a blog about it. It's one of my things for my BCBA bestie, my favorite tips. So it's on our blog.

So check that one out, we'll put it in the show notes because, yeah, we love that strategy so much.

But again, it is shifting from always catching them doing like, not fast enough or not putting on their boots or whatever it is to just saying, hey, I love how you did this. That was really cool. And then it reminds me. You're absolutely right. It reminds me to reinforce them.

Exactly.

It's changing my behavior.

Yes, exactly. And so another thing I'll often hear from parents is like, oh, sticker charts don't work for my child, or point systems don't work for my child.

And as a behavior analyst, I just know that that's probably not the case. There's something that could be tweaked or kind of not quite the right things are in place in this sticker chart. So.

Right.

Problem behaviors emerge when reinforcement is unpredictable at times or only available for misbehavior, for example. And so when we look at applying reinforcers, we have to do so thoughtfully.

And then as a behavior analyst, as you know, I'm very passionate about data to inform whether my intervention plan is working. And I've had many failed intervention plans at home in the clinic where you think something is going to be, I got them, I know this is going to work.

And then it doesn't work.

Right.

And so another strategy that we've talked a lot about today is building environments to manage misbehavior or to discourage it. Right. The bath examples are really nice. One where start thinking about how can I set the environment up different, Right.

So they're not hitting each other in the bath anymore.

Right.

What could I change about this? And so if getting their homework done is always a problem, think about what that looks like for them. How can you make that more palatable for them?

Right.

How can you set up tasks so that there's achievable wins or that expectations are clear for the, for your child or for the student, etc. Etc. And then the other big piece with reinforcement. And again, this has got to be a whole other episode is bribing.

Ah, yes.

And so bribing can be a really big problem. It's you're think you're offering reinforcement, but what you've really done is bribed them. And so then that's not going to work in the long run.

They've learned kind of how to work you to get what they want without sort of doing what's expected. Right?

Right. Episode four, all about bribing and reinforcement. And so instead then we're making things a little Bit more clear. Right.

And we're like setting those expectations rather than bribing. So not just saying a bribe is not even coming to my mind.

I've got so many. Thank you. So in my case, again, I so thankful to be a behavior analyst. I've like never had a problem getting my kids to leave the park.

Right.

Because I always set the instruction up as a palatable instruction for them. All right, guys, I give them a warning morning before we're gonna go, oh, okay guys, it's time to leave the park. Let's go home and get a freezy.

Right, Right.

And I've always got that then activity. I'm cool with them having a freezy. Doesn't matter to me at all.

Another example that I just did recently at home was they didn't want to get out of the bath. And so my son and I was kind of arguing with him, my 2 year old, not arguing, but like just sort of like trying to get him out of the bath.

And he just like wasn't getting out. He was getting more and more upset. And then I realized, oh, I never told him what he's up to then like after that.

Right.

And being in the bath is so fun. Him and his brother bathes together, me and my husband, it's our boat there. They've got so much attention.

Yeah.

And getting out of the bath is usually bedtime.

Right. And so then I have to be removed from mama.

Exactly. And so as soon as I switched my instruction, which actually in this case, we'd already planned to play hide and seek after the bath.

Right.

And so why don't I just say, hey man, let's get out of the bath and play hide and seek. And then he immediately stood up and was ready to go.

Right.

Love that.

So we're making those expectations really clear. Sometimes using a first then or a now next kind of strategy to remind them what's coming.

I think that's like, this actually isn't even in one of our strategies, but a first then or now next strategy is your best friend. As a parent, I often say we're marketers. You know, the kids don't really know what's coming in life. We're the people that are telling them.

And so a lot of the way that we present things, we want to be marketers and make it sound enticing, you know, and like for them, like I said in my son's case, like, getting out of the bath usually means bedtime. And like then you're alone in your room in the dark.

Right.

Doesn't sound super fun. I kind of get why you don't want to do it.

Yeah.

And so how do I make that so much more palatable for you or, like, leaving the park? Like, yeah, man, that sucks. You got to go home now and, I don't know, do nothing and you're fine.

Yeah.

And so how do I let you know what's kind of coming?

Right.

So that then it's like, more palatable for you to leave the park.

Right. And so some of kids may be good with just that verbal. Verbal reminder first.

Like, right now we're at the park, but then we're going home for the freezy. Other kids might need that first, then visual.

Right.

And so using those visual schedules to say, hey, we're going to school now, but after school we're gonna go and, you know, go to the aquarium or something fun. Or, like, we're going to. I love your freezing example. Because it's something easy.

Yes, exactly.

And not expensive.

Yeah, exactly. So kind of like thinking about what works well for your family and what your child enjoys.

So again, like, my son loves, like, just extra time with us, you know, and so I can always sort of like, let's go home and read a book together even, you know, it doesn't have to be a freezie, but I'm like, kind of letting them know that something good is still coming next. It might not even be my immediate next. Like, Right.

We might to go to the grocery store first, and then we're going to go home and read this book together that he really wants to read. And I'm going to be honest about that. I'm not lying to him and, like, trying to hide the fact we're going to the grocery store.

Right.

But my first instruction, I'm going to say, let's go. Like, it's time to go to the park. We got to get home. You want to read that book today? Right, Right. And I'm going to confirm that with him.

And then once we're like, kind of on our transition out, then I'm going to be like, okay, great. I'm so excited to get home and read that book with you.

We just have to stop at the grocery store first, and then we'll be right home to read that book.

Right. And then being consistent.

So you're being consistent in your language, but then you're also being consistent that every time you're going to the park, you're knowing to set this up so that you're like, again, setting the environment up for your child to be a little bit more successful rather than. Than having that meltdown. Cuz today mama didn't promise me the freezies. And so now just. I just don't want to go home.

Right.

And I would say, because I've set it up this way even now, like if I don't do a first then sort of strategy or a now next sort of strategy, he's like, my kids are fine.

Right.

Because I've been so predictable to them that leaving something doesn't cause again, that fight orf flight response in their body. Right. And we know that for kids, like these are big deals to them. Leaving the park feels like a big, big deal. It feels like a little deal to me.

And like, we got to get home, I got to get the laundry going, I got to cook dinner. And so there's a lot of parts that are important that they don't necessarily understand, you know?

Right.

And so another thing that we can really focus on here is creating predictability. So using predictable structured routines.

Right.

And again, really helpful for neurodiverse learners. Also helpful though for just like any child.

Totally.

They also really benefit from those predictable environments and so those visual schedules, those consistent routines. Another strategy sometimes is like, we'll talk about a change that's coming, you know, and then actually, I think you've got a really nice example.

If you don't want mind sharing. When changes happen can be very anxiety inducing for children. Right.

And again, one of my favorite strategies is like a change star that shows up at the house.

Ah, yes.

And it could be a change star. Could be what? Do you have a change unicorn?

Yes. My daughter loves unicorns and change is so hard for her. The example last night I got a phone call and had to run to your house.

Oh, yes.

And I was like, I gotta go to Shauna's house. Shawna thankfully lives five minutes down the road from me. But my daughter, that was too much of a change for her.

She was like, wait, we're having a great time sitting on the couch.

I don't want to leave this.

Mom and I are cuddling and now she's gotta go.

She didn't.

She was not happy and she was very dysregulated. Just crying and not angry angry. She was actually just like fearful and anxious. I could tell. And so then a change unicorn would have been nice.

I should have put that light on.

Ah, yes. So the change star kind of shows up at home, or you can make it anything. And then the idea is that some initially the change is Always good.

And so whenever the change star shows up, there's a good change.

So.

Oh, we. You thought we were going to the grocery store. We're actually going to the zoo. Right, right. Those types of things.

And then after a couple exposure closures that way, then sometimes it's a good change. Sometimes it's like a neutral change. Like, oh, you thought we were using these forks for dinner. We're gonna use these forks instead today.

Like really simple like that. And then other times it's like a real life change, you know, like something has just come up. And I gotta show you that there's like a change here.

And what ends up happening from my perspective is that this change unicorn then becomes like almost a comforting signal to them that instead of their body going into fight or flight mode because a change has happened, they're now they see the change unicorn. The change unicorn has been associated with many good changes that it calms the body right down. Just the sight of it is like, oh, yeah. Okay.

This isn't actually as terrifying because we know our brains are constantly trying to trick us. Right. And think that something is like that. We're in caveman days, you know, like we're not getting chased by lions. We're not our body.

Like we're really not at risk. But sometimes our. Our brains will tell us that we are. Right. And trigger that flight or flight response. Really it didn't need to be triggered.

And so by pairing this visual stimuli with something that can be anxiety inducing, then this visual stimuli can serve as like a calming mechanism for the individual. So that's why I like that strategy. It's very simple, very cool.

Love that.

One final one. Focusing on self regulation over compliance.

Yes.

You cannot teach if they are dysregulated.

Right.

And like the example you shared with.

Your daughter right, at the school the other day. Yeah. Just like holding her and getting that co regulation was exactly what we she needed.

Yes. And like, I cannot figure out how to help you if you're not able to tell me right now or if you're not calm enough for us to do any sort of.

For even me to give you an instruction. Right. Like when they're just regulated, they're not hearing us.

No. And she wasn't going to be able to listen, to calm down, stop crying. We gotta go. None of that would have was going to help.

She had to get that regulation from me in that moment.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And again, like, as grownups we know that's tricky, you know.

Yeah.

So you gotta appreciate how hard it is for these little ones.

Right? All right, so some of our key messages. We've got no bad kids. I tell my kids that all the time.

I encourage you to tell your kids that and help them understand that there's no bad kids. We're. It's just the environment and it's. It's not meeting their needs in that moment.

Exactly, Exactly.

Yeah. We shift from our mindset from blaming to understanding.

We're just creating those better outcomes for all individuals, including our neurodiverse friends. We're reducing frustration for parents and. And professionals, and then we're fostering a more supportive and inclusive environment.

Exactly. And, like, we're looking for the good day. That's what, like, in my opinion, is so great for society. Right.

We're, like, looking for the best in people. Everyone is trying their best.

Right.

And if they're not meeting our expectations and there's got to be some sort of environmental barriers around them or a skill that we can help them develop. And so I think it really creates those conditions for success.

Awesome. Thanks, everyone, for listening.

Before we go, we want to remind our listeners that topics we discuss in the podcast are not a replacement for professional medical advice. Please contact a professional if you have questions.

And just a heads up, we'll use both identity first and person first language to respect different preferences. We'll also say treatment and therapy, since we come from a clinical space, but always with respect and a focus on what works for each person.

See you next time.

Bye.