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TIPS AND DEFINITIONS
Modeling: When you observe your child engaging in an appropriate behavior, re-ward his behavior and then verbalize what you assume the child is thinking. “Billy you are doing your work very quietly today, I bet you are telling yourself, “If I work hard I can understand this math.” If your child says that your interpretation is close, ask... is that Good Thinking or Stinky Thinking? That’s right... Good Think-ing. Billy I am very proud of you, do you feel good about yourself right now?”
Cues: Use the characters from the story as surrogates for the child if you think it’s appropriate. “Tommy, you remind me of the first squirrel in the Whisper-ing Squirrel story. If you were him, you would be telling yourself something like, ‘Jerry is always making fun of me, I should just beat him up’, is that close to what you are thinking right now?”
“Tommy what happened to that Whispering Squirrel in the story? That’s right. Now I know you don’t want that to happen to you, so tell me is that Good or Stinky thinking? Can you tell me how you could change your thinking to not get so upset when Jerry says untrue things to you? If you can’t, maybe I can help. You could say to yourself, Jerry is just saying that to get me angry and in trouble, I will ignore him because he is just being a big boob.
Shaping: It is important to remember that some children will have a significant coping skill deficit. This is typical and should not be unexpected. It is unrealistic to expect a child with such a deficit to suddenly change and engage in appropriate coping. Therefore, you should use Shaping, that is, “reinforce change in the
right direction.”
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