Page 35 - Whosjobisit

Ask your child to tell about any opportunity that they had to do tasks that they would usually avoid. Pay particular interest to their coping self-messages, “It would be nice for me to do this even though I don’t want to do it.” Appropriate behaviors, generated by Stinky Thinking, “I better do it this time or I will get in trouble” are much less likely to occur when the punitive consequences are no longer present.
For longer lasting behavior change, your thinking has to not only change it must be reinforced and be reinforcing. If you say, “Tommy that was a very nice way of helping Jane” and he tells himself, “Doing this was nice and I am a nice person” change can occur and be long lasting.
Rewarding behaviors associated with taking responsibility should be fairly easy initially. If the child does what is expected without a lot of buts, reinforce them. Gradually expand the expectations to insure that they understand that controlling their thinking is what will enable them to deal with the difficult and boring things in life.
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