Tag: therapy

Behavior Plans

Behavior plans are a great first step toward changing problematic behaviors. Using positive rewards for desired behaviors, children will begin to recognize (subconsciously) they are receiving positive feedback and increase the desired behavior. 

Behavior plans need to be: 

• Simple 

• Specific 

• Sustainable 

• Steady  

• Special 

• Step by Step  

Steps toward developing a good behavior plan: 

1. Identify the problematic behavior. What specific behavior do you want the child to stop? Or is it a specific behavior you want the child to do more? Examples: I want my 8-year-old daughter to stop throwing things when she is angry or I want my son to brush his teeth two times per day.

2. Observe. You are going to observe two areas.  

a) First, how often do they do the undesired behavior. Examples: you observe that your daughter is throwing things in anger five times per day on average and you observe that your son is only brushing his teeth one time per week after a significant argument.  

b) Second, what are rewards that are being given each day that are the child’s favorite things? Examples: Your daughter wants to play video games for an hour each day. Your son loves to watch his favorite tv show before bed each night. 

3. Identify a positive statement about desired behavior – you want to identify what you want them  TO DO not what you want them NOT to do. Examples: You will use kind words and a safe body at all times and you will brush your teeth each day after breakfast and each day after dinner. 

4. Now you are going to develop the specific part of the plan. Part one, identify how frequently are you going to provide small reinforcers during the day and what will the reward look like.  Examples: 

a) You identify there are 12 hours in a day that your child is awake and available for rewards. You are, in the beginning, going to try and decrease from an average of 5 anger outbursts a day to 2. Therefore, the reward will be earned if they get 10 stars a  day.  

A timer is set for one hour. When the timer goes off, no matter what else is going on,  you will acknowledge that your daughter was able to use her kind words and safe body.  Celebrate her success enthusiastically and point out, if applicable, times when you knew it was hard for her. “You made great choices and I am very proud of you. I know it was hard not to yell at me when I told you to clean up your toys but you didn’t make that choice and that was amazing. Here’s a star on your chart and I’ll set the timer for  another hour so you can earn another one.” 

In the event they are not successful, a simple statement is all that is necessary. “I am  sorry you aren’t earning your star this hour, but I am setting the timer again and I know  you can do it next time.” 

At the end of the day, you count the stars earned. If she has earned 10 stars, she gets to play one hour of video games from 7 pm-8 pm. 

b) Your son must at first, go from brushing his teeth once per week to a minimum of once per day. So you establish that each night at 7 pm if he has brushed his teeth that day on his own without conflict, he gets to watch his favorite TV show. 

5. After a significant period of success you will begin to raise expectations. Maybe for your daughter’s anger, you go from 10 stars to get a reward to 12 stars to get the reward. Your son will need to brush his teeth two times per day to get the reward. 

6. Following another period of significant success, you can also increase the time between rewards. This is more for plans using regular intervals of reinforcement during the day. So you can increase the time intervals from 1 hour to 90 minutes, but the expectation of 100% remains constant. 

 

Remember – 

• Simple – choose one or two target behaviors at a time. Note: If there are two behaviors to modify, there must be two rewards. Each behavior and reward is independent of another.  This means they may earn one reward but not necessarily earn the other. Rewards must be daily! 

• Specific – very specific, what is the desired behavior and what is the reward? When will it happen? How will it happen?  

• Sustainable – Make sure this is something you can do in the long term. It doesn’t need to be expensive or something that isn’t readily available to you. 

• Steady– This means consistent across all environments – If there are two homes, each parent needs to use the same plan. Involve the school when possible. Every adult in the child’s life needs to be on board. 

• Special – Personalize the plan for each child’s needs and desires – no two behavior plans should look the same.  • Step by Step – Reward progress, not perfection; especially in the beginning, you need to recognize that behavior takes time to change. Expecting perfection, in the beginning, leads to failure. Allow mistakes without shame.

By: Marla Y. Johns, MS MHP LMHC

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Behavior Plans

Behavior plans are a great first step toward changing problematic behaviors. Using positive rewards for desired behaviors, children will begin to recognize (subconsciously) they are receiving positive feedback and increase the desired behavior.  Behavior plans need to be:  • Simple  • Specific  • Sustainable  • Steady   • Special  • Step by Step   Steps toward developing…

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What If We Ask for What We Want?

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What If We Ask for What We Want?

For some reason, we have learned it is impolite, abrasive or selfish to ask for what we need.  Instead, we hint and hope that the people in our lives will somehow magically know what it is that we want.  Of course, as a kid making a Christmas list it is easy; “I want the Red Rider carbine bb gun with the compass in the stock.”  As an adult, we may still find it a little easier to tell someone what item we want, “I want a pair of diamond earrings for my birthday;” but I wonder, how different our relationship experiences would be if we asked specifically for what we wanted on every level.

This applies not just to romantic relationships; but we can start there.  Often, couples seek counseling because they don’t seem to be communicating in a way that their needs are being met.  When probing, however, I find that they aren’t typically asking for what they need; but assuming their partner will somehow magically just know.  If you say to your partner, for example, “you don’t help around the house” your partner is likely to get defensive and list all the ways they, in fact, feel they are being helpful.  A more helpful way to communicate your need is to say, “I am feeling overwhelmed.  Will you please cook dinner tonight?”  Your partner then has three possible responses:  yes I will, no I cannot, I am not sure if I am able to do that so I would like to discuss another solution with you.

A conversation with couples often starts with, “tell me specifically how you know that someone loves you.”  Think about this question for a moment.  For most people, it is harder to answer than at first glance.  Specifically . . . how do you know?  To try and wiggle out of the answer, many will say something like, “I just feel it.”  If you have sat in my therapist office though, you know I never let you off that easy!  Again, specifically, what does someone DO that causes you to believe they love you?

I like to use a personal example to illustrate what I am meaning.  When I had been married a short time, the stomach flu when through our house.  My husband got it first and was in bed miserable for a day or so.  I waited for him to ask for something he wanted and gave him peace, space, and quiet to rest and feel better.  A couple of days later, it was my turn.  It felt like every few minutes he was asking me what he could get me.  He was bringing me something.  He was doting on me.  Fast forward a few days when we were both feeling better, I realized there was some tension between us.  After talking, we realized that we were both doing for the other person what we actually wanted them to do for us; but we hadn’t taken the time to really listen to what one another’s personal needs were.  My husband wanted me to dote on him and felt neglected when I didn’t.  I felt overwhelmed and annoyed with a lot of attention when he was simply trying to care for me in the way he wanted cared for.  How much easier it would have been if we had both asked, specifically, for what we wanted.

This tactic applies to every relationship in your life.  Take, for example. Your relationship with your boss.  You have been given a project to complete and you are running out of time.  Believing she is helping you, your boss sends you two interns to help you complete the project.  You have found that explaining things to the interns is taking twice as long and you really need to have uninterrupted time alone in order to complete the assignment.  Your boss is trying to be helpful and is providing you with, likely, what would be helpful to them.  If you don’t clearly ask for your needs, you will be left resentful and overwhelmed. 

Recently, I was talking with someone about having taken a new job.  The training program was not at all leaving them feeling as if they would be successful at learning and prepared for the tasks of the job.  Together, we developed a script which allowed the employee to outline their learning style for their manager and gave an option of a plan that the employee felt would work for them.  When presented to their manager, not all of the suggestions were implemented, but they had a very productive conversation, created and implemented a training plan for the employee that worked for everyone involved.

The next time you find yourself saying, “they should just know” or “I wish they understood” instead ask yourself, “have I clearly articulated what I need?”  You just might get the answer you want!

By: Marla Y. Johns, MS MHP LMHC