Tricks of the Trade - behavior management

techniques and tools that help you in your quest for behavior management
(also good in relationships)

1. Tone it down.  Use a neutral tone as often as possible unless you are giving praise.
2. Give time warnings.  If you are going to remove someone from something, or something from someone, that is reinforcing, give them a warning be fore you do (e.g. one more minute and then it is time to ...") and let them know when access to that reinforcer weill return (e.g. "ok it's time for .... You can ... again in three hours")
3. Find the good and praise it.  Seek out approrpiate acts to reinforce.  Be creative. They are everywhere, an if someone is busy trying t do all these things that you keep reinforcing, the won't have much time to do the undesired things.
4. Find the "yes" and lose the "no."  "No" is used too much.  If your typical response to a question of permission is "no," try skipping the "no" and just respond with what they do have permissi on for (e.g. the student asks, "Can I sit with my friend?" Instead of "no" say, "you can sit in this seat or that seat" or even better "today, you can sit in your assigned seat and on Friday you can sit with your friend.")  You can even take this a step further and validate their inguriy first before giving your "yes"  (e.g. your son asks for an ice cream at an inappropriate time.  Instead of "no" say "mmm ice cream does sound good.  It's almost dinner time now, so let's have some after dinner."
5. Use "do" directtions instead of "don't".  Focus on the positive.  Instead of telling someone what NOT to do tell them what TO DO.  
6. Tell instead of ask.  When giving an instruction, politely state what needs to be done, instead of asking.  Asking opens the expected responses to either a "yes" or "no"  If you expect "yes", then DO NOT ASK.  Try cutting out the "do you want to," or "will you/would you" altogether and start simply using "It's time for..."   Throw in a "please" for politeness.
7. Offer choices. Sometimes you can offer choices to help motivate a behavior (e.g. it's time for your bath Do you want to use the blue soap or the green soap?)  Be creative.  Build behavioral motivation.
8. Use shaping.  Reinforce the response that is close to the desired behavior.  Then reinforce the response that comes a little closer.  And so on until the desired behavior is achieved.

 People do things because it pays off in some way.  Consciously reward desired behavior.