Today, we are talking all about problem behaviors and I am answering and having a
discussion about problem behaviors with our community manager, Kelsey General, who has,
uh, taken my course and community years ago. She works, uh, for me as our community manager. And
we're trying something new today answering the top five behavioral questions in podcast number 171.
Here's a short snippet from one of the questions and answers that come up so often
Welcome back to another video blog. I'm Dr. Mary Barbera, autism mom, behavior analyst,
and bestselling author. Each week I provide you with some of my ideas about turning things around.
So if you haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel, you should do that now. Today we are
covering a short excerpt from 171, the podcast, which you can watch on my website at any time,
or you can, uh, listen to it on any apps, including apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora,
iHeartRadio, you name it, we're there. And if you do love the podcasts,
wherever you're listening, or, um, you do love my resources, my book, for instance, uh,
any, uh, really great reviews would be so helpful in helping me spread the word. Let's get to this
excerpt from podcast 171 about problem behaviors. So yeah, we can move on to question two.
And that one is all about being told no. Like when told no, uh, my child flops to the
ground and cries or gets aggressive, like hits me. Um, how can we stop this? Yeah,
so it is tough. And in the beginning, um, when you're just learning, uh, what to do.
To be as positive as possible to be the giver, to be the yes man, constantly.
And not to say no constantly. Um, you have to consider not only the child's age,
but their developmental age and, um, learning rules and learning when they can have things and
when they can’t, is kind of a tough concept, like, um, and so again, we're going to have to look at
not just when told no, they drop to the ground and they become aggressive.
Um, time of day, it happens. First of all we usually ask, if somebody says
in our closed Facebook community, somebody says my child, you know, if I tell them no for candy,
they drop to the ground and, and, or lunge out and try to bite me or try to grab the candy or
whatever. Uh, what should I do? Well, first of all, we need to know age like chronologic age,
but also their ability level. So telling, you know, if this three-year-old
is functioning at a nine month old level language level, they're going to understand less about
candy later or no, you can't have candy because you're allergic or, you know, so you, even if
you have a 15 year old functioning at a two year old level, they're not going to understand exactly
when they could have it or why they can’t have it or what the alternatives are.
So we usually write back, say what's the child's age, ability level, and how far into the courses
are you? That's always the, the best thing to do because these courses are laid out so that we can
show you how to assess, how to plan, how to teach and how to keep easy data so you can evaluate
whether your teaching procedures are working. So everything, every question we get can be
funneled through the four-step turn autism, around approach, assessment, planning, intervention, and
evaluation. Um, so we, um, So it's not just about accepting no, it's really about
how preventative are you, how much table time, you know, if you're not doing any table time and
all you're doing is trying to keep the peace, which I know is hard. If you have multiple
kids or if you're a teacher in and you've got, you know, eight kids in your class and they all
can’t accept no and know what, you know, they're all non-verbal and they're not potty trained, but
the answer isn't to get them to learn, I said, no, um, the real way we need to tackle this,
any situation, whether it's at home or at school or in the community, is we need to teach the kids
that we are a source of reinforcement. We are positive. We use 8 positives to every negative.
We are the givers. We are not the takers. We are the, yes, people, we are not the no people. And
so the child, when you do have to say no, is going to be more accepting of the situation.
And, um, one other thing is if you do have to say no, that they can’t have this,
um, you should, uh, have alternatives there. And we talk in my book, Turn Autism Around,
I talk about the shush label and give procedure. So if a child is, is screaming for candy
and he's allergic to it, you can’t have it, you don't have any, whatever the situation it's,
it's another kid's candy from the table, you know, uh, for lunchtime at snack or whatever.
\You can still use the shush label and give, but you can't give the candy, but you can give
an option of another thing you know, the child will like, but you have to get quiet. You have
to get the child quiet, um, first, before you start negotiating or offering other choices
or trying to explain why they can't have it. So I know, I know that's like a lot and, um,
I want Kelsey to chime in here. But, uh, I think it's a, it's a bigger problem than
just running an quote unquote accepting no program, which is not what we do.
Yeah. And I mean, you have a full video blog on this and people want more detailed information.
But one thing I did when my kids were young was make my life easier and make their life easier.
I mean, if you have knickknacks all around the house, you know, and you're constantly saying, no,
no, no, no, don't touch. Don't touch. Don't touch. Yes. We want to teach a child that, but if you,
especially, if you have a delayed child who's around six to nine months old developmentally, or,
you know, you're where you're working on an uphill battle.
And for me, um, and what I try to tell clients is like, this is their home.
This is your home. Let's try and also adjust the environment. So you don't always have to say no.
So you're not always harping on them. It's more, you know, if they're, if you're always saying no
to cookies and your cookie jar’s on the counter, maybe we put the cookie jar in the cabinet,
out of sight, out of mind, you know, if it's always grabbing the remote,
put the remote up high somewhere instead of on the coffee table, you know, um,
and also catching a child being good. So instead of, no, you can't jump on the
couch. No, you can't do this. No, you can't. Okay. Oh, you're playing on the floor. You're jumping on
the floor. That's great. Let's jump on the floor together. Let's dance on the floor. Wow. I really
love how you're doing this and praising what we want to see instead of always being like, no,
no, no cause often when we get questions like, well, my child's saying I'm telling my child no,
and they're just laughing and continuing to do it too. And that's part of this is like,
um, and then when you do have to say no offering, like Mary said choices, and if they
do scream and cry, I know that is also typical. Whether your child has autism is delayed or not.
Kids are going to have tantrums. They're going to be upset sometimes. We can be there for them,
but that doesn't mean that we necessarily have to give it to them. Sometimes it's just, no,
we can't have that. And that stinks and I'm here for you, but we can't have that.
Right. And sometimes if kids really, you know, get aggressive first, they cry. Yeah. And if
that doesn't work, they'll start aggression or start flopping. Um, sometimes we have to actually,
you know, you know, if you just ignore it, it's going to escalate to aggression
or flopping or more dangerous situations. You might really want to intervene at crying
and like Kelseys saying, like, be there for them, tell them sh come on, you know, we'll, we'll give
you some other options, but you got to calm down. Like come on, this is not the end of the world.
Let's calm down. And maybe behavior analysts are, are listening, thinking, oh, you know, I learned,
you know, keep the demand on, ignore it. We are intervening at a less intense behavior
to try to cut it off and turn it around so that we can go back to being positive. And I like what you
said about knickknacks. I remember I was on the phone one time with a mom of typically developing
kids and she's yelling at them, screaming at them, I think, threatening time out because they ran up
her white carpet with muddy shoes. I’m like, oh, my God. As you know, Lucas is literally taking
a can of soda and dumping it on my family room carpet. You know, it's like, you know,
if you've got knickknacks, you got white carpet, you know, use gates use, uh, get a fence. Um,
don't have white carpet, uh, outlet covers. You know, I have a video somewhere in my course where
a kid was kind of at outlet near the table, move the table away from the outlet, get outlet covers,
you know, make your life a little easier. And then also remember that kids, especially if they're
developmentally under the age of five, which is really our focus here. Right? Yeah. And if
they're chronologically older, I mean, my son is 25 years old and he's still functioning below
age five level of cognitive and language ability. If they're that, Uh, they, they're going to need
a ton of attention, a ton of engagement and a ton of support. And so if, um,
they can't be, you know, on iPads for hours a day, they can't be, you know, left alone. Um,
because then you're going to have to put out a lot of fires
and I know that it's hard, but it's just the reality.
I hope you enjoy that short clip. If you want to watch the whole thing and get all five questions
and five answers, go to marybarbera.com/171. And I will see you right here next week.