From: Weiss, M.J. and Wagner, S.H., with Goldberg, S. (2006). Drawing the Line. Warner Books: New York.
STEP 1: Specify long-terms goals for your child and your family.
STEP 2: Specify short-terms goals for your child and your family. Identify target “problem” behaviors and their positive alternatives
STEP 3: Specify when and under what circumstances the target behaviours occur.
STEP 4: Prioritize: which behaviour(s) do you want to focus on first?
STEP 5: Decide when, where, and how to draw the line.
STEP 6: Identify effective rewards and penalties for your kids — and what you can ignore for now.
STEP 7: Nip it in the bud: be quick, be brief, get close, and keep calm.
STEP 8: Practice drawing the line! Set up conflict: small windows of time where you can practice dealing with challenging situations with your kids.
STEP 9: Over time, thin the rewards, increasing the time intervals between them.
STEP 10: What next? Re-prioritize the target behaviors.
In Chapter 5, you learned the basics about drawing the line, and figured out how, when, and where you could engineer conflict and change with your kids.
In this chapter, we'll help you make drawing the line effective with three crucial tools: rewarding, ignoring, and penalizing (R.I.P.). We'll and dispel some popular myths about these tools, and help you figure out effective rewards and penalties for your own kids.
In Chapter 7, we'll pull it all together with timing, talking, proximity, and scale.
Imagine that your child is walking on an unfamiliar path through the woods. It's nighttime, and it's dark. Sometimes the path is straight and clear, but it also winds and twists, dips and rises. The path has plenty of obstacles: tree roots and rocks that threaten to trip up your child, thorns and low-hanging branches that can scratch skin and tear clothes, muddy patches in which to lose shoes, the occasional stream or waterfall to drink from — or fall into. By the way, you've heard there are bears in these woods, too … and steep cliffs … and poisonous berries …
Now imagine the same scenario, except that this time you're walking behind your child — and you've got a powerful flashlight. At each new twist and turn in the path, each boulder or tree root, each low-hanging branch, thorn, stream, berry, waterfall, or each rustle of leaves that might signal wildlife, you briefly flick on your flashlight, illuminating the way ahead. With your constant guidance, your child is able to navigate the path and arrive safely at his or her destination.
Put yourself in your kid's shoes: if you were walking through the woods on your own in the dark, wouldn't you want the lights on as much as possible? We would. We'd want to be able to see as much as we could as we negotiated the bumpy terrain.
Rewarding, Ignoring, and Penalizing (R.I.P.) are like your flashlight in the woods. These three tools give your children the information they need to gracefully negotiate the often-bumpy terrain of life. And they're the tools that will allow you and your kids to Relate In Peace.
When we draw the line with kids, we're creating a new world order. And we help kids negotiate that unfamiliar new world by using rewards, ignoring, and penalties. Especially at the beginning, we use these three tools almost constantly, creating a constant source of feedback and information — a constant source of light in the dark — for kids as they learn to make sense of the place. After a while, with lots of feedback and practice, kids will become adept at negotiating the path without so much help, anticipating twists and turns and avoiding or clearing obstacles. After a while, you don't have to flick on the flashlight at every juncture. And, eventually, you can hand it over and say, “I trust you to navigate the path on your own; I'll be here for you if you need me, but know you have the skills to get to your destination safely.”
Rewards, Ignoring, and Penalties are information — that's it!
Any discussion of rewarding kids, ignoring them, or penalizing (or punishing) them is by nature a loaded discussion. Most of us have grown up with some pretty entrenched ideas of what these three things — and especially reward and penalty — mean.
Maybe, when you were growing up, reward meant a great toy at Christmas or Chanukah or on your birthday — as long as you were “good.” Maybe it meant dessert if you ate all your Brussels sprouts. Maybe you think of reward as the new toy or outfit you got for bringing home all A's or winning the spelling bee. Maybe that trip you're planning to Disneyland with your family counts as a reward in your head. Maybe reward was (or is) associated with religion and good deeds: if you're good enough, one day you'll go to heaven.
When we say penalty, on the other hand, some parents hear “punishment.” And punishment, like reward, can be a very loaded term. What did punishment mean to you when you were a child? For some of us, it meant being yelled at, going to bed without dinner, having our mouths washed out with soap, being grounded, or having privileges or allowance taken away. For others, it meant being hit: from a swat on the behind to vicious beatings. For still others, it conjures up threats of hellfire and damnation. There's no doubt that the idea of “punishment” is a charged one, conjuring up images of parents using force against defenseless children.
If reward and penalty (or punishment) are loaded terms for you, we'd like you to do your best to put the associations they conjure up aside for a little while and consider the following:
Rewards and penalties are information.
Repeat that one a few times to yourself. Think of that flashlight illuminating the path and guiding your child to his or her destination. In the same way, rewards and penalties keep kids on the path. Rewards let children know that they're going in the right direction — and to keep going. Penalties say, “Okay, a little to the right … now a little to the left … a little more to the left … great!”
Rewards and penalties are information. That's all.
You might want to think of rewards and penalties as a game of “hot and cold”: as kids stay within the boundaries, we give them positive feedback: “Great job! Stay on track!” When they cross the line, we give them negative feedback: “You're warm, getting warmer, cooling down, getting colder, colder, icy, heating up, warmer, warm, … ooh, you're getting hot, hot, hotter, a bit cooler, cooler, warmer … Wow! You're on fire!”
With this in mind, start getting used to scanning your kids' behaviour — all the time, not only when they're interacting with you or acting up — and asking yourself the following question:
Should I reward, ignore, or penalize this behaviour?
In the rest of this chapter, we'll explain what we mean by rewarding, ignoring, and penalizing behaviour. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be able to put your next step in action.
STEP 6: Identify effective rewards and penalties for your kids — and what you can ignore, at least, for now.
Take a look at the
following two scenarios:
Priscilla is three and a half years old, all long blond curls and big blue eyes — but don't let her china-doll appearance fool you, because this kid's a slugger. Priscilla's brother, Adam, is a year younger than her, and he's no slouch in the tough-guy department either. And boy, can these kids fight. When Priscilla and Adam go at it — and they go at it much of the day — the playroom turns into a war zone.
The fighting — hitting, shoving, scratching, biting, screeching, and crying — worries Laura, Priscilla and Adam's mother, to no end. She can't stand the thought of her kids hurting each other. So when the kids try to murder each other in the playroom, Laura wades right into the fray. “Stop that!” she'll tell one, then the other. “No hitting! No, no!” “Why can't you play nicely?” “Oh, baby, are you hurt?” “Give that back to her!” “He had it first!” “Here, let me kiss it better.” “Leave him alone!” “Stop bugging her!” “You're being very bad right now!”
Every day, it's the same thing; despite Laura's interventions, the kids just seem to be drawn to picking on each other. She's really hoping they'll grow out of this phase soon.
Scenario #2: Toilet training
At age two and a half, Lawrence just doesn't seem to want to be toilet trained. It's driving his mom, Nancy, a bit round the bend, especially when Lawrence has “accidents” all over the house. So Nancy and her husband, Allen, set up a new toilet-training regime with Lawrence. As one part of this regime, Lawrence gets gummy bears — and lots of praise, hugs, and kisses — whenever he successfully uses the toilet. (But he never gets the gummy bears anytime else.) Over the course of a few weeks, Lawrence begins to use the potty regularly, graduating from diapers and accidents to “big-boy” underwear and a new sense of accomplishment and freedom.
Okay, pop quiz: in the above two scenarios, which set of parents — Laura, or Nancy and Allen — rewarded their kids for their behaviour?
If you chose Nancy and Allen, you're right.
But if you chose Laura, you'd also be right. In fact, in the above scenarios, both sets of parents rewarded their kids.
How do we know that both sets of parents rewarded their kids? Because in both instances, the behaviours the parents targeted increased. The more Laura paid attention to Priscilla and Adam's fighting, the more the kids fought. And the more Nancy and Allen paid attention to Lawrence's success on the toilet, the more successful he was at toilet training.
It seems fairly obvious that when Nancy and Allen give Lawrence gummy bears, they're rewarding his efforts at toilet training. What may be less obvious is that when Laura gets in the middle of Priscilla of Adam's duels and gives the kids all her attention, she is in fact rewarding — or reinforcing — the fighting. But, in fact, she is.
Adding fuel to a fire
Rewarding is like adding fuel to a fire: it causes the fire to burn brighter and hotter. Whenever you give something to your kids — be it praise or harsh words, gummy bears or threats — in response to their behaviour, and, as a result, that behaviour increases, you've just rewarded your kids. Simply put, rewards feed or reinforce behaviour, just as logs fuel a campfire.
If rewarding behaviour is like adding fuel to a fire, however, it doesn't particularly matter whether the fire will be used to cook dinner or to burn down the house. In other words, it's entirely possible to reward inappropriate, mean, aggressive, nasty, and annoying behaviour. Parents — like Laura — do it all the time.
Here's another classic example: a kid (maybe your kid, maybe someone else's) is whining in the grocery checkout line because she wants a chocolate bar. “Mommy, I want candy. Mommy, I want candy. Mommy, I want candy. Mommy, I want candy! Mommy! I want candy!” Finally, the kid's frazzled mother can't handle it any more, and buys her the blasted chocolate to stop the whining — and the nasty looks that the other customers are shooting her way. That mom has just rewarded — and therefore reinforced — her daughter's whining. To absolutely no one's surprise, the next time she's at the checkout counter, she whines even more. The reward has increased the whining.
Perhaps perversely, it's also worth noting that rewards aren't limited only to “good” or “pleasant' things, like gummy bears and chocolate, or trips to Disney World. As we saw with Laura and her kids, scolding and yelling can be very potent rewards for kids. Think about four-year-old Josh from Chapter 5 — for him, even being swatted on the rear is rewarding. How do we know? Because when his mom spanks him, his aggressive, defiant, disruptive behaviour increases. That's why we so often hear parents say, “The more I yell, the more I spank, the more I tell them ‘no,' the more I give them time outs, the more they act up!” They act up more because the yelling, spanking, and five-minute time-outs alone on the steps all reinforce — and therefore increase — the inappropriate behavior.
On the other hand,
just because something might seem to be pleasant, that doesn't mean
it's a reward — at least not in the classic sense. If you give
your son ice cream every time he finishes his dinner, and he never
really seems to be that interested in finishing his dinner, then the
ice cream isn't a reward. (And if you gave him a big bag of garbage
for finishing his dinner, and as a result he becomes a mini-vacuum
cleaner at the dinner table, eating everything on his plate, then,
well, the bag of garbage is a reward. That's just how it works.)
In their desperate desire to make inappropriate and ugly behaviours go away, parents can inadvertently reinforce the very behaviours they want to get rid of. How do they do this most often? By talking.
Talking is one of the most rewarding or reinforcing things a parent can do. Having a long conversation with kids who are behaving inappropriately simply adds fuel to the fire. So act, don't yak! One important step in stopping the inappropriate behaviour is to stop the talk.
Don't get us wrong. We're big believers in having conversations with kids — but not in the heat of the moment. In fact, scolding is almost never an effective strategy with young kids. Think about it: when you scold little kids, often you're simply telling them what they're doing. And they already know what they're doing. It's like telling them the weather in Europe. They don't care.
Talk to your kids, but talk to them when they're calm — and when you're calm. They're more likely to listen and respond to you then.
We've discussed the fact that rewards are one form of information, or feedback, for kids. And technically, we've talked about the fact that rewards are anything that increase, or reinforce, behaviour — much the same way as fuel feeds a fire.
But what, specifically, are rewards? What kinds of things can and should parents use to reinforce children's behaviour?
When we talk about rewards, often parents' first inclination is to think about “stuff,” especially “big” stuff: expensive toys, wonderful meals and desserts, TV, clothes, trips to interesting places, money. And while it's true that all these things are potential rewards, it's also important not to confuse doing nice things for your kids with rewarding them.
Think about taking your kids to Disneyland, or on any big, fun trip or outing. There's no doubt that taking your kids somewhere fun is doing something nice for them. But is it a reward? Not likely — not unless the trip increases some (hopefully good) behaviour that you've targeted for your child. So, if a trip to Disneyland miraculously toilet-trains your stubborn three-year-old, then it's a reward. Otherwise, it's just doing a nice thing for your kid.
Are hugs and kisses rewards?
It's absolutely true that hugs and kisses can reinforce — or reward — behavior. And it's perfectly acceptable to hug and kiss your kids when they're behaving appropriately.
But we want parents to hug, kiss, and otherwise show warmth and affection for their kids, all the time, not just as a reward. In other words, warmth and affection aren't negotiable. They don't depend on your kids' behaviour, and they shouldn't be limited only to the times when your kids are behaving well.
We're not saying that parents shouldn't do nice things for their kids. In fact, we encourage parents to do nice things for their kids all the time. But when it comes to rewarding children in the service of reinforcing behaviour, we encourage parents to move away from the idea of big, showy, expensive rewards and think small, especially in the context of drawing the line. Often, your attention — in the form of eye contact, a smile, a few words, a brief touch, or simply getting nearer to your child — is the most potent, and effective, reward around.
When you're drawing the line, especially at first, you give out small rewards for small units of behaviour. Think back to Josh. Whenever he stayed in the living room for more than thirty seconds, Michael made sure to let him know that he was doing a good job. The reward was small, and swift — and it came in response to a small unit of behaviour.
Remember that flashlight illuminating your child's path: it's much easier to praise your child every few minutes for staying on track than it is to haul the whole family off to Disneyland every time your kid does something well. So, think small, and think about yourself — your smiles, your praise, your attention, your proximity — as the most potent reward around.
What moves the earth for your child?
Take a bit of time to think about potential rewards for your child. Remember, you (your attention, your proximity, your words, your eye contact) are often your child's most motivating reward. Here are some ideas for quick rewards that parents can use when drawing the line.
Smaller, in-the-moment rewards (for small units of behavior: 30 seconds to 10 minutes)
Smiling at your child
Looking at your child, or at the toy he or she is playing with
Your comforting physical presence: sitting or standing near your child, getting closer
Touching your child: ruffling hair, stroking a back, tickling, snuggling or cuddling
Genuine, specific praise: “You're doing a great job stacking up those blocks!” “I appreciate how nicely you're waiting for me in this line-up.”
High-fiving your kids
A sticker or a gold star
A small treat, like an M&M or a gumdrop (see more on food, below)
Medium-sized rewards (for larger chunks of appropriate behavior)
Being silly with your kids
Dancing with your kids
Reading a book to your child
Singing or listening to music with your kids
Setting up painting, Play-Doh, or arts and crafts for your child
15–30 minutes of TV, or watching a favorite video or DVD
Baking cookies with your child
Letting your child help you with a “grown-up” task, like gardening, feeding a pet, cooking, baking, sewing, home repairs
Playing catch in the park
Going for a walk
Parents hear all the time that “punishing your kids is one of the hardest things you'll have to do.” Nobody, however, tends to say anything about rewarding being harder.
Would it surprise you if we said that rewarding kids may be one of the hardest things for parents to learn to do? In fact, for many parents, learning how, when, and how often to reward their kids is the hardest part of Relating In Peace. On the surface, it doesn't make sense: why should it be harder to reward your kids than to penalize them?
Well, it can be harder for a whole bunch of reasons.
It's often much easier to spot inappropriate behaviour than it is to notice when the kids are being angels. Which is more noticeable: a kid throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store, or a kid playing quietly in the next room? The child staying in his bed or the one who refuses to? The whiny, clingy toddler, or the cheerful two-year-old engrossed in her blocks? The kid who says “Yes, Daddy,” or the kid who shouts, “No!”?
When kids are being downright good, they can slip under our radar. And if it's hard to notice consistently good behaviour — like a child who stays in bed or plays quietly in the next room while you fix dinner — imagine how much harder it is to notice small moments of good, or even relatively good behaviour, sandwiched in between bouts of worse behaviour?
2. Who has time — or energy?
Let's go back to Josh. For a while there, he had Michael and his parents working pretty hard. Every ten, twenty, thirty, sixty seconds at first, Josh crossed the line. And every time he crossed the line, Michael penalized him — time out.
Eventually, though, Josh also spent brief bits of time playing with his brother in the living room. And when he did, Michael seized upon those opportunities to tell Josh he was doing a great job of staying in the living room. If Michael worked hard at penalizing Josh's inappropriate behaviour, he worked even harder to find even small bits of appropriate behaviour to reward, or reinforce.
Yeah, it's true that Josh didn't stay in the living room all that much, or all that long. And yeah, he was being kind of a pain most of the time, at least for the first little while. And yeah, it's really tempting to rest in between bouts of line crossing rather than stand up, walk into the other room, and tell a four-year-old how much you like how he's playing. But penalty is pretty much useless without reward, so Michael made sure he found some good behaviour — however small — to reward in the midst of those time-outs.
Sometimes you can miss the boat with reward: by the time you're on your feet telling your kid he's being good, he's already gotten into the next mischievous thing. But with vigilance, you'll probably find plenty of opportunities to reward.
We hear this one a lot: why get in the way of a good thing?
In fact, noticing and rewarding you child for playing quietly is likely to prolong his quiet play in the longer term. Think of Josh in the living room. His goal is to get attention, so if he sits quietly for a while and no one pays any attention to him, he may up the ante in order to make sure that his parents see him.
If they acknowledge his good behaviour — even with a quick smile, wave, or “Hey, you're doing a great job of playing with your brother” — Josh gets the attention he needs, and his quiet play is reinforced.
In essence, by not paying attention to kids' good behaviour, we're telling them, “Your good behaviour has no effect on me.” (In fact, that's the equivalent of ignoring, which we'll talk about more below.)
Rewards don't have to be huge interruptions. They can be a quick smile, touch, hug, or even a look. Just enough so that your child knows you're paying attention.
“But,” you may be thinking, “when I do go in and pay attention, my child starts to act up. I'm better off just leaving him be.”
Trust us — you're not! Yes, we know that kids will often act up when you first start paying attention to their good behaviour. Think of this as a bad habit. With time and repetition, however, you can break this habit, helping your kids get used to the idea of enjoying and peacefully welcoming your “interruptions” — and the attention they bring.
4. “Why should I reward my kid for something he should be doing anyway?”
One of the hardest parts of behaviour management is to reward children for doing what you'd expect them to do anyway. “Why should I reward my kid for sleeping at night, eating his vegetables, or playing? Isn't he supposed to do that?”
Yes, he's supposed to do that. Unfortunately, without positive reinforcement or reward, he often won't know he's supposed to do that — just as, without penalty, he won't know what he shouldn't do. Again, remember that rewards and penalties are just information, or feedback. These constant yeses and nos, nos and yeses, distributed in real time, let kids know both how they're doing and what they should be doing. (Think back to the flashlight: yeah, your kid's supposed to stay on the path, but he needs to be able to see it in order to stay on it.)
Rewards and penalties are both necessary forms of feedback. Without both of them, it becomes incredibly difficult to see substantial developmental change. So, even if it feels like it should be obvious to your kid, let her know you appreciate it when she does what she's “supposed to do.” Eventually, she'll do it on her own.
5. “It's really hard to praise her when she's been getting on my nerves all day.”
We hear you. Let's face it: sometimes your kids can get on your very last nerve. Let's say your four-year-old daughter has been whiny and rude all morning, ignoring most of your requests to pick up her toys, turn off the TV, get ready for ballet class. You're pretty annoyed — and, frankly, not really in the mood to praise her for the small bits of cooperation she's demonstrated throughout the morning.
It's not nice to admit, but sometimes we hold grudges against our kids. After all, if our spouses, partners, or friends treated us with the same disrespect, we'd probably be mad for a couple of days. But our kids are our kids and our job is to teach them how to behave appropriately — which means rewarding appropriate behaviour even in the midst of the crap. Hard as it sometimes is, we've got to put aside grudges, switch gears, and let kids know when they're doing okay. (And in the next chapter, we'll discuss how timing, talking, and proximity will help prevent parental grudges against kids.)
We're going to say something here that a lot of parents will find controversial: we think food is a great reward. By food, we mean whatever turns your child's crank, including cookies, candy, chocolate, colas, and cake. Sugar, sugar, and more sugar — as far as we're concerned, bring it on!
Okay, we admit it: we're being provocative here. But we want to address an often-sore point for parents and caregivers, and that is the use of food (especially junk food, and, for that matter, TV, video games, and anything else “bad” for your kids) as rewards.
Why junk food? Well, simple. Most kids really like it. It moves the world for them. And that means that it's a good tool — in certain situations — for reinforcing appropriate behaviour.
Look at Adam. He's four, and he's a grocery-store bolter. While his mom, Maureen, shops, Adam's liable to dart off, attracted by whatever catches his eye. Adam's bolting is frustrating and scary for Maureen: it makes shopping twice as long, and she worries she'll lose him in the crowd. She wants him to learn to stay close by her without having to stick him in the cart.
Now, when Maureen and Adam go grocery shopping, the very first thing they do is go to the bulk food section, where Adam chooses a potential treat — he'll get that at the end of the trip if he doesn't bolt.
But a half-hour is a long time to wait for any four-year-old, so Maureen also keeps chocolate coins in her pocket. At regular intervals of good behaviour — every two or three minutes or less , at first — she hands Adam a tiny bit of a chocolate coin, and tells him, “You're doing a really great job, staying close by me! Thanks!” (When Adam looks like he's about to wander off, Maureen very quickly reins him in, telling him, “Stay by me, please” — she's become more vigilant.) At the end of the successful shopping trip, Maureen and Adam return to the bulk food section, and pick up a small bag of gummy bears or whatever Adam's picked out.
Why does Maureen use candy? Well, as she puts it, “If I said to Adam, ‘I'll buy you a pound of grapes and dole out grapes on our way through the store, he'd just laugh at me. You've got to use something that's going to get their attention.”
(If, on the other hand, Adam was some kind of grape fiend but didn't like chocolate all that much, then grapes would be an entirely motivating choice of reward. You've got to use what works with your kid.)
Now, food probably shouldn't be your first choice as a reward. Remember, in most cases, the best reward from your kids is your attention. In certain circumstances, though, food is a very useful choice.
First, when you're out in public and need a portable reward. Being out in public can be a challenge for kids — so much stimulation, so many interesting things, or a lot of waiting around for Mom or Dad to finish grown-up errands, like grocery shopping or banking. Being out in public is also potentially more dangerous: kids can get lost, wander off, risk getting hit by cars. And, let's face it: being out in public with misbehaving kids isn't just potentially unsafe — it's potentially embarrassing for parents.
In highly charged, highly distracting public places, your attention may not be reward enough for a child who wants to climb all over the machinery in a hardware store. In public — in any volatile, higher-risk situation, like in the car — food may be your own, and your kids', saving grace.
Second, when you're helping your kids through a particularly difficult or significant transition or developmental milestone, like toilet training. For a child who's having a lot of difficulty with toilet training, lots of praise — and a treat like gummy bears or M&Ms — every time he uses the toilet successfully, can speed up progress and ease the transition.
Third, to compete with other, enjoyable activities. Say your daughter is watching television and you want her to pick up her toys and get ready for bed. Well, moving from TV to cleanup isn't the most enjoyable transition for her — in fact, she can start to throw tantrums in this situation. If she really likes chocolate kisses, you might say to her, “Do you want a chocolate kiss? Great — that's what you get as soon as the TV's off and the toys are all picked up.”
A few guidelines for using junk food as a reward
Think small! A junk food reward doesn't have to be a whole chocolate bar. It can be as small as one M&M, or even one quarter of an M&M, one mini-marshmallow cut in half, or a chocolate chip.
Don't use junk food as a replacement for nutritious, “real” food. If your kid is eating so many junk “rewards” that she doesn't have room for dinner, you're probably going overboard. (Again, think small.)
If you use junk food as a reward in certain situations, then use it only as a reward. If Adam gets chocolate as a reward for staying near Maureen in the grocery store, then he never, ever gets chocolate any other place. If your toddler gets gummy bears for using the toilet, then she never, ever gets gummy bears at any other time. If a kid can get his or her junk “fix” at any time, then it ceases to be a motivating reward.
Don't rely on junk forever. It's a temporary, transient kind of reward. As kids begin to internalize and get comfortable with the new world order, phase out the junk. Eventually, your praise, the pleasure in a job well done (and the occasional treat!) will be reward enough.
Give junk after a good behaviour, not before. It's a reward to reinforce good behaviour, not a bribe that you hope will compel it.
The bottom line? Small amounts of so-called “junk” food can be a very effective — albeit temporary — reward for your kids. Use it sparingly, and strategically — as one part of your overall strategy in dealing with kids' difficult behaviour. And don't worry: studies show that, used wisely, a few bits of chocolate or a couple of pretzel pieces or gummy bears doesn't add up to food-addicted, anorexic, or obese children.
Still, if you're not comfortable using food as a reward, don't! Ultimately, it's your choice.
If rewarding is like adding fuel to a fire, then ignoring kids' behaviour can be likened to letting a fire burn itself out. You're not feeding the fire (reward), and you're not actively putting it out (penalty), you're just letting it run its course — while keeping a watchful eye on it to ensure that a stray spark doesn't catch on some dry tinder and get out of hand.
When you ignore a child's behaviour, you're essentially telling her that that behaviour doesn't count. It has no impact, no force, no sway in the world. It makes no difference at all.
Let's look at some situations in which parents or caregivers ignore their kids' behavior, from least to most dramatic.
Maeve is three and a half, with bright red hair and equally dramatic opinions about food. If she doesn't like what's for dinner, she gets pretty vocal. When Maeve starts up — “I don't waaant it. I don't liiike it.” — her parents, Ed and Lynn, have learned to ignore the whining behavior.
“I know you don't like it,” Ed will say smoothly, as he passes the chicken, “but we're not talking about that right now.”
And he and Lynn and the rest of the family continue on with dinner. Maeve's pouting simply doesn't matter. It doesn't net her any attention, nor do Ed and Lynn penalize it. Rather, they're just not interested.
Five-year-old Ben can really push his parents' buttons. He's one of those kids who always seems to be up to “something,” whether it's riding his bike out of bounds and into traffic, picking fights with his brother or other kids, or actively defying his parents' wishes.
Yeah, Ben has a lot of issues. But when Dr. Michael Weiss draws the line with Ben, he focuses on just one thing at a time, like getting Ben to stay on the driveway with his bike. Michael rewards Ben's appropriate cycling with praise and high-fives, and penalizes him with a brief time-out (holding his bike for ten seconds) when he rides into the street.
But when Ben starts to act out in other ways — like muttering swear words under his breath — Michael ignores that behaviour. His expression doesn't change, his manner doesn't change, and he gives Ben no reaction. He just carries on talking to Ben like the four-letter words never happened. He's not drawing the line about swearing, he's drawing the line about the bike.
Ben's swearing has the potential to distract Michael from the task at hand — which is to show Ben how to ride his bike responsibly. But Michael's not biting. When Ben mutters the F-word, Michael's deaf to it. “You ready to try riding your bike again?” he asks. “Great! Let's go.”
Two-year-old Schae has entered a screaming phase. If she wants something, she screams. If she doesn't want something, she screams. If her parents, Kami and Jamie, ask her to do something, she screams.
For a while, Kami and Jamie ignored the screaming by saying, “Use your words, Schae,” and then calmly continuing on as though the screaming didn't happen. They simply weren't interested in the screams, and they had no impact. At the same time, Kami and Jamie rewarded Schae with specific praise when she did use words to communicate.
After a while, however, Kami and Jamie decided that Schae's screaming was too distressing to ignore any more. So they upped the ante, and drew the line. Now, when their daughter lets go with a good shriek, Kami and Jamie still tell Schae to use her words. But then they calmly turn their backs and walk away (time out). At this point, passive ignoring has turned into active ignoring — a subtle form of penalty. Schae's behaviour does have an impact, but it's not one that she likes. Over the course of a few weeks, Kami and Jamie begin to notice that Schae screams a lot less.
Learning to ignore the behavior rather than the child is the hardest part of understanding the “I” in R.I.P. Keep in mind that ignoring — at least for our purposes — is not the silent treatment. It's not pretending that your child doesn't exist. And it's not tuning out your kids. Ignoring is simply sending kids the message that a specific behaviour has no impact, no power.
So, when do you choose to ignore a child's behaviour?
Well, the thing about parenting is that you have to choose your battles. So if your child is doing something that's irritating but relatively benign (like Maeve whining at the dinner table), and you've got your hands full with managing the two other kids, getting dinner on the table, and catching up with your loved ones at the end of the day, you may just choose to ignore her whining.
Similarly, if you're actively focusing on changing certain behaviours — like ensuring that Ben learns how to ride his bike appropriately on the street — you may just have to ignore others, like the swearing. You can't focus on everything, nor should you; you'd drive yourself, and your kid, insane.
“Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? …”
“WHAT!?”
We've all done it: we think we can ignore something annoying our kid is doing, but after twenty times, we can't ignore it any longer, and then we explode.
Here's a tip. If you're not sure you'll be able to ignore something, don't sweat it. You can acknowledge a child's behaviour without reinforcing it. Or you can penalize the behaviour.
For example, say your child's trying to get your attention, and you're busy doing something else. Don't ignore his repeated requests. Instead, take a quick break from your activity to acknowledge your kid — immediately. You can say something like, “I hear you calling me, but I'm busy right now. I'll come see you in five minutes,” or, “I can't talk to you right now, Sean, because I'm talking on the phone. I'll talk to you in a few minutes.”
When you respond after your child repeats your name twenty times, you're simply reinforcing the repetition. Essentially, you're saying: “Keep calling my name. If you do it long enough, eventually I'll respond.” (Bad lesson to learn!) If you can't ignore it, better to nip the situation in the bud by responding immediately and letting him know you're unavailable.
If you're going to ignore a behavior, you have to learn how to truly ignore it. Even subtle body postures or fleeting eye contact — not to mention explosions — indicate that you're still paying attention. Kids, even toddlers, pick up on subtle messages that their behaviour has an effect on you, and that's reinforcing. So don't respond to demands. Either use a time out or just walk away.
And sometimes you'll find — like Kami and Jamie — that you can't ignore a behaviour any more. When Schae's screaming continued, Kami and Jamie felt like they had to take a more active approach to teaching their daughter how to communicate effectively. And so they began to penalize it by turning their backs and walking away in response to Schae's screams.
Kami and Jamie's changing response to Schae brings us to a key point: you can only ignore ignorable behaviour. Think once more about the fire slowly burning itself out in the pit. Well, it's still fire, and potentially dangerous. You're still going to keep one eye on it to make sure that a spark doesn't catch somewhere and escalate into something unmanageable or dangerous.
Say your son decides to throw a temper tantrum in the middle of a restaurant, or goes after his sister with a pair of scissors. As far as we're concerned, those are examples of unignorable behaviours. When parents ignore or tune out unignorable behaviour, they're sending a strong message to their children — not to mention the general public or the sister who has to endure the kid's awful behaviour — that they don't really care.
So, what to ignore? It's all relative. Pick your battles, and stay focused on your goals.
TIP: Don't be the thought police:
You ask your son to set the table once his television program is over — and he does. But he's not happy about it: he rushes through the job, grumbles to himself, and scowls the whole time. When he's finished setting the table, he disappears immediately back into the family room to begin watching TV again.
Q. What do you do?
A. Thank him for setting the table — and ignore the attitude.
Yes, you could go after his attitude. You could tell him to wipe that frown off his face and be pleasant, but you'd be begging for a fight. Too often, parents let themselves get sidetracked, focusing on a kid's attitude rather than behaviour. Let it go. In the end, attitude follows from behaviour. If your son's engaging in the appropriate behaviour — and he's rewarded for that behaviour, his attitude will change.
Why do we use the word “penalty” instead of “punishment”?
Well, an obvious reason is that “punishment” conjures up a lot of potentially nasty associations that we'd like to get away from. “Penalize” is a more neutral word, one less likely to evoke thoughts of revenge, retribution, or being mean to kids.
But the real reason we use the word penalty is that it paints a more accurate picture of what's going on. Imagine a penalty box at a hockey rink: when a player gets out of line, the referee pulls him (or her!) out of the game and into the penalty box for a set amount of time. That time is time away from the opportunity to play. When the time's up, the player's back out on the ice. No grudges, no retribution, nothing nasty — just time out.
In the same way, as you'll see over and over again in the examples we use in this book, penalty isn't about retribution, nastiness, or holding grudges. It's time out from the opportunity for reward.
When two-year-old Tate gets out in public — say, to a shopping mall — he can get a little rangy. He'll try to run off in pursuit of all the shiny, exciting things he sees. If he can't get what he wants, he'll drop to the floor and begin to scream, essentially bringing the outing to a halt.
Tate's parents, Nathan and Cindy, handle Tate's behavior in two different ways. Nathan simply picks up his son, holding him tightly so that he can't escape or pull the flop-and-scream manouver. Nathan's a big guy, and he can easily contain Tate for the duration of a shopping trip, if he needs to.
Cindy, on the other hand, is less comfortable with the hands-on approach. Yet she can't seem to stop Tate from running off or throwing tantrums. Her solution? She's stopped going out with Tate, unless she absolutely has to.
Both Nathan and Cindy are penalizing Tate. In both cases, he misses out on the opportunity to do what he wants to do, which is to run all over the shopping mall. And, in the short term, both Nathan's strategy of containment and Cindy's of avoidance do work: their son isn't running around a shopping mall. The behaviour has decreased.
In the longer term, however, these strategies aren't particularly effective. Because they don't teach Tate how to behave out in public, they don't prevent him from running off or dropping to the floor every time he doesn't get what he wants. Essentially, Cindy and Nathan control Tate's behaviour with external barriers — through sheer physical force, or by keeping him, in effect, a prisoner in his own home.
In other words, Nathan and Cindy take control away from Tate. And while taking control nets them some momentary peace, it does nothing to achieve the larger goal of teaching him how to behave appropriately outside of the home.
Effective penalties don't simply stop behaviour in the short term by removing a child's control. In combination with effective rewards, effective penalties decrease the likelihood of that behaviour recurring — even when the external barriers do come down. Cindy and Nathan's goal is to find a way to teach Tate how to control himself — to behave appropriately in exciting public places, without the threat of containment or avoidance.
As Sheldon says, “You can lock up toys. You can put locks on doors and cupboards and refrigerators and things like that, but the only lock that can't ever be picked is the lock in the child's mind.”
Penalty is information — not retribution
In the same way that parents can confuse rewarding with doing nice things for their kids, they can confuse penalty with revenge, retribution, or “doing mean things to their kids.”
And while we wholeheartedly support doing nice things for your kids, we absolutely abhor the thought of any parent being mean or nasty to a kid.
In one father's words …
I've stopped yelling for the most part. It just doesn't work. It doesn't achieve any end. I don't like to have to penalize my children, to put them into time out, but that's the most effective way to do it.
So if the kids aren't getting along, and they start winding up, I'll say, “Listen, stop. Stop now.” If they don't stop, the instigator, he's the guy that gets put into time out. He goes up to his bedroom.
Well, the penalty isn't a day or a month or an hour. It's just “stop.” Knock it off, it's finished now. Stop. Go up to your room. Be done with it and come down when it's over. And it's over right away. You know, just the act of going upstairs and coming back downstairs again takes the heat off the argument. And then it's time to move onto the next phase of play or work or whatever you're doing. So it's very effective. And there's a calmer feeling in the home.
ne of the easiest ways to turn punishment into retribution is to wait too long before acting. If your child is misbehaving, but you let it go and let it go and let it go until you finally blow up, you're acting out of anger — and, likely, out of proportion. In Chapter 7, we'll talk more about how timing is key to effective penalty.Almost always, the most effective form of penalty is a “time out.” We're not talking, however, about the popular — but completely misguided — notion of “five minutes of time out on the stairs” or “one minute of time out for every year of life” (where a four-year-old sits in his “time-out” chair for four minutes).
Let's take a look at Emily. She's three and half years old, and she — like her little sister, Victoria — can throw one whale of a tantrum. When Emily gets going, watch out! She'll scream, cry, throw herself down on the floor, and kick. She used all these strategies when Michael drew the line with her and Victoria. As a last-ditch effort to wring some attention from her shell-shocked parents, Barry and Susan, Emily started to retch. “I'm gonna puke!” she called to them: “Mommy! Daddy! I'm gonna puke!”
Emily and Victoria — and this is a wild, wild understatement — did not take kindly to having Michael draw the line with them. In this case, time-out was a five- to ten-second stays in a high chair with a locking tray table. Mid-scream (or mid-retch), Michael simply picked up Emily (or Victoria) and put her in the chair. Then he walked away. After a few seconds, when the little girl quieted even a bit, Michael returned.
“Why are you sitting here?” he asked. “You're sitting here because we need you to stay in the living room and play quietly. Do you want to get out of the chair? Okay, let's go play in the living room.”
After repeated forays into the kitchen and trips to time out, even these two world-class tantrum-throwers lost steam. Eventually, after a good hour or so of drama, the two little girls were giggling away with Michael on the living room couch.
After her initial histrionics wound down, Emily decided to explore further the new world order. Like Josh, she wanted to figure out the boundaries, and how credible Michael would be in enforcing them. Her exploratory vehicle? A marble. Emily lay on “her” side of the boundary between the kitchen and the playroom and dropped her marble onto the kitchen floor.
Now, the marble on the kitchen floor was noisy, and annoying. And, yes, it was potentially unsafe; if someone stepped on it, they could end up flat on their backs. Decent reasons, both, to insist to Emily that she play with it elsewhere. But Emily was also using the marble to attract attention back from Michael and her parents. In essence, she was using the marble to say, “I may not be in the kitchen, but I can still insist on being the center of attention.”
And what did Michael want to do? He wanted to teach Emily how to take control of the new world order without resorting to tantrums and projectile vomiting. In other words, he wanted to teach her how to get what she wanted — attention — using appropriate behaviour.
And so, Michael began a second round of time-outs. Each time Emily dropped the marble on the floor, Michael simply picked it up and put it in his pocket. Time out. (Yes, something as simple as taking away a marble is a form of time out — it's time out away from the opportunity for play and reward.)
“I want my marble,” Emily would say.
“You want your marble?” he'd ask. “Okay, you can have it. But where does it stay? It stays in on the rug. On the rug. That a girl.”
And he'd hand her back the marble. And then, pretty soon, she'd drop in on the kitchen floor again. And the scene would repeat.
Marble on the floor. Time out.
“Okay, that's not where the marble goes. And now I'm keeping it. Do you want the marble? Where does it stay? It stays in on the rug. Here you go.”
And repeat. Marble on the floor. Time out.
“If you keep the marble inside the living room on the rug you can have it. Okay, you want it? That a girl. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Here you go.”
And repeat. Marble on the floor. Time out — this time in the high chair for five seconds.
“Why are you sitting in the chair? You're here because I asked you to keep the marbles in the living room. Do you want the marble? Here you go. But you have to keep it on the rug.”
And repeat. Marble on the floor. Time out.
“Do you want the marble? I have it. Why did I take it away? Why did I take it away? Because it came in the kitchen. Okay? So now I'm going to keep it for of a while because that's too many times.”
“No!”
“Yeah, for a little while, because that was too many times. If you want the marble back you show me you can play nicely with your sister, okay? Okay, I'm going to go talk to your mom and dad for a little while, Emily. You know where that has to stay. That a girl, that a girl. That a girl. Now how good are you. Emily! Thank you!”
And so on.
Sound tedious? No kidding. It's tedious to write, and it's even more tedious to do — especially after listening to two little girls scream in stereo for upwards of an hour. It's sorely tempting to just take the damn marble from Emily, or to give in and let her play with it in the kitchen. In fact, Barry and Susan — not to mention Emily — can't quite believe that Michael keeps giving the marble back.
“There's a point at which I would just take it away,” he tells them, “but Emily has to test my limits six million times before I'm going to actually pull the plug on her. I'll keep giving the marble back to her, but it belongs in the living room. Every time I hear this thing in the kitchen, it's mine. And you know, I'm tired. I don't want to do this either. But I'll do it one more time. And I'll do it one more time after that. And if I have to stay here with you guys for the next three weeks, I'll do it one more time. I need to show Emily that I have one more time than she's got. She's got to get that message.”
And the message is simple: this is the new world order. Tantrums have no currency here, but appropriate behaviour does. So, if you want to throw tantrums, fine — but they're not going to get you anything but time out. If you want to drop the marble over the line, fine — but I'll take it away. If you want to toe the line, play with the marble in the living room, well, the world's your oyster. It's up to you: you're in charge.
In drawing the line with Emily, Michael is trying to teach her how to play with the marble, not prevent her from playing inappropriately. That's why he just keeps giving the marble back to her — and taking it away when she crosses the line. He's not getting mad or worked up. He's just saying, welcome to the new world order. This is how it's going to be. And those five- or ten-second time-outs provided him with umpteen opportunities to teach Emily about the new world order.
Those multiple learning experiences are also teaching Emily how to get the grown-ups' attention in ways that are more mature and appropriate than screaming and retching. So, when Emily asks nicely to come into the kitchen, Michael lets her — as long as she doesn't roll the marble on the floor. And she doesn't. Like Josh, Emily aged several developmental years over the course of a couple hours.
31 (thousand) flavors of Time Out
Remember: time out isn't a place, it's an event. It's time out from the opportunity for reward.
What's more, time out is a very short event — maybe a few seconds in duration. That's just enough time to interrupt your child's inappropriate behaviour and provide a chance to learn. Often, the longer the time out, the less effective it is. Compare ten 30-second time-outs one 5-minute time out — in the first instance, that's ten times the opportunity to learn!
So, stop thinking of time out as “three minutes on the stairs” or “no TV for a week,” and start thinking of it as a brief “time away from the opportunity for reward.”
Stuck for creative, appropriate ideas for time-out? Here are some suggestions (with subsequent rewards for appropriate alternatives).
Your daughter won't get dressed. Remove her favorite article of clothing or jewelry (like a bracelet, watch, headband, etc.). Give it back when she starts dressing.
Stop the car when the kids start fighting in the back seat. Start moving once they calm down.
Your five-year-old son is playing with his food or eating with his hands. Remove the plate. Offer it back after a few moments so he can resume eating — like a big boy, not a baby.
The kids start to argue about which TV program to watch. Use the remote control to turn off the TV. When the kids stop fighting and negotiate calmly, turn on the TV again.
Your daughter is engrossed in a book, the television, or the PlayStation and ignores your requests to please set the table. Take away the book, or turn off the TV. Give back the entertainment after she's set the table.
Your toddler son is biting, shoving, and hitting. Take away his favorite toy or stuffed animal when he's aggressive and put it in solitary confinement (in a locked or high-up cupboard). Give it back when the aggression subsides.
Take away a coupon that represents a future reward — say, for ice cream after dinner.
Stop pushing a swing when your daughter demands rudely to be pushed “Higher!” Start pushing again when she asks nicely.
Walk away from a child when he speaks rudely or disrespectfully. Get closer when he speaks politely.
You're reading to your son but he's distracted and wriggly. Close the book. Resume reading when he's able to concentrate on it (maybe after he's had a chance to burn off some excess energy).
Your ten-month-old infant likes to strip the leaves off your potted plants. When she makes a beeline for the plant, say “No.” Pick her up and move her back three or four feet.
Turn away when your son whines. Pay attention when he speaks in a nice voice.
Stop the stroller when your daughter leans out of it. Start pushing when she sits up.
When your son begins to whine or cry at the dinner table because he doesn't want to eat, turn his high chair away from the table for a few seconds. Turn it back when the whining subsides.
Close the bubbles for five seconds when your daughter begins to pour the liquid instead of blow. Open the lid so she can try again.
Teachers: delay releasing the kids for recess (and signal the delay by turning off the lights) when the kids are too loud (group time-out).
Your daughter starts to throw a tantrum. Walk away. Get closer as she calms.
Turn off the computer screen (when your kids are playing computer games) in response to their fighting or rude behaviour. Turn it on again when they're ready to cooperate and be polite.
Take away Play-Doh when your daughter starts to eat it. Give it back so she can play appropriately.
Place yourself briefly out of reach (e.g., in the car, in your room, in the bathroom, etc.) in response to clinginess, whining, tantrums, or rudeness.
Your daughter wanders off or tries to touch everything in the store. Leave the store and sit on a bench. Let her know you can go back in when she's ready to stick by you and not touch.
If your son won't walk with you through the mall (he insists on running of in every direction), hold his hand, stop walking, make no eye contact, and count to three to yourself. Then turn to him and say, “Stay with me so that I don't have to hold your hand.” Resume your journey.
Sit your son on the back steps (for a few seconds!) when he goes out of bounds in the back yard. Let him know he can get up any time he's ready to stay within the boundaries.
If your toddler is the type to get up and run from the stairs when in time out, put her in her high chair with the tray top locked for a few seconds.
In order to draw the line, you'll need to think a bit about rewards and penalties. Once more, pull out that worksheet from Chapters 4 and 5, because it's time to take the next steps.
STEP 6: Identify effective rewards and penalties for your kids — and what you can ignore, at least, for now.
Let's take a look, once again, at Maureen and Dale's worksheet for Adam. The three behaviours they've targeted are fighting with his brother (usually over the PlayStation after school), bolting in the grocery store, and rude language.
Maureen and Dale have identified three places where they can draw the line with Adam on these behaviours. To deal with the fighting, they set up Adam and his older brother with their PlayStation after school — and they're prepared to deal with the boys' conflict if it arises. To deal with Adam bolting in the grocery store, Maureen takes him to the store. And to deal with Adam's rude language, Dale and Maureen set up an activity he really likes, like painting: they can be fairly sure that they'll face some conflict when Adam has to say “please” in order to paint.
Maureen and Dale's next step is to plan appropriate, effective rewards and penalties for each situation. Here's what they come up with:
1. Fighting
If the boys start to fight over the video games, they've crossed the line. The penalty is that the game is turned off — at the first sign of conflict — for five or ten seconds. Maureen and Dale will use this strategy a few times. If the boys keep fighting, the instigator (usually Adam) will go to his room for a brief time-out.
If, on the other hand, the kids play together well, Maureen and Dale will reward them by telling them so, using specific praise (“I really like how well you guys are playing together without fighting!”) and Dale will even get down on the floor and play with them. Their parents' attention and praise, plus Dale's physical closeness, are hugely reinforcing to the two boys.
Keep in mind that the PlayStation is a reward unto itself — Maureen and Dale turn on the game when the boys' behaviour improves.
2. Grocery store bolting
When Adam stays near Maureen at the store, she rewards him several different ways. First, she uses specific praise: “You're doing a great job staying with me. Thanks!” Second, he hands him small bits of chocolate at regular intervals of good behaviour. Finally, at the end of a successful trip, Adam gets to pick out a larger treat from the bulk food section of the store.
If Adam bolts, on the other hand, he's crossed the line. When that happens, Maureen penalizes him by stopping the grocery cart, pulling him back, and telling him, “Stay with me, please.” If Adam continues to bolt, Maureen will let him know that he risks losing his larger, end-of-trip treat. Finally, if Adam's behaviour gets to be too stressful for Maureen, they can simply leave the store — with no candy — so they can both take a break.
Priority |
Behaviour |
Positive alternative |
When/where does it occur? |
Draw the line |
Drawing the line: reward? |
Drawing the line: penalty? |
1 |
Fighting with brother |
Playing peacefully; sharing |
After school, with video games |
Set kids up to play together after school |
-praise/ attention-Playstation -Dad can play with them
|
-time out from Playstation (turn it off for 5 seconds; restart game)-time out to bedrooms |
2 |
Running away from me in grocery store |
Staying close by, being patient until I'm done |
At the store |
Go to the grocery with Adam (when we've got time to practice) |
- little bits of chocolate for short periods of sticking with me-praise - promise of bigger treat at end of trip |
- pull Adam back when he starts to wander (say, “Stick by me, please.”-stop moving briefly (he wants to GO!) -leave the store with no candy |
3 |
Rude, demanding tone |
To say “Please,” ask and talk nicely |
Almost always! |
Set up a situation (painting) in which Adam has to ask nicely to get something he really wants |
-praise-gets to do the activity (Play-Doh) if he asks nicely
(Ignore rudeness!) |
-time out from being able to play with Play-Doh |
4 |
||||||
5 |
||||||
6 |
3. Rudeness
To tackle the rude language, Maureen and Dale come up with the idea of painting. Since Adam loves to paint, it's a highly rewarding, or reinforcing activity. The catch is, he has to ask nicely in order to be able to paint. Here, the rewards and penalties are implicit in the activity. If Adam refuses to ask nicely, he's crossed the line, and the penalty is that he doesn't get to paint. The minute he asks nicely, however, he's rewarded by being allowed to paint.
So, reward, ignoring, and penalty are your powerful flashlight, helping you guide your child along the twisting path of life.
Well, here's the thing about even the most powerful flashlights: the batteries work only so long before they run out of juice. In other words, even with the powerful tools of R.I.P., parents are still working on borrowed time. The years from birth until age six are the crucial years for kids to acquire the skills they need to successfully navigate that path.
Remember, the goal of rewarding, ignoring, and penalizing kids is to give them control. It's to teach kids how to navigate the path of life independently and appropriately, following the rules when they're fair and just, and challenging them when they aren't. With R.I.P., parents help kids learn and internalize a moral code that can guide them even when the parental flashlight batteries finally give out. In other words, with R.I.P., parents are giving kids their own, perpetual source of illumination in the woods.
Take some time to think about how you can draw the line with your kids, rewards for appropriate behaviour, penalties for crossing the line, and what you can ignore. In the next chapter, we'll talk about timing, talking, proximity, and scale — and they're the key ingredients in your plan's success.