Introduction to Counting
How does the 1-2-3 process work? Imagine you have a four-year-old
child who is having a major temper tantrum on the kitchen floor at
6:00 p.m. because you—in your hardness of heart—would not let him
use his favorite electronic device right before dinner. Your son is
banging his head on the floor, kicking your new kitchen cabinets, and
screaming bloody murder. You are sure the neighbors can hear the
noise all the way down the block, and you’re at a loss about what to
do.
Your pediatrician told you to ignore your son’s temper tantrums,
but you don’t think you can stand it. Your mother told you to put a
cold washcloth on his face, but you think her advice is strange. And,
finally, your husband told you to spank the boy.
None of these is an acceptable course of action. Instead, you hold
up one finger, look down at your noisy little devil, and calmly say,
“That’s 1.”
He doesn’t care. He’s insane with rage and keeps the tantrum
going full blast. You let five seconds go by, then you hold up two
fingers and say, “That’s 2.” That’s all you say. But you get the same
lousy reaction; the tantrum continues. So after five more seconds, you
hold up three fingers and say, “That’s 3. Take five.”
Now what does all this mean? It means that your son was just
given two chances—the first two counts—to shape up. But in this
instance he blew it. He didn’t stop the undesirable behavior. So there
is going to be a consequence. The consequence can be a “rest period”
or “time-out” (about one minute per year of the child’s life), or the
consequence can be what we call a “time-out alternative” (loss of a
privilege or toy for a period of time, bedtime fifteen minutes earlier,
forty cents off the allowance, no electronic entertainment for two
hours, and so on.)