not born to be natural room cleaners. If the child isn’t cleaning his
room, train him to clean it. Otherwise, be quiet, clean it yourself, or
close the door and don’t look. Training does not mean nagging,
arguing, yelling, or hitting.
Wonderful, Powerful Routines!
Many people think the word “routine” means bad and boring. You
will soon learn that when it comes to Start behavior, routines are
wonderful and powerful. Activities like homework and going to bed
are complex and take time. Kids have to learn to regularly follow a
fixed sequence of actions. Same time, same place, same way. Once a
routine is mastered, kids tend to do it automatically.
Routines for positive behavior drastically reduce your discipline
problems, and they can also make testing and manipulation virtually
nonexistent. We’ll discuss more about how to establish routines at the
end of this chapter.
The Seven Start Behavior Tactics
There are seven Start behavior tactics that you can consider using to
establish and maintain your routines. Sometimes you may use just
one tactic, but other times you may use two or three for the same
problem. While counting obnoxious behavior is fairly
straightforward, you can be more creative and flexible in managing
positive behavior. In fact, many parents and teachers have come up
with useful and imaginative ideas that are not on our list.
Here are our seven strategies for encouraging good behavior:
- Positive reinforcement