Just because your technique isn’t working doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing

Q:

I’m a mother of an almost-three-year-old and a 15-month-old. My older child frequently hurts my baby. It seems that whenever she walks by, she either punches her, throws her down, or steps on her. I’m completely at a loss. I’ve tried everything — from being strict and punishing her to using positive reinforcement and even ignoring her behavior while giving attention to my baby.

Nothing seems to work.

I would love to know of a strategy that I can consistently apply and feel confident that I’m doing the right thing.

A:

Let’s start with the easiest thing first — the answer to your search for a strategy you can “consistently apply and feel confident that I’m doing the right thing.” When it comes to raising human beings, you must give up on that idea! Although you can certainly consistently apply parenting strategies, you can never feel confident that you’re doing the “right” thing — at least not in the sense that you’ve selected the correct strategy for a particular parenting issue.

It’s all a matter of prayer and Hashem’s intervention. Two moms can use the exact same reasonable intervention and get polar opposite results because their kids have different personalities and/or abilities and/or histories and so on. The closest you can come to certainty in parenting strategies is in being satisfied that the intervention you employed was a reasonable one to try. In fact, the three you mentioned trying already all sound reasonable as possible responses to your toddler’s aggression. From that point of view, you’ve already done “the right thing.” In other words, just because your technique isn’t working doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing!

Now let’s get to the more complicated issue: How are you going to get this child to stop hurting your baby? To answer this question, let’s review some general principles. Let’s remember, for starters, that three-year-olds are just barely at the age of chinuch (educability). Strategies that work with school-aged children aren’t suitable for two-year-olds. While negative consequences may be helpful to stop a nine-year-old’s aggressive behavior, they may have the exact opposite effect on a two- or three-year-old child.

However, every child is a unique being, such that there are some 18-month-olds who benefit from mild negative consequences. You have to try the technique to know whether or not your little one will respond. Just keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with her or your technique if she doesn’t.

Having said that, anyone using discipline has to be extremely careful to ensure that this is the last intervention employed, used only after all the positive strategies have failed to yield results. Moreover, discipline isn’t expected to be successful unless the parent has clearly established something close to an 80-20 ratio with the child — that is, 80 percent of interactions with that youngster feel good to the child (smiles, praise, physical affection, acknowledgment, validation, treats, etc., etc.) and the majority of the 20 percent of not-good-feeling interactions consist of instructions (“time to put away the toys...”) while only a tiny percentage of the not-good-feeling interactions consist of corrections, threats of punishment, actual punishment, and so on.

When parents frequently correct children (creating something closer to a 20-80 ratio) their behavior rapidly and severely deteriorates. Therefore, make sure you’re loading on the positivity with your three-year-old in every interaction, reserving your displeasure for the baby-bashing behavior. Even then, your “displeasure” must be brief and mild, simply a noticeable contrast to your normal loving, smiling countenance. Speak quietly with a minimum number of words. Minimize attention to the offending behavior. If possible, wordlessly and speedily implement whatever consequence you had warned and then don’t speak of it again!

Finally, stick with your strategy long enough to give it a chance to work. If you’re going to use discipline, use only that strategy for several weeks, intensifying the consequence if you notice that no change in behavior is occurring after four usages.

However, you’ve already tried negative consequences, which is usually the last resort. So let’s back up and look at your use of positive reinforcement. The ideal, as I said, is to use “good feeling” techniques first, which definitely includes positive reinforcement of a new, more appropriate specific behavior (as opposed to the 80-20 rule, which is about being more positive and warm in a very general way). What we want to reinforce here is gentle interactions with the baby. Show your almost three-year-old how to smile at the baby, stroke his head, wave a rattle, or make him laugh. Have her practice with you and lay on the praise, some positive labels (“What an excellent big sister you are!”) and dish out some rewards as well (“Since you’re being so gentle with the baby, I think you deserve an extra story right now!”).

Over the next many months, repeat consistently (minus the rewards) every time the almost three-year-old interacts appropriately with the baby.

If these “self-help” strategies don’t bring about improvement in a few weeks, consult a professional for further help. Your baby’s safety can’t wait for your almost-three-year-old to grow up a little.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 929)