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Children live in an adult world where they are constantly told what NOT to do. Parents and teachers fill their day with “don’t touch that,” “stop doing that”, and there is always the old standby that simply says “NO!”

Honestly, as a parent of three children myself I agree that many times it feels like it is much easier to identify and warn them about the risks of their behavior than it is to take the time to help them practice what they should do. As a counselor and owner of a behavioral coaching business, Independence Behavioral Coaching I recognize the power of positive parenting strategies in working with difficult behaviors in children.

It should not be surprising that with all of that negative direction, children quickly learn how to tune us out. And as children start tuning parents out, the parenting message easily becomes distorted. Parents telling their children to “don’t hit your brother,” start hearing “… hit your brother.”

Redirection and substitution (behavecoach.com/behavioral-problems/blog/) are two powerful positive parenting strategies that are often forgotten. Sure we use it with our infants and toddlers, but quickly forget that it also can be one of our options in our positive parenting bag of tricks when helping older children manage their anxiety and anger.

Redirection and substitution are positive parenting techniques that help children learn appropriate behavior and prevent disruptive behavior while maintaining their sense of exploration and discovery. Read more about positive parenting here. (behavecoach.com/parenting-tools/positive-discipline/)

Redirection is a technique used to break the path that a child is on that will lead to inappropriate behavior. Emotions can quickly escalate a child to the point where they are in crisis and out of control. Redirection can sometimes bump a child off of that escalating crisis path and on to a different emotional path that may be filled with discovery and wonder.

With infants and toddlers our redirection is more simple and stimulation based. When my boy was two, for some reason he was amazed by birds. Sometimes he would fall down or not get the scissors that he wanted. As he started crying I could pick him up, take him outside and as soon as I pointed out a bird, I could begin to help him bump out of that emotional state and onto a state of wonder about that bird. Parents quickly figure out this technique but as their children get older, this simplistic approach begins to lose its power.

Young children need a more sophisticated version of redirection. Young children are more verbal and are beginning to problem solve and think abstractly. For them, give positive redirection by using neutral words such as “You need to…” or please do this behavior and then make a positive statement of the correct behavior.

For example, you could say “Please put the scissors on the kitchen counter. Scissors are for cutting paper.” 7 times out of 10 if I say this to my now three year old boy, he will either put those scissors on the counter like I asked or ask me to help his cut some paper. If just say “no” and try to take the scissors from him, 10 times out of 10 he will run from me and play tug-of-war with me as I try to pry them from his little hands. And then, once get I get the scissors back, he escalates into a tantrum.

Redirection can also be physical such as moving a child into another room to avoid safety hazards or potential confrontation. My daughters are nine and ten years old. I encourage them to work out their own battles but sometimes they are just on edge waiting to blow. Maybe it’s because of lack of sleep, their hungry or just one of those days. Directing them into other rooms, sometimes can be in everyone’s best interest.

Substitution offers the child a choice of something else to replace behaviors that can lead to disruption.

For example, when two children want the same toy, you might offer a substitute toy for one of the children to play with, which could avoid a fight over the first toy.

Another substitution option could be to encourage the child to do something that is incompatible with the disruptive behavior. It is like the old saying, “you can’t smile and frown at the same time.” Some examples could include, singing instead of biting or holding an imaginary bubble in your mouth instead of talking.

Redirection and substitution are not the solution to all problems. They are just two options that are available and should not be forgotten in your positive parenting bag of tricks.

For more information see our website, behavecoach.com.

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