When your student, child, or whoever you're interacting with is upset, you want to respond in a way that does not further escalate the person. Your response should be calm and focus on motivating a more appropriate behavior. The goal should be to teach and reinforce, not shut down and punish. Listed below are six strategies that have worked most effectively for myself and my clients for over a decade. Future blog posts will dive deeper into each strategy. Write a comment to let me know which one you're most interested in learning more about!
1. Ignore & Turn Away
2. Give Two Choices
3. MOTIVATE!
4. Prompt a Replacement Behavior
5. Nicely say 'No'
6. Behavior Momentum
Sara Athman, MS, BCBA
Online Behavior Consultant