Once flavour of the month in all manner of parenting handbooks, the naughty step is falling out of favour.
The traditional time-out is now seen as something that, at best, just doesn’t work, or, at worst, excludes and rejects the child, leading to a vicious cycle of bad behaviour. Psychologist Allison Keating is no fan of the naughty step, and she told Fiona McGarry why.
“It’s so important for children to feel connected to their parents,” says psychologist Allison Keating. “It’s all about that sense of being loved. That’s where the child’s self-esteem comes from. So, something like the ‘naughty step’ can actually be experienced by the child as a rejection. And, in most cases, the child isn’t really reflecting on their behaviour. They’re just sitting on their own and they’re angry.”
Allison, a mum-of-three, who is currently on maternity leave from her role as Director of the Bwell Clinic in Malahide, believes that while the ‘naughty step’ is a popular method of disciplining children, it’s not necessarily supported by strong proof that it actually works: “What kind of gets my goat a little is that certain things become very popular with parents. I think there’s far too much ‘advice’ out there and parents become a bit bamboozled. You really have to look at what advice is based on evidence.”
As an alternative to the conventional ‘naughty step’, Allison is a firm believer in the Kazdin Method, pioneered by psychologist
Alan Kazdin who has been running the Yale Parenting Centre for the last 30 years. Allison explains: “Kazdin recommends that, instead of messages like ‘Stop that’ or ‘don’t do that’, children are given clear positive instructions on what kind of behaviour the parent would like.
“Kazdin advocates the ABC Model,” Allison says. “That stands for Antecedent, Behaviour and Consequences.”
- “A is for Antecedent. That means looking at the kind of good behaviour you want in a particular situation. Rather than focusing on ending negative behaviour, aim to encourage good behaviour.
“When I work with adult clients, they’ll say, ‘I don’t want to be stressed’, or ‘I don’t want to be angry’. We’re all primed to say what we don’t want and it can be difficult to verbalise the ‘positive opposite’. But, that’s the only way your brain takes instructions, and it’s the same for children.”
- “B is for Behaviour. Focus on what you would like them to do, as opposed to what you don’t want them to do. This is a very effective strategy. Tell your child you would like them to treat their siblings kindly, rather than saying, ‘Stop hitting your sister!’
“At one stage, my sister’s daughter was running all the time and bumping into things because she was looking the other way. I advised my sister to tell her to slow down. Because she’s my sister, she just laughed. But she tried it and, to this day, she still talks about it. She couldn’t believe that actually telling her daughter what to do had such a positive effect. In psychological terms, it’s a neurological instruction. If you say, ‘Stop running!’, all the brain hears is the negative. It’s not an instruction, so the brain doesn’t know what to do. With the ‘positive opposite’, you’re telling the child what you actually want.”
- “C is for consequences. This means praising good behaviour. If the A, the antecedent or problem involves one child hitting their sibling; the B is the desired behaviour, i.e. the child being kind to their sibling; then the C or consequence of the good behaviour should be recognition and encouragement of that behaviour.”
Allison also recommends more mindfulness and empathy for parents and practising a little TLC on themselves and their little ones:
- “Be mindful. As parents, we tend to get very frustrated when a child is acting out. If you reflect on the particular developmental stage your child is at, it’s very helpful in terms of understanding behaviour. You might be thinking, ‘They’re just being bad or doing that to annoy me’, but it’s likely that they’re just at a stage where they’re testing boundaries or they’re frustrated because they don’t have the particular skills yet to do something that they want to do. There are a lot of great resources out there to help us be more mindful in our parenting. I particularly like Dr Kaylene Henderson who is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist.”
- “Practise self-care. Parents also need to look after themselves. The issue of self-care is massively important. It’s essential to have time for exercise and for your own activities. Getting the stress out means you’ll be a better parent.
“It comes back to the ethos of having compassion for yourself as a parent, recognising that parenting is incredibly difficult. It’s massively rewarding, but it’s also a daily challenge.”
- “Reflect on your parenting models. Our own beliefs about ‘the right way to parent’ can be very stringent and we often accept them unconditionally. People can feel very strongly that there is only one way to be a parent. That’s often because they’ve taken a belief on board on an unconscious level and may not be really aware of what is driving. In terms of child discipline, it’s a great idea to reflect and ask yourself how you were disciplined. Then think about the way you would like your children to be disciplined.”
- “Be a role model. There’s no point telling a child to be calm if we’re shouting at them. You have to demonstrate the behaviour yourself and that can be very hard. My five-year-old does mindfulness at school. If she’s losing the cool, I can tell her to do her mindful breathing and she will. But, sometimes she turns around to me and says, ‘Mummy, do you mindful breathing’. I have to say, ‘Fair enough!’”
- “Be empathetic. Get down to the child’s level. How you perceive the world as a parent and grown adult is completely different to how the child sees it.
Sometimes, rather than screaming at everyone in the morning to ‘Get out into the car’, tell the children that you realise they’d rather play, but that you need to leave. You’re not being the authoritarian boss, but you’re not being a pushover either. You’re giving really clear instructions that the child’s brain can actually follow. There will, of course, be times when you have to show yourself a bit of compassion and accept that you’re going to be late and that that’s life.”
Psychologist Allison Keating, BA, Msc., is Director of the Bwell Clinic in Malahide in Dublin. In addition to her busy practice, she is a regular Psychological Media contributor. Her career goal has always been helping to make a difference to people’s lives. Allison regularly shares advice on parenting on the clinic’s Facebook page.
