Why Our Kids Are Out of Control

"If your child is hurting another or looks as if he were planning murder, pull him away in a matter-of-fact manner and get him interested in something else."

Given what research shows about the effects of adult attention, getting a child "interested in something else" whenever he is aggressive is a sure formula for producing a highly aggressive child.

If a child gets angry and throws or smashes things, Dr. Brazelton suggests the following:

"Sit down with her in your lap until she's available to you. Then, discuss why you think she needed to do it, why she can't do it and how badly you know she feels for this kind of destructive, out-of-control behavior."

If your child has a particularly intense tantrum, Dr. Turecki gives this advice:

"With these tantrums you should be physically present with your child, with your arms around him if he'll permit it or just be there with him as a comforting physical presence in the room. Be calm and say reassuring things: 'I know you're upset, but it will be okay.'"

If the child has a tantrum that is not so intense, Turecki recommends being "menacing and firm." In other words, having a mild tantrum doesn't pay off, but having a severe tantrum does. I can scarcely imagine a more effective way of teaching a child to have severe tantrums.

Many of the most popular child-rearing books are full of such nonsense. They repeatedly urge parents to hold, soothe, comfort and talk to a child who bites, hits, screams, throws or breaks things, ignores or refuses parental requests or otherwise behaves in obnoxious, infantile ways. Common sense and a truckload of research argue solidly against this practice. Yet these experts seem to be unaware of the well-established fact that children do what gets noticed, that adult attention usually makes behavior more likely to occur, not less.

Nevertheless, thousands of parents follow the bad advice of these and like-minded child-rearing gurus every day. And the more faithfully they follow the advice, the worse their children become. Some of these parents eventually find their way to my office, desperate for help. I advise them to redirect their attention from infantile behavior to grown-up behavior. They are often amazed by the change in their children.

Take Dennis, for example. Ten-year-old Dennis was a "born liar," according to his mother, who added, "he wouldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it." Dennis had several siblings, but he was the only chronic liar. Why Dennis? With several children in the family, there was a good deal of competition for adult attention. Dennis wanted more than his share, and he got it by lying: His mother spent a lot of time with him trying to separate fact from fiction and trying to understand why he lied. Mom didn't realize it, but all this attention just encouraged dishonesty.

The solution was to give Dennis attention when it was clear he was telling the truth and to ignore him when he might be lying. When Mom knew that Dennis had given her the right amount of change after a purchase, or when a discrete call to his teacher proved that he really had been kept after school, he got time with Mom and approval for telling the truth. Instead of "tell a lie, get attention," the rule became, "tell the truth, get attention." When the rule changed, so did Dennis.

Five-year-old Debbie offered a different sort of challenge, but the solution was essentially the same. She woke up every night screaming because of nightmares about "the big germ" and "the terrible lion." Every night her parents rushed to her side to comfort her and assure her there were no big germs or terrible lions in the house. During the day, Debbie talked about her nightmares with anyone who would listen. Her mother encouraged this behavior because she thought it would be therapeutic for Debbie to get her fears "out in the open." In fact, all this attention to her fears made them worse, not better. From Debbie's standpoint, the lesson was: "If Mom and Dad are so interested in what I say about the big germ and the terrible lion, these monsters must really exist."

The solution to Debbie's problem was to pay less attention to talk about nightmares and more attention to grown-up behavior. When Mom and Dad started saying things like, "I appreciated it when you helped me set the table today" and "I heard you taking the phone message from Mrs. Smith. You were very grown up," they provided Debbie with better ways of getting attention than screaming in the night and complaining about monsters.