Last week, we introduced planned ignoring to guide your child’s behavior. The idea of planned ignoring is that you deliberately withhold your attention when unwanted behaviors occur. Attention is a powerful reinforcer that you might not realize. Sometimes, even reprimands or negative attention could serve as a reinforcer for children. The questions are how to make planned ignoring more effective and if it is suitable for you and your child.

One of the most difficult aspects is ignoring. As sometimes, it is extremely difficult to not give in from time to time. Here are some tips when using planned ignoring:

• Plan ways to distract yourself: You should always be proactive and find things or ways to distract yourself from attending to the behavior. You could put on some music, breathe deeply, or think of something irrelevant such as planning your shopping list.
• Start withholding your attention when the behavior starts and provide attention right away when the behavior stops.
• Always give your child positive attention and praise for positive behavior or the alternative behavior. In other words, the behavior you want to see instead.

As not every strategy is suitable for every situation. Here are questions that help you to answer whether planned ignoring is right for you and your child:

Can I ignore the behavior if it gets worse?

We talked about extinction burst in which you would see an expected increase in unwanted behavior. For example, if the unwanted behavior is tapping the table and once you start withholding your attention, they start slamming the table. If you feel that you cannot deal with and simply ignore the behavior, it is better to stick to reinforcement-based strategies.

Should you ignore the behavior?

Some behavior cannot be ignored for obvious reasons. You cannot ignore behaviors that might harm themselves, others.

Is the behavior also reinforced by other’s attention?

The unwanted behaviors could also be maintained by other’s attention. For example, another caregiver, siblings, friends. Therefore, it is difficult to see the desired results when only you are withholding attention for the behavior.

Planned ignoring is not suitable for everyone and every situation. Therefore, you should ask your board-certified behavior analysts (BCBAs) for suggestions.

We will switch gears next week and discuss antecedent strategies that could address unwanted behaviors before they happen.