Say Yes!

<font face="Comic Sans MS" font color="660033">After 25 years of working with young Emotional.lifetips.com/cat/57243/bag-of-tricks-behavior-management-strategies/index.html">children, this is still one of my most effective tools. Every time you give a child a direction, have the child respond with "Yes, Mom" or "Yes, Dad". You teach them to do this by giving your direction and without changing the inflection of your voice, add on the "Yes,___" part. For example, "Adam, pick up your toys, say yes, Mom." What this does is put the child into a positive, cooperating frame of mind, moving the child from the oppositional part of the brain (limbic system) to the thinking part of the brain (frontal cortex). To find out more about changing behavior using a brain based approach, you may be interested in taking an online course @ The Amazing Brain & Behavior.