The distraction method generally works well as a behavior management tool, especially for young children. Diverting a young child’s interest and attention can help avoid situations that could lead to behavior we don’t want.
Distraction is an effective strategy when parents anticipate child behavior that can be problematic, such as when children are irritated, when they sit for a long time without moving, or when they share or perform an activity that can get complicated.
- The distraction method is easy to apply.
- It may be enough.
- For example.
- To show something interesting or special.
- Start a simple game.
- Think of simple things to play (like folding paper) or anything else a child can distract or entertain.
- It’s about preventing or cutting possible behaviors that we’re not interested in.
As we said earlier, the application of the distraction method is very simple, especially considering that much of the children’s behavior is guided by what happens outside of them, your prefrontal lobe is not yet fully developed, and for this reason, it still does not effectively control their approach to care, which we can take advantage of.
For behavioral problems with older children, we may use other strategies, such as:
The distraction method is a corrective method related to redirection, which involves focusing children’s attention on other less dangerous activities or stimuli.
Indirectly, distraction consists in re-evaluating the activities that interest us as a source of good behavior, with them we can reward children and boost their self-esteem, that is, we place them intelligently in contexts where reinforcement is easy, so that these contexts, in their eyes, attract attention.
With the distraction method, we seek not only to completely suppress the child’s mind and energy from inappropriate activity, but also to propose options to redirect that energy.
There’s something important to remember about using the distraction method: if you offer or plant a favorite or rewarding activity after a time when the child has had a tantrum or been fighting with someone, what he does (even if we don’t intend to) is reward that behavior, it’s better to use the distraction method to anticipate behavior , because we will have more alternatives.
Sometimes you may not want to have a tantrum or challenge for your child to discover that certain activities are still unacceptable. In such cases, distraction is not the best method of discipline.
In this sense, the ideal is to intelligently combine different educational and disciplinary strategies, so that in each context we can achieve, through our intervention, what we seek; in this sense, the more discipline tools we know, the better. , the more you rely on a single discipline method, the less effective it becomes.
Therefore, when using the distraction method, pay close attention to the child’s reaction and don’t forget to be as consistent as possible in your app, as well as being flexible and applying another one if you find that this method doesn’t work.
A 2010 study by Gershoff and his colleagues explains that much of his research on discipline has focused on the use of corporal punishment by parents. The most likely reason for this research context is that corporal punishment is a highly controversial way of imposing discipline.
However, corporal punishment is one of many educational techniques parents use to try to control their children’s negative behavior and promote positive behavior. Although there is a great variation in its use, some parents use it almost every day, while others never use it.
However, in a longitudinal study published in 2007 on the subject, involving 10 different educational techniques, corporal punishment was one of the three techniques least used by parents of preschoolers; the most common were controlling children’s behavior, talking to children, distracting and modeling.