Out of Instructional control behavior

"You mention in "Intensive Teaching/Rule of Three that if a child is "out of instructional control", that if the child chooses not to follow an instruction, he/she "… will earn (blank)". Then you give the instruction, "I need you to take three deep breaths." The instruction is repeated two more times ("three deep breaths").

First of all, is the instruction "take three deep breaths" given three times? Or was that instruction just an example? Is "three deep breaths" always the instruction when a child is out of instructional control?

Secondly, what sorts of consequences do you use here? What will the child earn for not following that instruction? I need an arsenal of consequences, it would seem!"

In answer to your first question; You can use any instructions you want to during the rule of three, but I have found that with a lot of my children a calming instruction is better for a few reasons. First, it helps them have a reason to become calm. Second, it reminds them that the way to stop choosing out of control behavior is to calm down and choose to control themselves. Third, this instruction doesn't take a lot of explaining or, time. If an instruction takes too much time to complete, then the the Rule of Three interaction will take a long time and end up punishing the members of the family who have chosen to control themselves. They should never feel punished by an interaction with a person who chose wrong.

You second question asks what sorts of consequences I use here. Well, you only need three. That is it. I would make them standard, so that the whole family has the Rule of Three memorized and knows what to expect. This decreases anxiety, and lessens the chances of you getting into a power struggle.

The three I use currently are:

• Loss of snack privilege
• Major maintenance
• 24 Hours of no privileges

In the past, I have used:

• Major maintenance
• SODAS (problem solving exercises)
• 24 Hours of NO privileges

I use loss of snack as my first one, because snack is a really big motivator for my children. Since they like it so much, they don't want to lose it, and will choose on the first instruction to control themselves. This helps them have a higher success rate, and increases self mastery. If your child was motivated my computer time, or allowance, etc. you could choose to loose one of those first instead. This is why it is so important to make a list of what motivates each of your children. Then you can customize your system to your family.

Blessings 🙂