The power of positive thinking

The Parent Plus nine-step guide is designed to help your children - and you - accentuate the positive, writes Louise Holden.

Negative commands don't give children suggestions for good behaviour, says consultant psychiatrist John Sharry. "Don't run down the corridor", "don't hit your sister", "don't climb the stairs" - giving children a barrage of negative commands and no positive suggestions can feed bad behaviour rather than ameliorate it.

Sharry runs 'Parents Plus: The Early Years' at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, with colleagues Gráinne Hampson and Mary Fanning. The programme, aimed at parents of children aged one to six, is being rolled out to the rest of the country and professionals working with families in any capacity are invited to take part in training.

'Parents Plus' is anchored by theories of positive attention, positive commands and finding new ways to respond to children, in turn helping them to behave differently. Over a number of years Sharry and his colleagues have been filming parents putting the programme into action. Now they have more than three hours of footage of real-life situations in which parents have applied the techniques and broken cycles of bad behaviour.

The steps, nine in all, are based on common sense. Brought together as a system they are simple and, on the face of it, accessible to any family. Sharry's advice comes with a caveat: a certain amount of misbehaviour is a normal in the forming of a child's identity. With that in mind the nine steps run roughly as follows:

1. Care for yourself. Look after your own needs and don't be a martyr - the best way to help children to be confident people with high self- esteem is for parents to model this.

2. Give positive attention. Children will seek out attention of any kind. Behaviour that does not get attention disappears. Children playing quietly are ignored, while children pulling each other's hair get rapid response. Try and catch your child being good. This can feel uncomfortable at first because unsought praise is not part of our culture.

3. Play and special time is critical, forming the basis for solving discipline problems. Try to give children aged one to six 15 minutes of undivided attention every day. Older children can benefit from two one-hour sessions each week, focusing on a hobby or activity. Put children in control for this period - they spend the rest of their lives being told what to do.

4. Lay on plenty of praise, and make it specific and sincere - a muttered "good boy" won't help. Identify what a child has done to merit praise.

5. Reward systems may be used to deal with specific behaviours. Start small, include the child in devising the system, and be specific about how it will work. Don't use reward systems excessively and back them up with plenty of praise.

6. Review the rules of the house. Unnecessary rules deny children opportunities to decide for themselves. Check how many commands you issue and how - are you negative, aggressive, passive? Try assertive. Sharry uses the following example - don't think of a blue kangaroo. It's impossible to complete this command without breaking the command. We should think about this when issuing endless negative commands to children. Offer suggestions for positive behaviour instead - for example, "please look after your little brother" instead of "don't hit your little brother".

7. Ignore misbehaviour. Don' let it get to you and move on quickly afterwards. This, Sharry concedes, is the most difficult part of the programme. It only works in conjunction with positive attention for good behaviour. Identify in advance which kinds of behaviour will be ignored - some, such as hitting other children, cannot be allowed to pass. Others, such as whingeing, tantrums, cheek, minor squabbles and swearing, can.

8. Use "time out" and other sanctions for behaviour that cannot be ignored. Explain in advance to the child what behaviour will lead to "time out" and devise alternative sanctions (no TV, early bedtime) so that you can offer a child a choice between time out and something else. If the child chooses "time out", it's more effective in defusing a situation, Sharry says.

9. Talk problems through, but not at the time of conflict. Listening, speaking up, generating solutions, planning future actions and reaching agreements give children a genuine opportunity to learn from their bad behaviour and move on to good behaviour.

This is a crude summary of the Parents Plus methodology. Sharry and his colleagues are hopeful that many people working with children and parents will sign up for the training so that they can bring the whole programme and accompanying video to as many parents as possible.

"The spirit of this programme is to encourage and empower parents," says Sharry. "If they feel confident enough to deal with their children's behaviour issues, the children sense that confidence and respond very positively. We are trying to tap into the resources people have to solve their own problems."

Parents Plus is a registered charity providing support to parents and professionals. For more information about training, call 086-1721902 or visit www.parentsplus.ie