Now that you know several different prevention strategies, which one will you use first? We have provided you with some tips for success to help you through the process:
Be a detective. Use this ABC Tracking Sheet to help you figure out challenging behaviors that you would like to target and the triggers for those behaviors (the “antecedent”). You can make your own by noting the A (Antecedent), B (Behavior) and C (Consequence).
Choose specific challenging behaviors that you would like to prevent from happening in the future. These might be behaviors like yelling during mission plans, refusing to do mission plans, arguing about doing LUNA, or something not related to mission plans at all. When you see the behavior happening, write it down. Include what it looks like and how long it lasts. Also identify what happened right before the behavior that appears to trigger it (the “antecedent”). Lastly, identify how you or another adult responded to the behavior (e.g., the consequence). Check out Neil’s chart again as an example.
A (Antecedent)
Neil’s mom tells him it is time to practice staying by himself in his room to sleep
B (Behavior)
Neil throws himself on the floor, cries, and screams at his mom
C (Consequence)
Neil's mom lets Neil sleep in her room
Prevention strategies should be used before challenging behavior occurs. Many times, caregivers use a prevention strategy after the challenging behavior has happened. This could make the challenging behavior more likely to occur again in the future. For instance, when you tell your child it’s time to turn off their tablet, your child may ask for five more minutes. You may then say, “Okay, you can have 5 more minutes.” Did you prevent a tantrum? Yes, but your child will probably ask for 5 more minutes again in the future. Before telling your child it’s time to turn off the tablet, you may want to say, “In 5 minutes, it will be time to turn off the tablet.” You should set a timer for 5 minutes and walk away. When the timer goes off, you should return and say, “The timer went off. It’s time to turn off the tablet and work on LUNA together this week.”
Set reasonable expectations. Though you might want to try several of the prevention strategies right away, we want to set you up for success. Pick only 1 or 2 prevention strategies to try over the next week. As you experience success, you can slowly add in more strategies and target behaviors.
Expect pushback and hold your boundaries. Whenever caregivers use a new strategy, it is normal to experience pushback from your child. When you use the timer or the “first-then” board for the first time, it’s common for children to still engage in challenging behavior. This is normal. It does not mean the strategy does not work. It simply means that your child is telling you that they have noticed you are doing something different, and they do not like it. When this occurs, it will be important to use the strategy anyways and ride out the challenging behavior. This means that you turn off the tablet when the timer has gone off, even if your child throws a tantrum.
Now, review the prevention strategies on the previous page and write down how you are already using the strategy or how you can start using the strategy to prevent a challenging behavior from occurring in this table:
