The ICE Plan for talking back
Oct 27As previously stated, you have a challenge with you eight year old talking back. The first step is the parental staff meeting. A meeting of the parents or parent to think through this behavior.
First: Is this a behavior we need to deal with: Yes.
Second: What is a corrective consequence for this behavior?
In our staff meeting we decided that we would respond to talking back by having the child sit at the kitchen table and write a fifty word note of apology.
First step in the I.C.E. plan is the “I” for Instruction.
“Torrey, mom and I have noticed that you have a tendency to talk back to us when you don’t like the decisions we are making. Last night when we said that you needed to pick up those things on the floor and then it’s time to go get you shower, you responded by …” Help the child understand what talking back is.
From now on we’re going to help you not talk back. If you start talking back one of us is going to give you a warning by holding up a finger. If you stop, awesome! If you don’t there will be a consequence.
Second step is the “C” for consequence…announcing the consequence. “If you continue to talk back, even after the warning, you will end up sitting at the kitchen table writing a fifty word note of apology.”
Count on it. Your child is awesome. They will continue to talk back. My daughter spends a couple hours sitting at the kitchen table one night with paper and pencil in front of her. I sat at the table with a newspaper to make sure she didn’t leave the room.
Finally, out of boredom, she chose to write the note. The note can be done in five minutes or in two hours. We are placing that decision to accept responsibility for their behavior on their shoulders.
Eventually the minutes spent choosing to write the note got to be less and less… as did the talking back.
That’s the “E” in I.C.E. Letting them exercise their options and decision-making skills. “If I talk back I am choosing to write. It’s all about impulse control.
Oh, yes, there was the night my mouth got me to a point where I knew I had to sit and write a fifty word note of apology to her. Very humbling!
Help, My Child is Talking Back
Oct 23Of course young children talk back. It’s unfortunate when older children still talk back to their mom, but it’s to be initially expected from younger children to talk back. Children of all ages talk back when they don’t get their way and haven’t yet been taught that there is a consequence for talking back.
No, the parent’s justification can not be “kids will be kids” or “that’s just the way today’s children are.” The reality is that kids will become what they are trained to become.
It’s one of the training responsibilities of parents to help children break the habit of talking back.
This habit will stop when it is consistently coupled with an unpleasant consequence. If, for instance, every time a child talks back, the parent has the child sit at the kitchen table and write a fifty word note of apology to the parent. Sound unrealistic?
Let’s spend the next couple of days looking at the subject.
