“Don’t use an Elephant gun to shoot a mouse…”
I remember sitting in the office of my first supervisor as a young and inexperienced Child Care Worker, in Warehouse Point , CT at the State Receiving Home. This is a facility run by the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, the year was 1975…. Mr. Silas W Davis, a man I would come to view as both a mentor and a father figure was speaking to me on his personal philosophy of disciplining children for inappropriate behavior. The words he spoke to me seemed strange and it was a while before it registered with me…he said, “I want you to remember this, ‘Don’t use an elephant gun to shoot a mouse….”
Fast forward several months later, I was experiencing my first baptism under fire with a very angry and oppositional 15 year old boy who was telling me in very plain English (that would make any sailor or truck driver proud), what I could do with my rules. Enraged by this blatant lack of respect, both for myself and the rules of the cottage, I proceeded to operate on pure emotion and adrenaline and totally ignored what Mr. Davis had told me in his office. You see it is one thing to remain calm reviewing a programmatic rule and even possibly role playing a situation in training under controlled circumstances, but it is quite another experiencing it in real life. It didn’t just affect the young man in question and me; it was in front of 17 other children and several of my co-workers.
Being young and inexperienced, I did what every parent since the dawn of time has done when their child goes into a meltdown, and does something either at home, school, church, etc…to the embarrass both themselves as well as their family, I brought out my own personal Elephant Gun! Needless to say I turned a routine verbal intervention into an exasperating incident which damaged not only my relationship with this child but everyone who was witness to either seeing it or hearing it. I always want to remember my personal Elephant Gun story so that I can help every person I train to never have to experience what I did.
I would like to share with the readers of Fostering Families Today, one specific area of my own Verbal De-escalation Curriculum that I teach to Foster and Adoptive parents in local and national conferences. I offer a five step approach to setting limits that can be adapted to any age, population, or functioning group.
Step One:
Tell your child in language that I refer to as “affect neutral” what it is that you are asking (not telling) them to either start, or stop doing. An example of each would be:
A. Your child gets into a heated argument with one of their siblings and becomes increasingly aggressive with both body language as well as verbal threats.
In this situation you are setting limits to have them “stop” engaging in an inappropriate behavior. It’s not the argument that is our issue; it is the aggressive body language as well as the threats. If you start trying to intervene and stop your child from typical age appropriate behaviors, or sibling rivalries, you will never get anything accomplished. In addition to my “Elephant Gun” metaphor I always stress that in order to act in the best interest of the out of control individual we need to clearly be in control of our own feelings and emotions first! Have you had a bad day at work? Are there existing marital or financial problems in your relationship? These personal issues can exacerbate the situation and cause you to bring out your own personal Elephant Gun to try to settle a situation.
B. The second example of asking them to, in this case, “start” doing something is…it is 7pm, dinner is finished , the table is cleared, and chores complete, it is now home work time. Tommy has seated himself in front of the TV and is about to play his favorite video game while everyone else has gone to their rooms and cracked open their books. In this situation, an example of bringing out your own elephant gun would be to go over to the TV take the remote and “click.” We all know it is not going to end there. A line in the sand has been drawn and someone is going to lose. And, the unfortunate reality is it is going to be you!
Step Two:
Tell them why…
You must clearly and concisely inform the child why you are asking (not telling) him/her to do something. The reason “why” should always go back to the common theme of “because the rules of the house” say that from 7-9pm it is homework time and nothing else. Do not let the situation become personal, keep the focus on them, not you.
Step Three:
Review the consequences; this can be a deadly minefield for a parent to navigate through.
The classic elephant gun… “negative consequence” …is an empty threat. For instance, “if you don’t go to your room right now you are going to lose TV for one month!” Now you know full well there has never been a parent yet in the history of the world that could stick to their guns for an entire month of no TV. Isn’t the primary point of consequences (both positive and negative) to teach children a lesson? What lesson are you imparting to your child if you bring out the negative consequences first? They begin thinking back on all of the times that the adults in their lives have yelled, screamed and used negative reinforcements to try to change their behavior. Always try to remember, “in order to change a child’s behavior you have to first fundamentally change the way they view their world.” What are we doing if all we engage in are threatening, negative consequences using our own elephant guns?
So what else can we rely on instead of negative consequences? How about starting your intervention with a positive consequence for complying with your request (not demand) first? Sometimes the positive consequence will be a tangible reward, however other times the positive consequence may simply be not earning a negative consequence. Try it sometime; it may surprise you with its effect on your child. Now, once you’ve gone over the positive consequences for complying you must then let them know what the negative consequences will be for failure to cooperate.
Step Four:
Give them some time - You have to give them a brief cooling off period, no more than a few minutes.
Trying to coach an answer out of the child after all of this is too overwhelming. They need a few minutes to process everything, to make the best possible choice for them as well as lose the least amount of face with their siblings.
Step Five:
Be prepared to enforce what you said would happen, both positively as well as negatively.
The biggest two mistakes you can make at this stage is 1) to not follow through with the positive consequence you said would happen, and 2) being a parent that says…”This is it! No more chances! You better not do that again!” If this is your personal elephant gun, then I say give them you car keys, your visa/MasterCard with directions to the nearest shopping mall, because at this point they own you. You have lost your credibility with the child as well as the rest of their siblings.