It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like, Overstimulation: Holiday ABA with Mike and Dan, Part I

ABA on Tap presents 'Holiday ABA with Mike and Dan,' (Part 1 of 2)

Get ready to navigate family gatherings with ease! In this episode, Mike and Dan are unwrapping the essential conversations so the surprises are all about cheer.

Priming is the name of the game--talking with kids and family members before big events, covering topics from managing sensory overload and food expectations (balance, not control!) to setting boundaries and dealing with tricky relatives. The idea is  ensuring your kids and family members feel prepared, supported, and less stressed for a smoother, happier family time for everyone! 

What You'll Learn:

• Setting the Scene: How to prepare kids for crowds, noise, and new environments.
• Food Talk: Shifting from restriction to body trust around holiday treats.
• Boundary Basics: Teaching kids to say "no" and manage unwanted attention.
• Handling Awkward Questions: Scripts for dealing with intrusive questions from family.
• Managing Expectations: Discussing gifts, attention, and potential conflicts.
• Escape Plans: Creating a signal for when they need a break.

Find the full article used in this episode at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conversations-with-kids-before-holiday-gatherings_l_691b9820e4b0b8c5ce7298c7

Happy Holidays! And Always Analyze Responsibly.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to ABA On Tap, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tap. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk, and the recommended pairings to bring to the table. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

All right, all right. And welcome back to yet another installment of ABA on tap. I am your ever-grateful co-host, Mike Rubio. And to my right hand, the man with the plan, Question Master Dan. How are you doing, sir? Good to see you. I'm good, Mike. Where's our guests today, Matt? Oh man, they're off for the holidays. All of our guests uh decide to take an early holiday. Uh, it is you and I flying uh just as a duo today. No guests. I think we've got a couple fun topics that we'll deal with. We'll see how it all goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Taking it back old school. Just you and I, man. I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Yeah, no, me too. It feels good. Uh we will miss having uh, you know, another uh person in the conversation, but I'm sure we'll we'll make up for it with all the uh things we like to talk about. Congratulations to us, man. I I do believe we well over 40 episodes, maybe even close to 50 episodes this one season. So we can't congratulate ourselves without sending a shout out to our behind the scenes partner in crime, Suzanne Judge. Shout out to Suzanne, who I mean, essentially on her own propelled us this season to this many episodes and the extensive guest list. You know, we have to give her credit for that. So shout out, Suzanne. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

And we'll be coming at you early in 2026 with a year in review where we're gonna talk about the episodes, our big transition into bringing in a lot of guests, our exciting plans for 2026. So stay tuned for a really you know exciting continue continuum of what we did in 2025. We really branched out, and 2026 is gonna be that much better. But yeah, we were just gonna play some greatest hits and and wind it down through the new year and uh keep the every week trajectory. But we decided to get together and do a couple special holiday episodes. It feels good to be back, and we know holidays are on people's minds, so we thought let's connect and chat a little bit about how to have the most successful holiday possible.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

So a lot of a lot of excitement over the holidays, a lot of family gatherings, a lot of crowds, a lot of commotion, a lot of sounds and sights, lights and flashing and changes in temperature and different clothing you're wearing for pictures, and all of those things, I imagine, when you're the parent of a neurodivergent child, easily translate into some level of setting event, antecedent, what do you want to call it? It and I'm I I speak to the neurodivergent uh children because we talk about a lot about uh autism treatment here on the tap. But I think that this is just a a nice behavioral discussion across the board. This I think affects adults as much as children. And uh came across a cool little article that that sort of prompted this idea for us in the Huffington Post. The Huffing Huffington? Yeah, and so what's it called? Six things to talk with your kids about before a big family gathering, according to family therapists.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Now I'm gonna take issue immediately with according to family therapists, because we're talking about behavior here, and not one behavior analyst interviewed for this particular article.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Although the more we connect with guests and people inside and outside of the tap with work, I feel like sometimes we connect better with family therapists than behavior interventionists these days.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

And you're you're you're being a lot nicer than than I am right now. So good for you keeping the holiday spirit here. Uh, and I you know I say it in jest. It was interesting to me that well, it's in the title, so they went after the family therapists. Uh, but yeah, the idea that as behavior analysts, we we haven't quite cracked that that what am I saying, that that level, that ceiling, if you will. Not necessarily the more general population of professionals that they go to for these interviews, unless we're talking about autism treatment, and then even then we hit some controversy. But we'll get more into that in 2026, I'm sure, in some way, shape, or form. I did enjoy this article, and I'm gonna give the general notion of priming. I think that it did a really good job of explaining to parents in general how to prime themselves and how to help prime their children in terms of what to expect. And that's to say that that only goes so far. It's not a magic wand. It doesn't mean that because you primed your child and prepared them for these things that are gonna happen, that they are in fact not gonna emit some level of challenging behavior, challenging to the rest of us. I like to joke here that when our kids tantrum, they're just fine with what they're doing. It's the rest of us that have an issue. So let's jump right in, Dan. I know. I mean, what you you're uh you're gonna be doing a lot of sights and sounds uh for your holiday. So maybe this will help you prepare for those buffet lines or those big crowds that I know you'll be facing.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, go ahead. Go ahead, brother.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Well, so the first thing, very generally, I talked about priming, that the article goes into, and we're gonna read the sort of the the what is what are these section headings? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah, section headings, well in the article tips, I guess it was. Yeah, the six tips.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

So number one on this article is tell them what to expect. Okay, let's break that down as behavior analysts. We can have a field day with this very general subheading. What to expect? What does that mean? Dan, kick us off.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

So I've always been a big proponent of this idea of expectation because as I've said many times before, disappointment doesn't necessarily come from the outcome, it comes from a violation of one's expectation. So I think again, a lot of when we talk about how was the holiday and was it good or bad, it's not necessarily what happened, but what the parent or whoever it was thought was gonna happen, juxtaposed to what actually happened. So when we're talking about expectations, I think before we even talk about telling the child what to expect, which is very important, and that's the priming piece, maybe we should talk about parents and what to expect and to cut yourself some grace that way you don't leave frustrated with the whole experience because that's the that's exactly what we don't want to have happen at the holidays. Think of how often it's almost become like a joke now, like a some sort of cruel narrative that it's the holidays and you're gonna have to hang out with family and that's gonna be terrible. And the expectation is now that it's gonna be terrible. So if we can either expect that, then maybe it's not gonna be terrible, or we can change our level of expectation, maybe we will leave feeling more fulfilled and less frustrated at the whole situation.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

I I I like what you're talking about, and the idea is you don't want to manifest some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy either. But what you're saying is if you find yourself in the midst of a tantrum or a challenging behavior at that family gathering, if you've prepared yourself for it, you can kind of embrace it. This is not unexpected. It's not that we're gonna will it to happen just because we expected it, but the idea is, okay, we were ready for this. Now, we talk about the kids, or they talk about preparing the children. What about preparing other family members? How did let's talk about that a little bit? How might that play out? I know that can be very challenging for families. Family dynamics are are are interesting to say the least. I know that when I provide home services, the conversation often comes up or the the proposition. Is there any way that you could talk with uh grandma or grandpa, or with my sister, or with my brother who they just they don't understand what's going on? And that's a very general phrase, and it's to say that back to your point, Dan, there's a certain level of expectations children are supposed to behave this way. And then there's a great deal of variability in in children's behavior to be in adult behavior to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Well, what are your thoughts on that? Because you're a man of very wise words. What uh thank you, sir. What are your thoughts of because you're not gonna get into necessarily what autism is and the complete backstory of this child at a Christmas dinner in a preparation? How would you advise that a family inform either inform other family, prepare other family? What would be your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Man, that's a tough question. I think a phone call, a direct phone call, is probably the best thing. I think preparing yourself for some resistance, preparing yourself for a little bit of gossip in the background between family members. And I say that with all due respect because it happens to the best of us.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

It's But if you expect it, you won't be frustrated by it as much?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

And you can maybe think about it. Hey, my family members are talking about it. Maybe it feels disparaging to me, but can we reinforce the behavior of they're talking about my child and what behavior needs, challenges I've already presented to them to be prepared for? And and again, part of the problem inherently with that is you're kind of willing that challenge into existence. But I'm gonna stick with your point, which is if you're ready for it, then you're gonna it won't be you know something unexpected. We we thought this might happen, and we're ready for it, and that's why mom and dad, sister, brother, I gave you that phone call to talk about what to do in those moments. So the other thing I would say is keep it really simple to them. Yeah, yeah. There's a subheading that we'll go over here about greetings in just a little bit. And you and I have alluded to some of these things even uh for in-clinic meetings and some of the behavior that as adults we put forth that puts our kids in an awkward situation that continues to perpetuate that expectation of this very cordial, etiquette-driven greeting exchange. And we know that doesn't happen with kids in general, and then if we're talking about neurodivergent kids, that might be uh a little bit even more varied, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Sure. No, I've really liked that idea of the phone call, and that hopefully takes a little bit of onus off of the parents as well, of having to solve every problem in the moment there at you know, taking in so the parents probably taking in everybody in the party's like well-being in that situation and making sure that their child is not disturbing everyone else's well-being. Whereas if you can give some, you know, advanced notice to the people that you're gonna be attending, and they can then disperse the information appropriately, you're not necessarily responsible for that. And maybe like a little bit of a plan of action, and it'll talk about this about break time later in the article, so I won't get too much into it here. But maybe also some specific tangible things that you think that the party host could could do or just be aware of, like, hey, you know, Johnny sometimes he gets a little overstimulated with a lot of people here, and he might start flapping his hands or something like that. Don't worry about that. That's that's just him. But if it gets a little overwhelming for Johnny, maybe we will walk into a different room or something like that to give people a heads up of what's gonna happen in this situation. Diets are gonna be a big one too. I know there's a lot of traditional diets, and maybe helping people be aware of that ahead of time could be very useful. Now, one challenge you might run into, especially, you know, I know you've always talked about your kryptonite. Oh, grandparents.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Well, my kryptonite culturally specifically Mexican grandmothers. I'm gonna put it out there and I can say that because I'm of Mexican descent. But uh yeah, you run into the what do you know? I've raised that many more children. This is plain and simple bad behavior. Exactly. And we're now relating it to a diagnostic trait which allows us professionally and personally or otherwise, Dan, to put forth a certain set of practices, behavior analysis. That can be, you know, in terms of now in the face of traditional discipline, that child just needs a good spanking, good talking to a good scolding. You know, so now that you bring that up, maybe one angle is how can you make that fit in to some extent? The idea that you might see a grandparent, to pick on grandparents specifically here, start to give Johnny a little bit of old-fashioned traditional discipline, you know. You have a choice there as a parent. Do you go in and correct grandpa or do you go in and help Johnny? And I'm gonna say you go in and you help Johnny. Okay, so you you you go approach it, you approach the situation, you let grandpa finish a couple sentences. Yeah, Johnny, grandpa's giving you good advice, and then you take Johnny to the next room. And that that would be my best advice in terms of not confronting or making that conflict apparent in front of the child and family, which raises the tension. I would say socially, you you allow for a little bit, you reinforce differentially those pieces that grandpa might be saying that might actually have some merit and value to the situation, and then you take Johnny out of there, and then you go talk to Johnny a little bit, and then maybe later you bring grandpa a bourbon. That'd be my move. Hey, let's talk a little bit. Yeah, I know thank you for for talking to him. And you were how can I differentially reinforce everything that grandpa did that that would have worked, that did fit the bill? How do you intervene just in time to make sure it doesn't go too far? That that's a tall order. That's a tall order. Again, so I'm recommending the bourbon. Um a tall bourbon? Very tall bourbon. Okay. I neat if you can, you know. The idea is how do you maintain the peace? How do you internalize that, okay, this could go awry, but how do you how do I maintain the stability of the situation?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

So I was thinking at it from a slightly different angle, and I kind of want your your thoughts on the angle that I was thinking at it from. You were talking about it behaviorally, which makes total sense, and I think that reinforcing, because you really don't want to have conflict, because at the end of the day, there may already be conflict, and hopefully there isn't, but we're saying in this hypothetical situation, there's conflict between child and grandparent. If we come in and we add a third variable to the conflict, you know, it's not like math where two negatives make a positive, we're just adding additional energy to the situation. So it's how can we resolve this conflict? Because adding more conflict isn't going to help resolve said conflict. But the angle I was thinking at it from was more from a dietary thing. So, what about a parent who maybe says, you know, my child, you know, really eats this limited diet or something like that, and then grandparents, well, this is our Thanksgiving tradition, excuse me, holiday tradition of whatever holiday we're celebrating. Maybe we have a turkey or we have this, and that's not what I cook for the holiday transition. He'll eat it because you know, you know, grandma's Thanksgiving, or I'm sorry, Christmas ham is the best ham, and you're thinking as a parent, I don't think Johnny will eat ham. How do you suggest broaching that kind of dietary potential conflict?

SPEAKER_02 15:45

You said Christmas ham. Are we talking about Johnny or me? My mother-in-law's Christmas ham. Were you listening in on my conversation earlier with my wife? You said turkey earlier. Oh, it was I I can fit in steak in there. It doesn't matter. It's it's about conflict. So I I think this comes up a little bit later, and and we'll talk about it then too. But I think that you excuse me, man, pardon me. I think you have to let some of that go. And and you you try to monitor it the best possible without it overwhelming your better time. But I think that that if grandma number one, if your child has dietary restrictions or challenges, outside of allergies or anything that's gonna be super agitating, and they don't need a diverse menu, but suddenly grandma's getting the taste of ham. I I'm gonna take that as a positive. Oh, yeah. Something you can reinforce, something now that you can jot away. I always caution people don't be too excited about it. That can scare kids off too. The idea is you acknowledge it, you talk about, oh, I like that too. You know, was it Dina Kelly that made the uh comment when we had her on about how everybody's like, oh, that tastes good, that tastes good, doesn't it? That's a lot of pressure.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

The idea that you're just describing it, hey, I eat that too, and I, you know, I like the way it feels on my teeth. I don't know. You can you're sharing the experience, dare we say, tacting. You're sharing, describing the experience with the child in a way that is hopefully reinforcing if in fact they liked the ham or whatever it is. And so that would be my best advice. Try not to get too overwhelmed. Outside of things that are now known, specifically medically verified allergies. I think a lot of our parents out there are dealing with a lot of what ifs, you know, gluten, casein, toxic heavy metals. I I'm not uh dis um I'm not you know diminishing any of that. I don't know enough medically to speak to that. I am not a parent of a child on the spectrum.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

So I'm not RFK there for a second.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

So I'm not gonna dim I'm not gonna I'm not gonna despair is that as much as behaviorally, if you're now on guard about those things and your reaction is very high topography with regard to excuse me, your child not eating something that you didn't think they should eat or that they would eat or whatever it is, then to your point you're adding energy to the situation, and you may be in in fact the end the very antecedent to the challenging behavior you're trying to preempt.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Yeah, yeah, and then the whole everything becomes a thing around it, like you said, right? With the with the parents, and maybe they go, Oh, isn't this good? This is the best, and the child's like, Whoa, this is so much of a reaction stimuli.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Yeah, yeah. Too much, too much of a response. So uh, and that's another thing that I would say is good for that phone call. Yes, yes, hey, mom, dad, and uncle, brother, sister, really looking forward to bringing the kids over. As you know, Johnny has you know been working through some things, just want to give you guys a heads up. We're trying to not allow him to eat this or that. He may not. I know you guys are serving, you know, X and Y. He's never eaten those things, so please don't be offended. We just want to make sure that we present a setting, a circumstance that is going to be conducive to Johnny's I hate to put it this way, better behavior, more most socially significant behavior in order to preserve our holidays. Yeah. I think that if you approach it that way as opposed to a don't do this, don't do that with Johnny, back to your point, you love to say it here. What is it they're supposed to do? What are you suggesting they try to do that might be different from their usual disciplinary approach approach as family members?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Oh, that's a good point, right? Maybe having the discussion with grandma or whatever about, oh yeah, I know your ham is the best, and I I'm thinking he'll have it, but let's say he doesn't. What what can we do in this situation? Do you want me to bring some, you know, chicken nuggets or what should we do in this situation to remedy it so everybody can have the best possible time? Yeah, and I think it goes back to you know, when we talk about the parent expectations, and then we will get to the child expectations, is what is the purpose? And like you say so often, practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes habit. And so often we do these things because they're habit. What is the purpose of getting together as the family? What are we trying to achieve here, and what are my expectations within not losing that purpose? Because so often we get so wrapped up in the expectations and the so in the habit that we forget what the purpose is, and what are you trying to achieve by getting together as a family and having everyone there, including your child and the rest of the family? So don't lose that that kind of guiding light of what is the purpose that I'm trying to achieve here.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

So, aside from politics, don't talk about Johnny's behavior in front of Johnny. Let's wait till after the holidays to discuss the rest of it. But I like your point. What are we preserving? Yeah, what are we aiming for? And let's not let these little differences, if you will, be the focus and then end up uh tarnishing the time. It's a great time with family to actually get to know Johnny better, to get to understand Johnny better, to see Johnny have a good time, you know, with those automatically reinforcing behaviors that we might see as repetitive and incessant. But it's a good time for family to jump in there and say, wait, man, that that really gets you going. Can I make myself a part of that? Exactly. Can I enjoy myself by watching you enjoy yourself, despite some of the idiosyncrasies that you know maybe get the better of us sometimes?

SPEAKER_01 21:33

So, yeah, again, that expectation. So talking to family members, but you have to be aware of your expectation with that. What is your expectation with the family members? Is it that they will say, Yeah, that sounds great. I will fully accommodate, knowing that maybe your family member doesn't do that, or your family member always wants to give their two cents. So knowing that they're probably going to give their two cents about your discipline or their diet or whatever, don't let that frustrate you. Be prepared for it. And like we like. Like to say, you can respond rather than react. So figure out when they say, Well, no, Johnny should just eat this, or this is how you should. What are you gonna say? Don't let it surprise you because you know it's gonna happen. What are your expectations when you're at the event? So maybe it's you and your husband there. Are you all gonna trade off so one person can mingle with the guests and the other person can keep an eye out on Johnny? How is that gonna be like figure out these things ahead of time? See, I I you know I think about it in terms of a lot of parents going to the grocery store, right? And they'll go to the grocery store, and their job at the grocery store is to buy a bunch of things and get out. They take their child the first few times, it doesn't work that way. So your expectation needs to totally change and be like, you know what? I'm not gonna get 40 things at the grocery store. When I bring my child, I'm gonna get two things, but I'm gonna make sure I get the two most important things, and that way we can leave and be successful. Yep. Same thing with the holiday. So it might not be the same situation as it would have been without your child. Let's change those expectations. Let's get out in front of it as a parent. Let's know what we can expect before we start to talk to the child about what they can expect. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

I like that a lot. The grocery store example is great. The idea that if you want your child included, it might have to be a shorter trip to the grocery store. The idea is if you have combined forces, maybe dad's outside with Johnny and mom's finishing the grocery shopping. Uh but the idea is you set your objective and you do whatever you can within reason to achieve that objective and not let whatever challenges in terms of behavior come up be what guides your ultimate objective.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

So yeah. Usually it's not the child's behavior that prompts the parents to leave, it's the parents not being able to deal with the child's behavior that prompts the parents to be able to leave. So maybe also bringing some alternate activities that you have. And there will be some more specifics here, but let's get to, I guess, the the first one. Tell them what they can expect. So this is the child. You talked about priming, Mike. I guess I'll pass it to you first. Why don't you lead us down this rabbit hole?

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Do you have family pictures? Can you pull those out and show them? Look, this person's gonna be there, this person's gonna be there. Let's talk about memories. Remember, last time we saw this person, this happened. Remember that, you know, Uncle so-and-so and auntie so-and-so, they have dogs. And, you know, we're gonna talk to them about keeping the dogs outside. But if the dogs come inside, you can come to me and I'll pick you up. You can also see if the dogs went, you know, again, I'm kind of getting into specifics here, but the idea is is how many details without being too loquacious or over talking, how many details can you provide to them that might be the most salient, that might be the most triggering in the moment? Yeah, how can you inform them? Pictures are a good thing, other memories. We've got these these cameras, we make phone calls through, always have a ton of pictures, always have a ton of video. Uh, these are things that I think could be very useful, even in demonstrating, depending on your child, picture of the house they're going to, so they remember the exact location, the address numbers, the surrounding houses, uh, you know, pictures of the family members' cars, all these things that now might become expected stimuli as opposed to unexpected stimuli, and really prepare the child for the scene. I think that probably goes a long way for the adults too. Yeah. In terms of really understanding what it is to expect, what am I walking my child into?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah. Because we know what's gonna happen, but that doesn't mean that gets just magically transplanted into the child's head. I like the idea about you know, cars or things like that. You can make these discussions before you even walk in. Oh, it's the Blue Ford Explorer, who's that? Right. Oh, that's Uncle Joe. What do you remember about Uncle Joe? And I wonder who came with Uncle Joe. Who did we say might be with Uncle Joe? Oh, it's the white Toyota Camry. Where did they come from? So you're creating some commonality and some comfort there with that predictability. And I know we we talk about, and it's something that we've talked about on the tap about a common wives' tale, I guess, is individuals on the spectrum can be rigid or prefer predictability. I wonder if that's just people in general. Absolutely. Or that's the chicken or the egg, right? If we've just created so much predictability, that's the environment that they live in. But let's assume that for facts for a minute. If that is true, let's create as much predictability as we can. Even maybe taking the same route and talking about things on the route, the people there. One thing that I think is gonna be a big one with Christmas, and it's very relevant to me being an only child, I know you have three, but because of the age gap, in some way Jen's kind of in her own little bubble compared to the teenagers, is this idea of I get everything, but now when I'm at other people's houses with other kids, wait, all these gifts under the tree, they're they're not for me. And then the kids go and want to open up everything, not not even thinking. Again, it's not malicious, they're not trying to be disruptive, but they don't know because at their house they get access to everything. So priming the the gifts that have this are gonna be yours, or don't touch any of the gifts, we'll give them out correctly, right? But then what happens is that doesn't get primed. We open up all the gifts thinking they're ours, and then it becomes a bigger thing. Now Christmas isn't fun anymore. So again, if the whole purpose there is fun, what can we do to kind of maintain that fun? Yeah, I don't know if you have any more thoughts on the gifts thing, but that's a big one that I see happening a lot.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

I mean, we had a discussion just this morning during our grocery run to our to our warehouse club where it was, hey, sometimes you buy things for yourself here. It's holiday season. We're not buying for ourselves this month. We're only buying gifts for other people. And you know, we could primer all day. It's the question still came up. You know, can I get this? Oh, remember what we talked about? And it wasn't like this quick, oh, you're right, that's what we talked about. No, there's still a little gerump and a little bit of a sigh or you know, those noises that I don't like, like my smoke alarm, uh, which can be frustrating. But yeah, I think you make a really good point in priming, setting the expectation, and then knowing that, you know, you have a young child, you have a young child on the spectrum. They may need various several iterations of that discussion to remember, hey, this is what we talked about. And just because you're not falling in line immediately, doesn't mean you're being disobedient. It means you haven't quite understood what I'm talking about. And am I going to keep repeating myself knowing that you didn't understand it, or can I find a slight variation of how I explain it?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Can you repeat yourself? I think what you said was really important.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Can you say that one more time? Just because they're not falling in line right away doesn't mean they're being disobedient. It does not mean they're expressing challenging behavior. It means, more than likely, developmentally, they haven't quite understood exactly what you're saying. So don't keep repeating yourself with the same words. Try to change it a little bit. Try to find a different angle to see if they can arrive at the explanation. And then at some point you're gonna have to say, look, this is the hard line. This might be a good time to go for a walk. This might be a good time to soothe you, to help you soothe, because you're otherwise agitated in some way based on your environment, which is now increasing my agitation. And if we've got back to your math analogy, you got you got one agitation plus one agitation, that equals two agitated people. You want to be the one that drives that force a little lower, turns down, you know, turn down the volume a little bit, help your child soothe. Help yourself soothe in that moment too.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah, I like that. Just because you're not falling in line doesn't mean you're being disobedient.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

It goes back to that can't do versus won't do. Do they understand what the expectation is? And that's why that's a question I want you all to be asking yourselves over the holiday when situations arise. Is it a can't do or a won't do? Because so often it's funny because we talk about our the kids we work with struggling with theory of mind, but I think it says adults struggle with it, and I'll give you an example of what I mean by that, even from like a parent group example recently, child takes their takes their hand and puts it on somebody else, maybe with a little bit of force, right? Parent will automatically say that my child is hitting somebody else, and now from my perspective, if I'm hitting somebody else, I'm doing it because I'm upset and frustrated. I now need to be corrected, and now it goes down that line. Maybe your child's putting their hand on somebody else just to get their attention. Maybe they're doing it to say I need space, maybe I'm not frustrated. But it's very hard to put ourselves in somebody else's perspective. And now when we do that, we assume so much more behind this one action. We assume that they're misbehaving and they need to be reprimanded. We don't know necessarily why they're doing it. So I just want to highlight that as kind of a specific quantitative example to what you're talking about is maybe that child wasn't trying to misbehave. And now we're making a thing over something that wasn't designed to be a thing.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Just to expand on your example a little bit, because you were still very behavioral in your description with hitting, right? And then you started talking more about function. A lot of us are gonna say, wow, he got aggressive. Which even turns the volume up more in terms of intent now. It's a better way to do that. Now we're saying, well, I don't mean I think you nailed it. The point is it I think we extrapolate even further, usually, especially at family gatherings, and and we start talking about now they're expressing aggression. That's a very aggressive child. That's a harsh connotation, you know, on a four or five-year-old who, yeah, wanted space, who actually is just uh expressing an impulse, an instinct that we want to preserve, right? I love to say when I work with parents that do have kids that are hitting, and saying, I'm not gonna extinguish this, because they're gonna need it at some point in their lives, hopefully not too often, but I can guarantee you that at some point hitting behavior is useful. Yes. You know, it to protect yourself. So it's like we want that behavior to never come back, go away and never come back. It just has to be expressed in very specific circumstances where then we go, okay, that was okay. You should have done that.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Or even sometimes we do a fist bump. I mean, we literally make a fist and impact the other person, right? But there's a level of force that is not there that would lead you to believe that I'm not trying to be aggressive. Again, people that, you know, some of the kiddos that we work with may struggle modulating that force or may not know the appropriate right of force. I want to kind of get into number two because I think this is gonna segue into number two, which is turn the classic best behavior lecture into a learning experience on boundaries and polite conversation. And I think what we're talking about is rather than give the lecture, stop hitting, or don't open other people's presents, let's make it a learning experience. So we could start to maybe teach some theory of mind again, depending on how old your child is and kind of where they're at in their development. But that could be a really good conversation, maybe for you to have, you know, with your daughter about, well, I want these gifts. Yeah, I understand you do. How do you feel when you get a gift? Oh, you feel really good? Well, how do you think Johnny feels when he gets a gift? And and maybe your child is or is not ready for that, but I can guarantee they're not going to be ready for it if we never discuss it. Right. So let's start making these discussions rather than things being a lecture and don't do this, stop doing that. Why? How how do they feel? Then we can start to help them start to understand other people's feelings rather than us always having to be there.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

What is best behavior? What does that mean to the setting? What does that mean to you and your immediate family unit? Yeah. How can how descriptive can you be without overwhelming the child? The idea that now those presents are wrapped. Can will your child engage in passing out the presents? So now that that semblance of ownership is, you know, it's diminishing a little bit and saying, Oh, I'm giving this to somebody else, what does this name say? Oh, that's his Johnny, that's his Billy, that's his auntie, whoever. Can I help you pass those out? Right. Can I help you pass those out and then start cutting into that? Can we talk about that beforehand? Can I show you a video about it? How do I prime your expectations specifically, knowing that even that might be violated and you might set yourself up for failure here and there? Yep. But because you're already expecting that these challenges might arise, then you're more prepared to stay even keel and be a problem solver in that moment, as opposed to adding, you know, to the energy. I love my 80, 90, 10, 20% ratio here. We have to say here at these holiday gatherings, you're running at about a 97-3 ratio. You know what I mean? Like you gotta be on point about 97% of the time. Otherwise, that 3% might be just enough to sit off a spark with some other family member, and then all of a sudden it's focuses on Johnny now because that was the the that was the inception of the conversation. Yep. Was Johnny, can you please do this? Let's try to avoid this with Johnny. And now we're right into that self-fulfilling prophecy.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Can I so when you say the 80-20 or the 90-10 rule, how I've heard you use that in the past, at least a parent group, is we're gonna kind of follow through 80-90% of the time and the times that we give in or accommodate are gonna be 10-20. Is that what you're referring to?

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Yeah, yeah. So I mean we gotta give ourselves a margin of error, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:14

I might say, so while the 80% goes to 97% of attentiveness, I might say excuse the other way in terms of giving in. Instead of I'm gonna uh follow through 80% of the time and maybe give in 20%, it might be a 50-50 at point because you have so much less control over the environment. It might be you again, going back to the parent expectations, don't expect yourself, don't hold yourself to a standard that you might be able to hold yourself to in your house when you have control over the environment. That's a great point. But it's so you know, it's it's why parents are like, why do your why do our kids act so much better when they're with you? Well, we have so much control over the environment, right? Yeah, you're gonna have even less control now. Yep. So cut yourself some grace and some slack, and maybe your child only eats the cookies. Yeah. And you told them first they need to have a bite of ham and then cookie. Maybe it's not the the time to you're only gonna be at this house. So the I think the follow-through comes from the consistency. The concern is okay, if I give in now, this is gonna always happen. But think about how often this setting occurs. This setting occurs once a year, it's not gonna always happen.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

I I think that's very wise what you said there. I think oftentimes throughout the year, throughout our you know, in-home services and our practice, we always have that fear. If I let this happen one time, that's now gonna be the the norm. And no, that's not the case. Again, that goes back to the 80, 90, 10, 20 percent piece. And I think you're absolutely right. You're gonna go half and half. At most, you're gonna let a lot of things go during the holidays, knowing that you're gonna prime, you're gonna set up for the best expectations possible, and then you're gonna expect those to be violated because there are so many variables. Yep. Nice catch.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

You know what will happen is if you have a terrible time and they have a terrible time, next year they're gonna get ready for another terrible time. So the better we can make it, you've got a whole year to undo those times that you've given in before next Christmas. You've got plenty of time. Don't don't worry about that. Think about what you can do to make it the most fun. Going back to the Christmas presents example, I want to I want to kind of think about that for a second. So, what would you say the purpose of giving a present to somebody would be? What are we trying to have happen there, Mike?

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Well, I mean, I think it's the whole purpose is is uh embracing the idea of giving, the idea of not receiving, but giving for somebody else's benefit, somebody else's pleasure, all of those things. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Somebody else's pleasure, maybe increase their happiness might be a reason. Sure. So I'm gonna give you a gift. Make them smile. I there you go. That was the behavior. I was gonna break it down behaviorally and say, if our goal is to have fun, and we usually associate you know fun with happiness, so I'm gonna give you this gift because I think this gift will somehow increase your happiness. Let's take it behaviorally. How might I know if somebody's happy? Yeah, that's a smile. Smile. So maybe we do that with the expectations and the priming and say, Hey, I'll just use your daughter because it's the first person that came to my head. Hey Jen, we're going over to so-and-so's you know Christmas party and and Bobby's gonna be there. How many times do you think we can make Bobby smile? I like that. Now we're making it behavioral. Now we've got kind of a mission and we've got something that we can come back to because to ask and Jen or whoever to make Bobby happy, that's ambiguous. That's right. How can she do that? How does she know if she's been successful with that? And what incentive is there for her to do that?

unknown 38:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

But can we increase Bobby's smile? How many times do you think we can make her smile? Maybe you make it a game. Do you think I can make Bobby smile more, or you can make Bobby smile more? Whoever makes it Bobby smile more gets ice cream on the way home, or something like that. Maybe you have to add in a little bit of artificial reinforcement.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Yeah, I think it's a perfect time.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Because theory of mind might not be fully developed there. And I mean, you could even argue with adults that we only do things because it gives us value. But for kids, maybe we have to add in a little bit more artificial reinforcement, but now we've quantified smiling and we've built that into the priming. Now we've got some value into that. I don't know. What are your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Yeah, well, I'm going to start with there is no altruism, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But I I like your point there. That's that is a very concrete way, especially for a younger child, to say, hey, this is about smiles. And and you know, there might there might be a sense of uh of being overwhelmed, which means that those that happiness can quickly turn into tears or into you know a sense of of feeling overwhelmed. Uh but I think that's a good way to put it down to say concretely, we're trying to make sure everybody is smiling or resting or having fun, having a good time, playing a game. I think the more concrete you can be with those things, the better.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

And maybe you that going back to the kid part, maybe you talk to your kid about that. So I'm gonna see how many times I catch you smiling and other people. If you're not smiling, come talk to me and let's figure out how we can make you start smiling again. So now again, we're talking about the expectations, we're looping that in with the priming of how to get those expectations. Because again, as adults, we theoretically know how to behave. I mean, I still will go to some not as much anymore, but my girlfriend kind of knows, or my domestic partner kind of knows what she gets with me now. But there were definitely times in the in the past where it was, we're going to my friend's party, they're not your friends, you don't need to talk about the same stuff, you know. Like there's times even as adults that we don't know what we're walking into per se, and maybe we benefit from a little bit of priming as well.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

On the next ABA on tap, how to prime your registered domestic partner for not your party. Is that our next uh topic?

SPEAKER_01 40:50

But the funny thing is now I get the invites get sent to me and not her. Oh. Yeah. On the next ABA. So maybe some of us actually need to prime the other party on how to do that.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

A lot of priming going on here. A lot of priming.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

It segue's on the anything else you want to do on this. I do want to stay on this one a little bit more because this has been a soapbox that I've been on in general. And maybe this will be more of a discussion in the new year. Is I've found myself talking about this a lot at parent groups and this difference between lecture and learning. And I think as parents, and I'm gonna pass it to you, Mike, uh, because you're a parent and you can speak to this better than I can, you want to make your kids' life easier. And I think the thought process that a lot of parents have is if I tell my kids how to act, they will do it, and their life will be easier. So if I, you know, tell my kids, don't open the gifts. They they will listen, they won't open the gifts, nobody will yell at them, and their life will be easier. Or if I tell my child, this is how you do the homework problem, they will do it, they will get the homework done, and their life will be a lot easier. The goal then is the parent is to try to minimize stress and anxiety and or whatever you want to call it, minimize conflict. I that's probably a better word. Minimize conflict. So as a parent, you want to minimize your child's conflict, which I think makes a lot of sense. But I think what we're missing is by giving them the answers and the behaviors, we're missing the why. So what happens is when you're not there, they don't know the why. They might remember, mom said don't touch the gift. Well, you got two things competing now. Number one, mom might not be there, and number two, like you say, prohibition is the strongest motivator. Oh my god. So, unless we can tell somebody why, that long-term learning might not be there. So, what are your thoughts there as a parent on minimizing conflict, your desire to minimize conflict, and how that sometimes might actually be counterproductive into the learning experience?

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Well, that's that's a that's a great question, and I think that we've answered it in so many ways in terms of almost allowing your expectations to be violated. So I like the way you you described it. As a parent myself, I do have this linear, singular idea of how things are gonna play out. If I ask my daughter to do this, she's gonna do it exactly this way. And about nine point nine times out of ten, she's gonna start or initiate that action in a way that I didn't expect. Even though you're a B C B A? Exactly. And your wife is a B C B A. We've got like a young Jedi in training that at this point. She can she can do the Jedi mind tricks on us. Um for the dancing snowflake. Man, we'll talk about that in a second. Talk about So the idea being is that sometimes I just kind of have to let it go. I have to let her begin to act, and then at some point I may step in and go, Oh, well, I was thinking that we would do it this way because of these reasons. But again, even out of those 9.9 times out of ten, if I let it go a little bit, a good Seven to eight times out of ten, what she has in mind will function. It will work, despite the fact that it's very distinct from what I had in my head. And to your point about learning, I I think that that variation supports an enriched environment. There's more than one answer to any given problem.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

And and again, that I can preach this all day, man. And then, you know, there's parenting my four-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Yeah, it's it's that that piece of and again, the these questions and this learning can only be done when cognition is at a reasonable level. So if your child has lost it and they're fully tantruming, okay, now it might be lecture time or it might be you to intervene as the parent. But if your child does have enough cognition, they haven't fully lost it. Maybe they've just taken the gift and they're trying to open it and now you're trying to redirect them because it's not their gift. This might be the time of why do you want the I I see your name's not on there. Why did you want that gift? Well, I want the toy. Well, what do you think, John? Do you think Johnny would want that toy too? How do you think Johnny will feel? Again, making sure there's enough cognition if your child's losing it, not the time to do that. But these why questions, the more, and I guess maybe that resonates with me being the question master myself. Yes, sir. But the more we can ask these why questions, and especially when your kids are asking you questions and looking for answers, the more you can put it back to them. I know your your daughter's four. Why is probably starting to become one of her favorite words.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

That's the mode of a standard mode of operation around here. Why, why, why.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Yep. So the more that you can put it back on her, the more that she will actually kind of learn rather than just getting answers.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

And I go back to what I said earlier. So I try to give three distinct variations of why. And then for my own mental health, I go, why do you think? At some point around the fourth iteration.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

And again, just a you know, little parenting trick I use. I can't say that it's a magic wand. I d none of them are. But it does work to enrich that environment. I often find myself in very interesting conversations with my four-year-olds.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Instead of take your shoes off. Wow, look at these floors. These floors look so clean, or maybe you've primed them ahead of time. Mom spends a lot of time cleaning. Let's see if we can keep the floors clean or things like that. Just again, giving more context to the situation instead of everything being a lecture. So I know that can kind of seem weird because we said priming, but you're giving context within the priming. It's not just do this, do this, do that.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

That's a great distinction you're making right there. Priming isn't just a list of now, these are the things you're going to expect, and they're going to happen that way. No, you you might be violating your own priming expectations, but you're giving as much description as reasonable, right? And then you're you're you're bringing that back into the conversation. And then sometimes you hit a point where you know Johnny's just had it. And explaining to him that he can't have this gift because it's not, you know, for him, uh, might mean taking the gift away, putting it down, taking Johnny out of the room and going to help him regulate somewhere else, and then trying again later.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

So and priming can be a double-edged sword too, because it's great. And I would really encourage you to do that with your kids, but understand that when we prime and say this is what's going to happen, and this is what's going to happen, and this is what's going to happen, all of a sudden now we're creating a verbal schedule. Right. And that might not happen. So now I went from ambiguity to expectation, and now me as the child, my expectations being violated. Because I was told we were going to do gifts before dinner, and now all of a sudden everybody else has decided we're doing dinner before gifts. And you told me on the way we're doing gifts before dinner. As a parent, how are you going to deal with that situation? Yeah. How are you going to either include variability within the priming or figure out how you're going to respond when your expectations have now been violated as well?

SPEAKER_02 47:42

But the answer is, of course, a vertical schedule with weird icons. Yes, on the wall. I kid. I kid.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

On the wall. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

But it's back to your point. I think that in the old days we did a lot of that violation of expectations because we had set out visually, verbally, and otherwise on Velcro.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Does grandma see how things were going to have to hard on the card and soft on the wall?

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Grandma does not know that. And grandma doesn't want any Velcro on her walls anyway.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

So Grandma have the IKEA table for interaction?

SPEAKER_02 48:11

Unfortunately, she does. Good, good. Hopefully everybody out there has a little bit of context on what we're uh trying to be funny about.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

Check the uh episode uh Strange Technologies, I think it was what it was called.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

We've talked about you you're a fan of IKEA. At this point, you should own stock or they should give you something for advertising for them so much, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:29

So less lecture, more discussion. Especially again, if you have teenagers, uh nobody knows more than a teenager. You're not gonna teach them anything. Less lecture, more discussions, conversation, back and forth, because then that'll create much more of a learning and a cohesive learning experience.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

Talk about lessons in allowing your kids to do it their way before you try to correct them because you had a different vision. That's again standard mode of operation with my teenagers. I asked you to do this, and that's not the way I thought it was gonna be done. Yard work, I've talked about that on the tap. My son's taught me many lessons of hey, I know what I'm doing, Dad. I've been watching you, and I've got my own ideas of how to do this. And now more often than not, I can just let him go at it and then go, okay, that's not the way I would have done it, but it got the job done. Who cares, right? Yep. All right. And in keeping with traditions, especially this time of year, this concludes part one of our episode Holiday ABA. Please do return for part two and always analyze responsibly. ABA on tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.