Table of Contents
To frustrated parents everywhere.
Thank you for inviting me into your home.
INTRODUCTION
Listen to some parenting advice from one of the smartest people of the modern era: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That quote is attributed to Albert Einstein, by the way.
Heres what else the good Herr Doktor might have told you: If youve given your child the same old time-out and taken away the same old toys and restricted him from the same old video games and still he continues to drive you nuts, maybe its you who needs to change, not him.
I vividly remember the event that changed everything for me, both as a parent and a child psychologist. It occurred some fifteen years ago when my wife, two young sons, and I were on our way home from Washington, D.C., where we had spent an enjoyable but exhausting day at the Smithsonian. It wasnt long before traffic on the infamous beltway turned to stop-and-go. Inch by inch we crept for over an hour, and then I noticed that the light had come on to indicate we were low on gas. Against my better judgment I had decided not to look for gas in the city, but to wait until we got farther south on the freeway. Bad decision. Now, with no exit in sight and only miles and miles of cars stretching into the distance, traffic finally came to a complete halt. Just stopped. It was clear that we were going nowhere for a very long time. Taking a deep breath, I turned off the ignition and there we sat in silence. I have to go to the bathroom, volunteered Sam, our youngest. And pretty bad, too.
Born with a perfect sense of timing, our older son, Collin, eight years old at the time, decided to make what became known in our familys folklore as The Noise. Oooiiiiinnnkkkkk...
The sound was something between a bleat and a groan and a screech. Understand that Collin had a history of coming up with obnoxious noises. We had heard him make plenty of them beforebut this noise! It was enough to make every cell in your body recoil. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the pleased look on his face. Oooooooiiiinnkkkk, he groaned again.
Stop it! we all said in unison. Please stop it right now! Collin waited a few moments, just enough to get our hopes up, and then out it came, this time even more drawn out and exaggerated than before: Oooooooooiiiiiiiiinnnnkkkkk...
Collin! we all said again, turning to face himprecisely the reaction he was hoping for. His eyes were glazed with mischief and his smile was positively sly. But I cant stop, he said, shrugging his shoulders. No matter how hard I try, it just keeps coming out. It just keeps
One more time, and youre going straight to bed when we get home, I threatened. No computer. No snacks...
Thats OK, Dad, because I actually want to go to bed, he said, smirkingpushing the limits even further. Maybe then I can stop saying oiiiiinnnnnnnkkkkkkkk.
Like any parent pushed to the breaking point by a child, my blood pressure began to rise and the desire to reach back and give him a smack was undeniablevery much not in keeping with the way a child psychologist should think during such moments.
It was obvious that ignoring this particular noise wasnt about to work, because he made it with such gusto and obvious enjoyment. Wed tried the ignoring technique many times. Along with time-out and no computer usage and no snacks and on and on and on. And we had tried yelling too, but as every parent knows, yelling is never pleasant and often takes parents to a level they regret. Nevertheless, I could feel that urge to yell coming. Then Sam began to cry from the backseat, Mom, does this mean that Collin is never going to be able to stop saying that stupid word?
And thats when the lights turned on for me. After a few moments of thought I said, Well, Sam, I guess none of us realized the severity of the situationyou know, Collins inability to stop saying irritating words. It must be awful for him. So look, when we get home, Ill have him stand in front of his mirror and say that word for fifteen minutes straight, without a break. We obviously need to help him drain all those oinks out of his system, and thats the only way to do it.
Collin looked at me rather coyly and smiled. Thatll be fun! he said. I like making that noise.
Fifteen minutes! I said back.
Oiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnkkkkkk, he bleated in response. Oiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnkkkkkkk oooooiiiinnnnnkkkkkkk oooiiiinnnnkkkkkk...
Poor little guy cant stop, I said to my wife. He really needs our help.
By the time we got home that night (yes, we did find a gas station in the nick of time), Collin and Sam were blessedly asleep in the backseat. I resisted the temptation to put Collin to bed, and instead took him to the full-length mirror that hung over his door. I instructed him to stand in front of the mirror. OK, lets begin the draining process, I said. I believe you know what to do.
Collin grinned sheepishly, took a deep breath, and began. Oooiiinnkkkk, he bleated.
Again, please.
Oooooiiiiiiiinnnnnnnkkkkkkk.
I nodded for him to continue, knowing clearly that I was on to something. He made The Noise with gusto for the first three minutes or so. But after that he began to peter out, saying he was getting tired, that the sound was hurting his throat, that he had learned his lesson, and so on. I assured him the draining process was necessary, and it was my experience that it would not be complete until the last second of the fifteen minutes was over. Only then would his system be fully drained of the oinks.
The last time Collin Riley uttered Ooooooiiiiinnnnnnnkkkkk, standing there in front of the mirror, was the last time we ever heard that particular sound again. Period. Nada. Over and done. Or so I thought.
The next weekend he decided to give it another go, mainly out of that irresistible desire to bug his brother. I found myself at a crossroads, thinking my draining intervention had failed. Then I had another epiphany about draining: I apologized to him profusely. I am so sorry, I said. I thought Id be able to drain all of that noise out of your system last week by having you do it for fifteen minutes, but it looks like I failed. There are definitely still plenty of oinks left in you. This time well just have to try harder. Today Ill let you stand in front of your mirror and make The Noise for thirty minutes. If thirty minutes doesnt drain it all out of your system, Ill be forced to admit I failed again, so then we will have to go to forty-five minutes. And then after that to sixty minutes, and so on.
I truly can say now that we have never heard The Noise again, and for years afterward, if either of my sons did something repetitive to bug the other (making other noises, making faces, saying words or phrases repeatedly, making gestures, etc.), all Id have to say was Would you like me to help you drain that out of your system?
No, Dad, they would say emphatically. Well stop.
So now Im on a rescue mission. My target? Moms and dads who are so worn down by the everyday battles of parenting that all of lifes joy has left the building, so to speak. And you know the battles Im talking about. Its not just obnoxious noises. Its heated arguments with little attorneys one-fourth your age or one-half your size over why bedtime should be midnight instead of nine; its plates of chips and cheese under the sofa spawning mold colonies that resemble alien life forms; its your six-year-old screaming that her brother is looking at her or that hes breathing too loud; its your teenage sons inability to lift the toilet seat. Its when your home gets turned into a war zone over which child controls the TV channel changer or the video game controller, when in actuality both of them ought to be hitting the books because their grades stink. But when you ask them what they learned at school, the only answer you get is I dont know or Stuff. If this quagmire sounds familiar, like most parents you need some methods that actually work. What you need is a Box of Tricks.
