This is part one of our planned ignoring post. Part two is here
We at Blooming Abilities are trained as behavior therapists. Early in grad school I was trained on two protocols: planned ignoring and manual guidance – two extinction protocols. I was taught to model this and train families with open abuse and neglect cases with the state. Following graduate school, my employers maintained these protocols as main methods for behavior management.
I’ve realized how much harm I likely did while using these extinction methods.
I’ve learned a lot since then – a lot about child development, emotions and trauma – enough to be horrified that I was first trained to use these things with families obviously dealing with trauma, often generational. I’ve realized how much harm I likely did while using these extinction methods.
At Blooming Abilities, we oppose extinction strategies. Even in extreme cases because we prefer a harm reduction model in those cases. Within ABA (applied behavior analysis), a popular extinction strategy is called Planned Ignoring. This assumes the function of a behavior is to get attention (or sometimes a tangible item/activity). The phrase that often goes with planned ignoring is “ignore the behavior, not the child”.
There are many problems with using this process that stem from power, control, and oppression.
What that can look like is: giving the child a statement (or none at all) such as: “I will talk to you when you are done screaming” and then the adult will remove all attention: turn away, no eye contact, no hugging/touching. If the child stops whatever the adult doesn’t like that they are doing, the adult will over exaggerate excitement and praise for the child doing what the adult wanted and move on, taking care to not talk about the situation.
There are many problems with using this process that stem from power, control, and oppression. Our next blog post will go in depth with some of these issues and offer alternatives.