Change the Label... Change the Behavior

Tonight I was going to post about something that is not behavior related because I don't want to define my blog as a blog that is only about behavior methods.  However, I have been having trouble writing the post that I was working on so I am going to go ahead and share another behavior method... the coolest and easiest one.
We learned this method on the second night of my behavior course.  It can be done with any person you know from about age 2 (maybe 1 1/2) up to 102.  Try it; you'll love it!

Here's what you do.
Make a list of your family members, your class, coworkers or any group of people that you are around on a regular basis.
Now, write down the first word you can think of next to each name.
These terms are not suppose to be carefully chosen.  They are not suppose to be kind or nice, just true.  Don't worry you can burn the list later.  In order to do this you need to be completely honest with yourself.



Here is an example list:
Joe - silly
Tracy - bully
Ally - quiet
Mark - kind
Jenny - brave
Brian - grumpy

Ok, so there is a list.  No one has to see it... don't worry.
Look at the list.
Pick a label that seems like it needs to be changed for the better.  You can pick any of them; it is completely your choice.  In this case let's use Tracy.

Now I'll be honest, that list above is completely made up, however, the word "bully" is not.  When I did this exercise with my class that was the word that was next to one of the names and that child was the one that I used for this exercise.  S/he wasn't necessarily a bully in my point of view but border lining on it, yes.  On top of that, I had spent the first week of school hearing from class parents how that child bullied their child the year before, and how I better not let that child bully their child in my class this year.
So I picked that child.  The "bully."  Big word these days.  Do you think you can change a "bully" without actually directly addressing the issue of bullying?
You can.  You can change any behavior of any individual that you come in contact with regularly.

Here is what you do next.
Now, you are going to quietly observe this person/child until you can figure out something really positive about them.  Everyone has something redeeming.
What I figured out when I did my observing is that this child, "the bully" loved to help out.  This was something I only realized when I looked for something positive about this child.
Next step?  Re-label that child/individual.

Joe - silly

Tracy - bully helpful

Ally - quiet

Mark - kind

Jenny - brave

Brian - grumpy

Ok, now what you do is to expect Tracy to be helpful and give her many opportunities to be helpful.  What you were doing before was expecting Tracy to bully other children.  You are re-labeling this individual... so completely ignore the old label in your head.  Put a huge amount of emphasis on the new label.  Overdo it.

In my case it looked something like this (only tenfold):

"Tracy, I need help carrying these cups, can you help me please?!" Sometimes I put extra drama on the "please?!" to really hook "Tracy" into helping me.

"Tracy, Mark needs help reaching that toy, can you help him get it please?"

"Tracey, I need someone to hold the book while I point to the words.  Can you be my book holder please?"

After a week of this Tracy was not trying to bully other kids.  No joke.  Tracy was looking to me to see how she could be helpful in any way and beaming when asked.  Tracy was also starting to offer help to others, realizing how good the positive attention felt and realizing she had a place of importance in this world.

Now, I fully expect everyone that has read this to try this out on someone.  Give it one week.  Feel free to share what happened below in the "Comments" section.  I've purposely made it so that anyone can post a comment.  You don't need to sign-in or sign-up for anything.

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Thanks!!