On Extinction

I hope I'm not the only one who really struggles with this disciplinary approach. On the one hand, it can be an effective means to decrease any attention-seeking behavior. On the other hand, some attention-seeking behaviors that realistically cannot simply be ignored. Let me mention just a couple:

• Hitting the cat
• Pulling the cat's tail
• Talking about hitting the cat or pulling its tail
• Hitting or pushing another child at school
• Hitting or pushing another child at the playground
• Hitting or pushing a sibling
• Talking about hitting or pushing other kids
• Kicking the wall
• Kicking the door
• Hitting the door to the circuit breaker box (Yeah, you think you can ignore this one. You're wrong.)
• Kicking the window
• Drawing on the floor with a Sharpie (Where did he find that?!)
• Flinging one's shoes out the window

Whew! Once I opened that box, it was hard to get it closed again. Extinction can be such a useful tool. Except when it's not.