Don’t think of pink elephants. Stop thinking of pink elephants. STOP THINKING OF PINK ELEPHANTS! If you keep thinking of pink elephants you are going to have to sit on the bottom stair for one minute. TWO MINUTES! FIVE MINUTES! STOP THINKING ABOUT PINK ELEPHANTS RIGHT THIS MINUTE!

There are some behaviors that my children start up on the minute that certain adults come home.

The behaviors that have to STOP RIGHT NOW. The behaviors that have consequences. The behaviors that pop up randomly across our days together but in small and manageable amounts that quickly pass.

When someone is fixated on something you don’t get them to stop by talking about it.

Remember the pink elephants? I’m guessing it became a bit easier to put them out of your mind after I stopped talking about them as much. Because you started thinking about what I was talking about instead. Your mind moved on.

I call these behaviors “Pink elephant behaviors”. They aren’t going to stop no matter how much you DEMAND THAT THEY STOP.

Change the topic if you don’t like it. Teach them something else to do if they’re bored. Remove them from the room where they’re doing the thing. Let them know that they can do it in a specific place, then insist that they go to that place, instead.

But stop talking about the pink elephant in the room.