Distraction

The distraction technique is the action of getting a child’s attention in a misbehavior scenario. Usually, it involves touching or briefly holding some physical object in the scenario.  In practice, your action amounts to some interruption of the misbehavior, such as holding an object that the child is mishandling at the time.  When the child looks up, let go of the object and use other less heavy techniques to finish your interaction, such as eye contact or, if necessary a clear direction safe word phrase, such as “Come over here. Let me show you something.”