This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "1-2-3 Magic" by Thomas W. Phelan. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What if you could discipline children without arguing with them? Why are breaks better than time-outs? How can you help kids stick to routines?
In his book 1-2-3 Magic, Thomas Phelan introduces a simple counting approach to discipline that lets you spend less time managing your child’s behavior and more time enjoying your relationship. His advice works for parents and others who care for children.
Continue reading for an overview of this practical book that can bring more joy and peace into your home.
Overview of 1-2-3 Magic by Thomas Phelan
In the book 1-2-3 Magic, Thomas Phelan breaks effective discipline into two jobs: stopping unwanted behavior and helping kids initiate and sustain productive behaviors. Doing these jobs well frees up parents’ time and energy to focus on the more enjoyable aspect of parenting: cultivating positive, loving relationships with their children.
Phelan is a clinical psychologist who’s worked with families for over 35 years. 1-2-3 Magic has been adapted for a variety of audiences, situations, and age groups, including for teens and for classroom use.
Our overview contains three parts: Part 1 covers how to change unwanted behavior while preventing arguments with children. In Part 2, we’ll discuss strategies to help kids initiate and follow through on productive tasks. Finally, in Part 3, we’ll show how parents can cultivate a deeper and more positive relationship with their children.
(Shortform note: Phelan intends the strategies in 1-2-3 Magic to be useful for all caregivers, including grandparents and teachers. In fact, Phelan stresses that his advice works best when it’s used consistently by all of a child’s caregivers.)
The Goals of Constructive Parenting
Phelan’s advice is built around two primary goals that he says are central to constructive parenting. The first is making sure children know that they’re cared for. This entails being loved, liked, and having their emotional and physical needs met. Second, children need to know that they’re competent, responsible individuals capable of rising to their parents’ high expectations.
While these goals are conceptually simple, achieving them can be challenging, in large part because ineffective discipline often gets in the way of a positive relationship between parents and children.
(Shortform note: In Unconditional Parenting, Alfie Kohn provides another perspective on why theoretical parenting goals are often difficult to pursue. He argues that in hectic day-to-day life, parents lose track of their goals and focus more on whether the child is being good or bad. They then dole out rewards for being good and punishments for being bad. Kohn feels this discipline style causes more harm than good because it can make kids excessively self-interested, which might get in the way of a strong relationship between parent and child, as Phelan describes. However, unlike Phelan, who thinks that bad discipline should simply be replaced by good discipline, Kohn believes parents shouldn’t discipline children at all.)
Part 1: How to Change Unwanted Behavior Without a Fight
In this part, we’ll describe the problems with common discipline methods. Then, we’ll talk about how to change unwanted behavior.
Problems With Common Discipline Methods
When it comes to discipline, Phelan has one main critique: Parents talk too much and get too emotional when disciplining their children. Phelan explains that this is often because parents think of their children as small adults who should understand why their behavior is inappropriate and therefore be motivated to change it. This assumption frequently leads to angry, ineffective lectures that do more harm than good.
According to Phelan, the reason lectures don’t work is that kids’ brains aren’t ready for long, abstract explanations about why their behavior is wrong. Their frontal cortex (the part of their brain that processes sensory input, emotions, and behavior) isn’t developed enough for the sort of reasoning parents often deploy until kids are around 12 years old, and it takes until the early 20s to fully form. Therefore, when you launch into a reasoned explanation about why they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, you’re likely only frustrating and confusing your child and preventing them from focusing on changing their behavior.
Getting overly emotional when your child acts up is also counterproductive. Kids crave power because they have so little agency in their lives. Therefore, if your child does something you don’t like, and you react emotionally, you’re showing them that they have power over you, which only makes them more likely to misbehave again.
The Solution to Ineffective Discipline: The Counting System
Phelan offers a counting strategy both to control your response to your kids’ behavior and to train your kids to redirect when they misbehave. Here’s how it works:
When kids start to misbehave, you say, “That’s one.” Then wait five seconds. If the child stops the behavior, you move on. However, if the behavior continues, the counting continues: “That’s two.” If the behavior continues after two strikes, your child is ‘out.’ They need to take a break for five minutes. So you say, “That’s three, take five.” ‘Take five’ represents a five-minute break where your child removes herself from the situation by going to a break area, and you both get a chance to calm down.
An important part of the counting strategy is that you remain calm and emotionless and offer no further explanations about why your child’s behavior is wrong; it’s up to them to redirect their behavior. In the best-case scenario, you stop undesirable behavior with two words, “That’s one.”
The counting method is simple. But there are several important points to remember for proper execution.
Some situations call for a modification of the counting strategy. You can also add time to the break for particularly egregious offenses.
Timing is an important consideration during the counting strategy. All of the warnings need to happen within a reasonable window of time, say 10-15 minutes for a four-year-old, or two hours for a 12-year-old.
The counting strategy should be predictable for children. It’s important that you introduce the counting system to kids before you start implementing it so kids know what to expect. Once you’ve committed to the counting system, consistency is key, so you should stick to it even in public or if you have company over. Additionally, the length of break time should feel consistent to children. If the child is over four years old, the break doesn’t start until any tantrums are over.
Break time can be substituted for other consequences such as the loss of a toy or privilege. However, it’s important that the intention of the consequence is to teach, not to be cruel.
Give Kids a Break, Not a Time Out
If your child does end up getting to three and needs to take a break, there are a few important details to remember. A break is similar to the classic idea of a time-out (which Phelan considers an archaic discipline tactic), but the execution, and thus the results, are different.
Phelan points out that time-outs are often simply the result of parents losing their temper and wanting their kids out of their sight, with the result being that children feel isolated and bad about themselves. Additionally, Phelan notes that time-outs often include the unrealistic stipulation that children think about the error of their ways and come out with an apology or plan.
In contrast, taking a break is meant to serve as a chance for everyone to regroup. Parents don’t act emotionally when they send their children for a break, and kids don’t have to be isolated. Additionally, kids aren’t expected to come up with an explanation or apology while they’re taking their break, and the slate is simply wiped clean when the break is over (no more talking about the incident).
Part 2: How to Help Kids Initiate Productive Tasks
Now that we’ve discussed a strategy for getting kids to stop unwanted behaviors, we’ll shift to another common parenting battle: getting kids to do the things you need them to do.
Parents often end up frustrated and exasperated because of how difficult it can be to get kids through tasks such as getting ready for school or bed, cleaning a bedroom, or doing other chores.
Phelan notes that counting generally isn’t an effective strategy for getting kids to initiate tasks because the things we are asking kids to do take longer and require more sustained attention and motivation than simply stopping unwanted behavior. Therefore, he suggests routines as an effective strategy for helping kids get things done. Setting up routines may take more time and effort on your part, just as completing the task takes more effort on your child’s part. However, Phelan’s routine-building tips foster self-sufficiency and responsibility in kids so that over time, your role in tasks diminishes or, depending on the age of the child, disappears.
The Power of Routines
The predictability and repetition of routines can accomplish two things, writes Phelan. First, routines build kids’ executive functioning skills (their ability to exercise self-control and self-direction) and their self-esteem (it feels good for kids to be able to do things for themselves). Second, routines allow you to do less disciplining and “nagging” and more positive reinforcing, leading to less conflict and better feelings all around.
Be sure to temper your expectations of toddlers and preschoolers. This age group isn’t developmentally ready to follow through on lengthy and complex tasks without support. As kids get older (perhaps in the third or fourth grade) they become more capable of doing meaningful work around the house. (Phelan notes that kids often enjoy being able to contribute to meaningful household activities.) A good rule of thumb for how long you can expect a child to stay on task is 10 minutes for a six-year-old, with an increase of roughly 10 minutes per year thereafter.
Routine-Building Tools
Now that we’ve established the benefits of consistent routines, we’ll highlight a few tools Phelan suggests to help get routines started.
Timers
You can use timers to encourage your child to finish a task within a timeframe. The use of timers can take some of the strain out of parent-child interactions because they shift the focus from you making a request to the timer holding them accountable, writes Phelan. An additional benefit of timers is that kids know they can’t be manipulated. No amount of whining, bargaining, or complaining is going to speed the time up or slow it down, and so, hopefully, there will be less whining, bargaining, and complaining overall. And kids also often simply enjoy trying to finish a task before the timer goes off.
The Parent-Payment System
If your child has money of their own, say from their allowance, you can use the parent-payment system (which Phelan calls the “docking system”) to motivate kids to perform routines. If kids don’t do an important job and you need to do it for them, they need to pay you for your work.
Charts and Visual Aids
Laying children’s tasks out visually in a chart can motivate kids to follow through with their routines and stay organized without your input.
Charts can also be useful tools for positive outside reinforcement. Phelan also suggests adding a bonus system to your charting where children can earn extra points for accomplishing tasks without your input.
Keeping Routines Positive
Phelan also offers advice for building positivity and avoiding conflict once routines are established.
Practice positive reinforcement. Phelan encourages you to aim for a ratio of three positive comments for every negative comment you make to your children. Kids often get more negative feedback than positive from their parents simply because parents ‘leave well enough alone’ when kids are behaving well but speak up when kids start to misbehave. While well-intentioned, the result is that kids often end up hearing more about what they do wrong than what they do right.
To deliver your positive comments, you might poke your head in the door when your child is playing nicely and commend her on her concentration, congratulate your son for sharing with his little sister, and so on. Phelan notes that unexpected, public praise is especially beneficial and meaningful for kids.
When you do need to give your child constructive criticism, Phelan suggests using the positive-negative-positive pattern. This means that you sandwich the criticism part of your feedback with two positive comments.
Keep your directives simple and calm. Phelan notes that if your tone sounds like you’re ready for a fight with a child, you’re likely to get one, so it’s best to keep any requests non-confrontational.
Embrace natural consequences. In some instances, it’s best to simply let the natural consequences of your child’s not performing their routine serve as a tool to get them back on track. When you can rely on natural consequences to encourage your child to follow their routine, you don’t have to get involved, thereby avoiding tension in your relationship. Also, kids are more likely to learn from their mistakes after seeing that the consequence was a direct result of their behavior rather than a parent-manufactured punishment.
Part 3: Cultivating a Positive Relationship With Your Kids
Now that we’ve discussed ways to spend less time getting your kids to stop doing things they aren’t supposed to do and start doing the things they are supposed to do, we’ll shift to the third and most enjoyable parenting task: cultivating a positive relationship with your kids.
Phelan explains that having a deep, loving relationship with your children has two main components: being a compassionate listener and enjoying one-on-one time with your child.
Compassionate Listening
Being a compassionate listener (Phelan calls it “sympathetic listening”) means listening to your child with the intention of trying to see things from their point of view. As Phelan explains, your only jobs are to understand the way they experienced a situation and then to relay your understanding back to them to make sure you got it right.
Compassionate listening often begins with a simple, open-ended question or comment from you. With each comment or question, your goal is to deepen your understanding, not to teach a lesson or draw your own conclusions.
Compassionate listening is often easier said than done because it requires a great deal of parental self-control. As Phelan explains, there’s no place for parental judgment or opinion in compassionate listening. Therefore, even if you’re disappointed or angry about how your child handled something, you need to stay focused on understanding their perspective rather than launching into a lecture about how they should have known better or providing your ideas for how to solve the problem or make amends.
There are many benefits of compassionate listening. One is that it can help kids process and thus let go of negative emotions. When you communicate to your child that you understand why they were feeling upset, it honors their feelings about a situation, even if you’re not a fan of their actions. Another benefit is that compassionate listening can help you avoid being an overbearing parent. When you refrain from lecturing, judging, and problem-solving for your child, you’re helping them build their self-esteem by showing them you trust them to independently handle setbacks and make good decisions.
Enjoying One-on-One Time
Phelan writes that having quality one-on-one time is integral to a positive relationship with your child and benefits your child’s brain development. Therefore, it’s important to carve out time to simply enjoy each other’s company, showing your kids you not only love them—but you also like them.
Phelan notes that it’s OK to replace some time spent as a whole family with this quality one-on-one time. While family time is also important and often enjoyable, one-on-one time allows kids to have your undivided attention, eliminating sibling rivalry and other distractions that often detract from larger-group activities.
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Here's what you'll find in our full 1-2-3 Magic summary:
- A simple countdown approach for disciplining your child
- How to cultivate a warm and loving relationship with your child
- Why time-outs are ineffective and don't correct bad behavior
