Cause and Effect

You probably won't like what we did with Ethan, but it worked SO WELL that I feel I should include it. Basically, we showed him how to pretend to shoot us, then we fell dead in a myriad of motivating, creative ways. He loved his power over us--making us fall down while howling in pain. He wanted to do it over and over. It motivated him to engage with us, and guess what? He outgrew it, and now wants to play Yu-Gi-Oh and make mud pies with friends. He's not training to be a killer!! So I figure it was a good choice to get shot now, and shape more appropriate behaviors later.