Importance of Silver Linings

"Bad behavior" is frustrating, common, and can quickly drive a parent to the end of their patience. Whatever we expect to see is what we are more likely to notice, regardless of how often it is really happening.  We are quick to notice when a child is engaging in bad behavior and before long it can become all we notice. In the same way, a child who has a tendency to get in trouble a lot quickly begins to expect to get in trouble. The process can become an unpleasant cycle and can put a strain on a parent's relationship with their child.

In a similar way, there is an effect referred to as "behavioral momentum." It is called "momentum" because the tendency is for an individual to continue behaving in the same manner when they start behaving in a certain way. This is commonly used by effective sales-people to convince customers to agree to things they probably would not have if simply asked upfront. In the case of a child, we can begin to prime a child's behavior to get more good behavior simply by getting the child to change their direction and praising them for it.

These two concepts (the first paragraph and the second paragraph) can be important for parents. When a child begins misbehaving, parents are quick to point it out, which begins to frustrate the child after it has happened a few times. The child quickly gets into a pattern of misbehavior, and the parent quickly gets into a pattern of scolding the child. More scolding is not likely to improve things; indeed, if the parent is having to scold many times, it has already been shown to not work at that time. It can take a tremendous effort, but if the parent deliberately changes direction and begins praising the child for doing relatively simple things correctly, then the child may begin to get into a more positive direction with their behavior too.

This may mean trying to identify the things the child has done right, creating easy requests for the child to make an opportunity to do something right, and trying to focus on the many things the child does right while not focusing on the little things that are done wrong. This process is not simple, but it can make a world of difference for a frustrated parent and child.

Another strategy (the Penny in a Pocket technique) for changing a child's behavior and our own behavior as parents is provided here.

Happy Biting

"We were playing and having fun, why did he bite me?!"

When children are biting it's not fun for anyone. Their ability to bite is often surprisingly strong, and sometimes their desire to do so is equally strong! It's common for children to go through phases where they bite, but it can become a real problem as they get older. I've worked with quite a few parents who reported a biting problem of some sort. It's often a problem that the child bites when angry, and we can kind of understand why the child is biting at those times. We tend to think of biting as an aggressive action (after all, it hurts!), but children may bite for a variety of reasons, and not always because of anger or aggression. In this case, we're talking about "happy biting."

To best help a child who bites, we need to understand a bit about why the child is biting and then how we should respond to it. Naturally a child may bite out of anger, but it often surprises parents that a child may also bite out of happiness. This seems strange, right? We need to understand that emotional reasoning takes time to develop and if a child is "worked up", then certain behaviors (like biting) are more likely. Being "worked up" can include being mad, being scared, or being very excited and happy. In all cases, the child is "in a state of high arousal."

High arousal has a bunch of behaviors associated with it, including things like laughing, jumping, clapping, screaming, spinning, biting, hitting/kicking, grabbing, and hugging. Most of those sound fine, and maybe even fun. But some of those we tend to associate with being angry. For a child who is 2 to 4 years old, they've not had a lot of time to understand the differences between these different types of "high arousal" states and may produce any of those behaviors during any of those emotions (such as biting or hitting when happy). As they get older, they'll learn to tell the difference and their behavior will become more specific (hugging is not part of being mad, hitting is not part of being happy, and so forth). They learn to tell the difference, however, based on the reactions of others and by observing your behaviors (they'll imitate you). It takes time, but patiently helping the child learn what is "ok" and what is not, and giving other cues to show how they maybe should be feeling will help them learn to tell these emotions apart.

Information on how to respond to and stop biting can be found here: Biting

Planned "Together Time"

One of my favorite stories from my work is about a child who frequently had severe tantrums and disruptive behaviors at home. The problems weren't quite as bad at daycare, but when he was home after daycare, he would often seemed to suddenly engage in disruptive behavior (like screaming, slamming the door, hitting/kicking the wall or couch...) with little apparent reason. The mother and I brainstormed for a while trying to figure out what was setting him off. It's not rare for triggers to be things we don't notice, so we have to take time to really sit and think of all possibilities and rule them out.

In this case, the child was being raised by a single, working mother. She dropped him off at daycare in the morning and picked him up at about 5pm. Then she made dinner and let him play. After talking for a while, we noticed that whenever he would engage in these tantrums and disruptive behaviors, his mother would go over and talk to him to try to calm him down and find out what was bothering him. He would usually calm down after a bit, but then might start up again later. We thought that maybe it was in fact the mother's response (direct attention) that was maintaining the behavior. Essentially, he was acting up to get her attention.

We came up with a plan for this child that involved a planned period of "together time with mom" every day after daycare. They would simply sit down and enjoy an activity together. The activity isn't terribly important, and if it is TV, then that's fine (we'd rather it be something interactive, but TV is better than nothing!). The mother also taught the child a different way to ask for attention: he could come sit by her, tap her, or hug her. Any of those would start some "together time with mom." (Using words to ask for attention is fine too, but if the child doesn't have good language yet, then these alternatives are easy for them to do.)

Later, if his mother noticed the child getting upset, then instead of scolding him, she would happily call his name and ask him to come sit with her. This is preempting the behavior (catching it before it escalates) so that behavior doesn't get rewarded. To preempt a behavior we have to be especially observant to notice before it occurs. That can be hard to do, but if we can prevent the behavior from even occurring, then it is not rewarded, which is good!

The theory behind this solution:
When a child is engaging in a "bad behavior" to get something (tantrums in this case), it's often helpful to see if we can find an alternative behavior they can do to get the same thing. We want that behavior to be as easy or easier than the original target behavior. That's not always possible, and if it isn't, then we want to make the reward (the payoff) even better to compensate. Ideally, the child also won't have to do the new behavior for as long or with as much energy as the original (basically like just saying one word to get the reward as opposed to a whole conversation).

This story shows an example of addressing the "antecedent" (things that occur before the behavior and maybe cause the behavior to occur) and identifying the reinforcement (the reward that maintains the behavior). Additionally, there is a lot of value in promoting a close relationship with a child: the child listens better, pays more attention to the parent, values the parent's opinion, and the parent feels less stressed and more patient with the child.