Why Kids Misbehave

Redirect the Misbehavior

Once you've figured out what the child is getting from the misbehavior tell or show the child how to meet that purpose in a positive way.

Attention: You will feel irritated and annoyed, like your personal space is being violated. You will be tempted to either tell the child to go away or try to ignore it. Every time you stop to remind the child, you are giving the child a payoff. Although most experts will tell you to ignore attention-seeking behavior, if you've tried doing that you know it doesn't work. That's because the child has to know what to do, instead, before ignoring will work. To redirect attention-seeking behavior, you want to:

• Involve the child in a meaningful activity
• Then ignore the negative behavior, but not the child

Power: You feel your authority is being challenged. You will be tempted to argue and put down your foot which will escalate the situation, or give in which gives a payoff. So to redirect this goal:

• Offer choices within your bottom line limits
• Then disengage physically or emotionally

Revenge: The root of all revenge is hurt so if the goal is revenge, you will feel hurt, and you will be tempted to hurt the child, physically or emotionally which will escalate the situation. Showing your hurt gives the child a payoff and confirms that they succeeded. So, when your child does something revengeful to you, you must first:

• Resolve their hurt
• Then teach the child how to express their hurt appropriately. This is probably the toughest misbehavior to address, because you feel hurt! You must remember, though, that you are the grown-up. You do not have to allow the child's behavior to hurt you. If you only address your hurt, you're not resolving the core issue, which is their hurt. You will get your turn to express and resolve your hurt, but the problem won't go away until their hurt is resolved. So the order of your response steps is important.

Giving up: Of the four types intentional misbehavior, the child who is giving up is the most discouraged. If your child's goal is giving up, you will feel discouraged, hopeless and helpless. You will be tempted to try to motivate the child with praise which escalates the situation because praise actually makes the child feel under pressure to perform. The other extreme reaction is to give up on the child and agree they are inadequate! That may sound preposterous, but when we say things like, "Well maybe you just aren't good in sports," it confirms their insecurities. So to redirect this goal:

• Acknowledge the child's feelings
• When children are giving up, they are deeply discouraged so instead of giving praise, give encouragement.
• If the situation involves the child having difficulty with learning a task or skill, you can also teach skills.

Additional Points to Remember

1. When in doubt, assume the misbehavior is unintentional and teach skills. If you are wrong, the child will go out of his/her way to show their behavior is deliberate, which is the key word in identifying "on-purpose" misbehavior.

2. Unintentional behavior can turn into intentional behavior if we react to it.