What is “misbehavior”?
Here are excerpts from a number of parenting books that will help us understand the nature of “misbehavior.”
Enjoy:
“When you look closely you will see that misbehavior is nothing more than a lack of knowledge or awareness, a lack of effective skills and developmentally appropriate behavior, discouragement-or often a matter of some incident that invites us to revert to our primitive brains where the only option is a power struggle or withdrawal or poor communication.”
-Jane Nelsen, “Positive Discipline”
“Principle I – Like adults, children have basic needs that are important to them and they continually strive to meet their needs by doing something. Principle II – Children don’t misbehave. Their behaviors are simply actions they have chosen to meet these important needs. These principles suggest that all children’s actions are behaviors. Viewed in this way, all day long a child is behaving and for the very same reason all other creatures engage in behaviors, they are trying to get their needs met.”
-Thomas Gordon, “Parent Effectiveness Training”
“Children, in particular, have difficulty understanding and talking about their anxieties and fears and the demands being placed on them at school and at home . They may use acting out behaviors (e.g. cursing, slamming books down, yelling at an adult or disrupting therapy) as a way to express their feelings.”
-Paul T. Fogle Lydia V. Flasher, “Counseling Skill for Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologist”
”An explosive outburst like other forms of maladaptive behavior occurs when the cognitive demands being placed upon a person outstrip that person’s capacity to respond adaptively.”
“A substantial number of them (the unlucky ones) explode, the criers are the lucky ones because we adults tend to take things far less personally and respond far more empathetically to children who cry than we do to children who explode, even though the two behaviors emanate from the same source.”
-Ross Greene, “The Explosive Child”
“Children learn a lot by disobeying….Part of their learning process is constantly breaking rules, then seeing their parents’ reaction. Parents should be aware that they will not entirely eliminate misbehavior by attending parenting groups. Rather they will know how to respond to a kid’s misbehavior in a controlled way, without destroying the child’s fragile ego.”
Dina Friedman, Parent Educator
To understand more about your child’s behavior join us for our parenting workshops.
See you there,
Adina