The preparation process for becoming a parent is a rather curious one – because there’s not that much preparation. You have to do more preparation to get a driver licence than you do to become a parent. Sure, most parents are prepped for the early years – the sleepless nights, the feeding, the nappies – the baby years. But if you really think about it, those early baby years (that may seem like an eternity when you’re living them) are only a small part of being a parent. They’re like the first layer of bricks in the foundation of a new home – critical but a tiny part of the whole, writes Alex Ferendinos, a provisional psychologist and program supervisor at Bright Eyes Early Intervention centre.
After surviving the baby years, that’s when parenting a little person properly begins. And for that, parents are often thoroughly unprepared and rarely trained about the best ways to manage their child’s behaviour.
Question: when your child drops to the floor in the middle of Kmart during peak shopping, bawling as loud as their little lungs can handle and refuses to leave the store until you get them the latest (insert most pointless, overpriced toy here), what do you do? Get the toy? Drag the child across the store with a determined I’ve-got-this-under-control expression on your face? (Please don’t do that.) Offer them a cheaper but equally pointless toy? Sit down and cry?
And what about when you have to get to an urgent appointment and your child jumps in your car with the keys, locks all the doors, grins and refuses to unlock the doors until you promise not to take them to school? Call NRMA? Cancel your appointment? Bribe compliance with lollies? Sit down and cry?
Or when your child refuses to brush their teeth, or chucks their dinner, or ignores you, or yells at you? As a parent, what should you do?
Parenting kids, or trying to manage your child’s behaviour – the good, the bad and the tear-your-hair-out horrendous – is where many parents could stand additional training. Because without some training, without some cheat-sheets, you may end up repeating what your own parents did – the good and the not so good. Or you may be determined not to repeat what your own parents did and do the complete opposite – which can be just as good and not so good.
So what do parents need to know?
A lot, really. But there are a few key things that form the basis of any understanding of behaviour – not just kids’ behaviour.
Behaviour, generally, has one of four main functions.
- Escape or avoidance. Behaviour that functions to escape or avoid an undesired activity or situation.
- Attention-seeking. Behaviour that functions to gain attention from others.
- Seeking access to something. Behaviour that functions to gain access to a desired item or activity.
- Sensory stimulation. Behaviour that functions because it feels good.
Some behaviour serves multiple functions and some behaviour has slightly different or subtler functions – but for the sake of simplicity, these are the four most common functions.
If a behaviour achieves the intended function then that behaviour is likely to continue in the future. If a behaviour does not achieve the intended function then that behaviour is likely to stop.
Managing problem behaviour
So, let’s return to our hypothetical child who has dropped to the floor in a busy Kmart and is engaging in a hypothetical, eardrum-blasting tantrum. What is the likely function of this child’s behaviour?
Probably a last ditch effort to get Mum to buy them the pointless, overpriced toy that they requested (repeatedly) but were refused.
So what would happen if the child got the toy?
They’d probably stop crying for starters (happy days!), but they’d also have gotten what they wanted. Their behaviour would have achieved its desired outcome of ‘seeking access to something’, teaching the child, in the simplest terms, that when they have an almighty tantrum in public, Mummy will get them what they want. The next time Mummy goes to Kmart, the child might only ask once for a toy instead of several times, and when the mother says no, they’d likely drop to the floor for their Oscar Award-winning tantrum routine. Not good.
Let’s rewind and see if we can help our poor, hypothetical parent a little better.
Child is throwing a tantrum on the floor in Kmart. Presumed function – get Mummy to buy pointless, overpriced toy. Perhaps Mummy has bought it in the past when this has happened, but right now that’s not important. Right now, we have a child in a tantrum and we need to figure out something better to do than just give in. So what could Mummy do?
Firstly, don’t give the child the toy. Please don’t – for everyone’s sake. A child that expects to get things by crying about it is no fun for anyone. Instead, hypothetical Mum could ignore the behaviour (not the child – don’t leave a screaming child unattended. Don’t leave any child unattended), ensuring the child is safe, and ride it out. If you’re at home, this is often a good strategy for these sorts of behaviours. At the store though, Mum could also start playing with something or doing something else potentially interesting to the child. Not bribing them to stop tantrumming in exchange for something else – but encouraging the child to calm themselves and show interest in what Mum is doing. Mum is basically acting as though the tantrum is not happening and redirecting the child to attend to something else on their own. When the child is calm, Mum can give them her full attention and engage them in whatever she is doing.
However, more important than how Mum manages this tantrum in the moment, is what she does in the future to prevent this sort of behaviour from occurring. Mum should set up some rules to encourage and reward behaviour that she does want from her child, making that desired behaviour more likely to occur in the future.
Before going into the shop, Mum might say: “If you stay happy and calm in the shops today, then you can have an ice-cream at home”. In other words, if you engage in a desired behaviour, then you can have a desired outcome (something the child would want). This is known as positive reinforcement, which is a fancy way of saying that a behaviour has been followed by the delivery of something (ice-cream, here) that makes that behaviour more likely to reoccur in the future. It’s different from straight-up (unhelpful) bribery because you’ve established the ‘rules’ before the behaviour of concern (the eardrum-blasting tantie) has occurred. Bribery, on the other hand, involves bribing a child to stop engaging in a behaviour during that behaviour of concern (i.e. during the tantie).
Managing kids’ behaviour (and any behaviour really) is about reinforcing behaviour you do want (rewarding a happy, calm child) while ensuring you’re not reinforcing behaviour you don’t want (not rewarding a child throwing a tantrum).
Of course, parenting is not as straightforward as passing your driving test and clocking up your driving hours, and kids’ behaviour can be changeable and complex. But even a basic understanding of why your child does what they do and better ways to manage their behaviour can often help. And if you only remember one thing from this article, remember this: if your child is throwing a tantrum in the middle of Kmart on a busy shopping day, don’t get them the toy. Please.
If you’re struggling to manage the behaviour of your child, contact Bright Eyes Early Intervention centre on (02) 9440 8521 or visit the website.
How have you reacted to your child throwing a tantrum or misbehaving? We’d like to hear about your experiences and any tips in the comments section below.
More on managing child behaviour…
