Goals of Misbehavior
Most all parents want their children to grow up with the ability to be good decision makers.
Their hopes in this area have to do with instilling values such as honesty, integrity, and fair play.
The ways in which parents attempt to instill such values varies from family to family and is
largely heavily influenced by how the parents themselves were raised. The biggest sadness felt
by parents who fail to positively instill the above characteristics usually has to do with regrets
over not knowing how that job gets done.
By the time children reach adolescence, they are mostly hard wlred to move down one of
two life paths. These paths have to do with living a righteous versus an unrighteous life.
Alexander Pope put it succinctly when he stated, "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined."
In order to understand what is necessary for youngsters to develop sound decision making, one
must understand why children go wrong in the first place. Children are just like adults in that
they always choose behaviors they believe will get them what they want. The reason they
misbehave is that at that moment they believe mistakenly that a particular action is the best
way to reach their hidden goal. These goals have to do with the chlld's mistaken assumptions
about how to find their place and gain status. When the adult is not aware of the meaning
behind the child's misbehavior, the parent responds by falling for the child's unconscious
scheme which reinforces such misbehavior. The end result is a fruslrated child who grows up
having never been able to figure out how to feel worthy.
So what's a parent to do? Pope also provided an answer to this question when he said,
"Drink deeply from the springs of knowledge for shallow drafts intoxicate the brain." That knowledge, as far as parenting goes, is to better understand
what truly motivates the misbehavior of their child. Once the parent understands the "why" behind the misbehavior they then will be able to guide the child into walking the better path.
When a child comes to one of those forks along the path, he/she has the choice of doing the right or wrong thing. Right choices lead children toward an honest and fruitful existence while taking
the wrongdoers path leads them in the opposite direction. When parents use natural or logical consequences (described in a separate section), children get plenty of practice at making right path choices
and it is this conditioning experience that works at teaching their child how to feel worthy. This section is designed to provide parents with insights into what's behlnd the misbehavior in the
first place. Understanding the mistaken goals responsible for wrong path decision making empowers the parent to better influence right path choices.
All children seek recognition and misbehavior is often the result of the child's mistaken
assumptions about how to get it. If a parent wants to understand the motive behind bad behavior
they need to be able to understand the child's private logic. In other words, children often have
mistaken goals and understanding what those goals are will reveal to the parent not only how the
child thinks but how to better deal with those behaviors.
This section will attempt to help parents to better understand those misbehavior patterns and to recognize the child’s hidden goal. Once a parent is able to identify them, then the parent will be able to actually see into the minds of their children and also devise methods to better deal with misbehavior.
Research has identified four such goals:
- Attention getting
- The struggle for power
- Revenge
- Use of disability, as an excuse
An easy way for parents to identify the mistaken goals of their children is to examine how the child makes them feel.
If the parent feels annoyed the motive is attention; if angered the motive is power; if emotionally hurt, it is revenge, and if one feels sorry for the child, it is display of disability.
Attention getting behavior, at its roots, is often displayed by the child who seeks to be acknowledged as being better than the other children. These children have a need to feel “special” which provokes annoying behaviors aimed at causing the parent to notice them and then to provide special attentions.
A child with this motive will continue interruptive demands and complaints that are designed to make parents pay attention to them. The parent, for example, may be talking on the telephone and find that they have to cut their conversation short because of having the need to come to the child’s aid. The child could interrupt with silly questions, start a fight with another, or cry out regarding some contrived distress.
This child is usually the overly sensitive type and often a perfectionist who is fearful of failure. If parent’s suspect that these interruptions are caused by the excessive need for attention they should seek to engage the child in daily activities that work to prove the child’s value by involving the child in cooperative activities aimed at meeting the child’s attention needs.
A good plan is to repeatedly ignore inappropriate demands for attention, while at the same time setting aside about half an hour, on a daily basis, to interact directly with such a child. The interaction can be as simple as reading a story, playing a game or watching television. In doing so the child’s needs will be more appropriately met and the annoying interruptions will gradually disappear.
The motive of Power is easily identified because it occurs whenever the parent feels angry with the child. Here, the misbehavior is designed to pull the parent into a struggle for power, not necessarily to win it.
The child’s open displays of defiance are efforts to show parents that they cannot be controlled or told what to do or how to behave. The child may be unwilling to do chores or fights to avoid any effort to force them into doing something they do not want to do. The same arguments occur when a parent attempts to correct misbehaviors which may have originally been for attention alone. The parent often is then forced to reassert added inappropriate controls in order to win such battles.
What must be realized is that parents who have power struggles with their child never win those battles. A child with this motive will not play fair and will use most any means to keep the struggle going. Forced compliance is useless and the parent will only experience endless defeats. Once the battle has been joined, the child has already won it.
The secret to dealing with a child with this motive is to do the following: When the parent first becomes angry they must immediately stop talking and immediately remove themselves
from the child's presence. They must "extricate" themselves from the power struggle; while at the same time avoid the child's efforts to draw them back into it. Such a child will even follow
the parent about in an effort to continue the argument. In this case try escaping to the bathroom, a place symbolizing privacy. Once there, cool down and begin to think of a logical consequence
that fits the situation. On emerging, take action without argument or discussion. An example of an appropriate action may be as follows: The child has refused to do chores claiming that they
are unfair. The action could be; to not set a place for the child at the table or feed the child until the chores have been completed. This method is a fine demonstration that brings forth the insight
that cooperation in the home is a two way street. In thinking up a logical consequence, examine what the home provides the child, and in a nonchalant manner withhold such benefits until the child chooses to do the right thing.
Power struggles can never be won, but the imposition of logical consequences will eliminate them if they are not verbally imposed. Requiring the child to do something to get something, if started with simple tasks, also, works wonders.
Revenge is possibly the most difficult of the four motives identified and requires special understanding. This type of behavior is aimed at hurting others including siblings, parents and the general public. This is the behavior of the delinquent who engage in such behaviors because they think everybody is against them. Such children experience a long history of discouragements where the child decided that attention getting and power will not yield a sense of belonging. The child abandons any effort to attain any feelings of worthiness through constructive activities. Their focus is twisted into misbehaviors where they seek recognition by retaliating against adults and society mainly because of the way they feel they have been mistreated.
These children, if not salvaged, will eventually be lead into habitual criminal activity where punishment will only serve to justify continued aberrant behavior. Parents of such a child often throw up their hands in despair. Professional help is often needed with such children. The first goal should focus on reestablishing communication with the child. The only way a child in revenge can be helped is by convincing the child that the parents are not going to act towards them the way he feels everyone else does. If this can be accomplished, there may be some hope of saving the child before it is too late.
The last of our goals for misbehavior is using displays of disability as an excuse. With this motive parents feel sorry for the child and find that they are repeatedly trapped into doing for the child what the child should be doing on their own.
When children, who have potential, give up on making any effort, they withdraw from the family because they mistakenly assume they cannot be successful at anything. Such children suffer from an extreme form of discouragement which traps parents into their service.
Parents facing such issues should refrain from pushing or pressuring the child to succeed in areas where they feel inadequate. They, however, should stimulate and encourage the child in areas where they do feel successful. By doing so, the child over time may be willing to risk failure at tasks that require more effort. The cause for the development of this motive is discouragement, not of deficient ability.
One of the most common forms of this disability is found in reading retardation. Perhaps, a problem such as this does start as a result of some real deficiency, but quickly shifts into a loss of effort to learn. This is because the child seeks to escape feelings of peer humiliation labeling them as unintelligent. Research shows that if such problems have not been addressed before the child reaches age nine or ten years, the child may not be able to improve his ability thereafter.
This is the type of child that feels inadequate and not able to function and as a result will not even attempt to put forth an effort. Such children need to be placed in an environment free from pressure. The parent should simply seek to provide such a child with extra encouragement and possibly outside help. This approach works to eliminate the reinforcement the child seeks with attempts to use the disability as a means of getting special attention. Such action will work to leave the child free to find success in areas where they are not discouraged. Many children treated in such a manner when left to feel free to make the decision to try, will slowly move in that direction. Parents work best with such children if they provide the child with an atmosphere filled with positive expectancy.