Challenging Behaviors

Those of you that know me know that my job is to go around and teach people how to work with little kids with disabilities and/or challenging behaviors.  It is a job that I love.  I love working with kids with behavior issues and helping adults understand behavior.  So, I thought I'd share a bit about behaviors in the hopes that it might help the parents out there. 

First, the most important thing to know about behavior is that ALL behavior is a form of communication.  Everything we do in life has some message behind it.  It might be "I'm eating because I'm hungry." Or, it might be "I'm driving the speed limit because I fear a ticket."  Or, it might be "I'm yelling because I'm frustrated."  The hard part is figuring out what the behavior means.  Far too often I hear people say things like, "he hits for no reason."  I have to remind them that there is a reason, we just need to figure it out.  So, when a child hits, yells, cusses, bites, etc, they are trying to communicate something.

Once you figure out what they are telling you through the behavior, you need to deal with that, not the actual behavior.  If a child hits because they don't know how to engage, and you teach them how to engage, the hitting stops.  If a child bites because they are angry and you teach them how to express anger, the biting stops.  If a child bites because they are learning cause and effect and you provide other ways to learn about that (including other ways to learn orally) they stop biting.  Now, this won't happen overnight.  It will take a long time.  But, the behavior should steadily decrease, if you have the communication correct.  That is the key.  Track how often the behavior occurs and then implement a strategy to address the message of the behavior.  If the behavior decreases, even only 1 time in a 2-week span, you may be onto the right message. 

It takes lots of patience to address behavior this way, but it is much more rewarding for the adult and much more beneficial for the child.  Think about it this way, if you don't know how to talk to someone without yelling, would it be more helpful for you to sit in time out (or worse, get hit) each time you yelled or would it be more helpful for you to be taught how to talk rather than yell each time you yelled?  The same holds true for kids.