Decoding Misbehaviour: The ‘Why’ Behind Kids’ Actions
As a parent, it can be incredibly frustrating when your toddler seems to be constantly misbehaving. It doesn’t matter how much gentle-parenting you do, how many warnings you give, or even how many threats you use, they still don’t listen! You may find yourself wondering what you’re doing wrong or worrying that maybe your kid is just “bad”. I’ll show you some simple behavioural science to help you figure out what’s really motivating your toddler to misbehave.
No such thing as a bad kid
In the behavioural science approach known as Applied Behaviour Analysis, we come from the assumption that children want to be “good” . By “good” I mean that all human behaviour is motivated by a desire to achieve positive outcomes and avoid negative outcomes.
So then, why do children do “bad” things? Why do they hit their sibling, or refuse food, or scream when we have to leave the park after plenty of warning? To answer this question, we need to look at what “good outcomes” and what “negative outcomes” the child might be trying to achieve or avoid.
7 Reasons for your child’s behaviour
1. Get Away
When a child is presented with something aversive, or is predicting something aversive might be happening soon, they will do things to escape or avoid that negative outcome.
This could look like crying, whining or making demands when you present them with a new food, or when you’re at the doctor’s office.
2. Avoid losing
When a child is in a situation where they feel they might lose something that’s valuable to them, they will behave in ways to to keep that valuable thing, and avoid the negative outcome of losing access.
This could look like crying, whining, or making demands when it’s time to pack away toys or leave the park.
3. To get something good
When a child wants something, they will behave in ways to try and get access to that good outcome.
This could look like crying, whining, or making repeated demands after you said no to the ice-cream, or when walking past the shop window.
4. Seeking Connection
Social connection is a fundamental human need, so it’s not surprise that kids will go to great lengths to get this good outcome. This included autistic kids, and kids with other developmental disabilities. It may look different for different kids, but is still a vital part of healthy development.
Seeking connection could look like crying, whining, or making demands when you’re attention is diverted as you concentrate on making dinner or you’re helping an older sibling with their homework.
5. To feel in control
Research shows, that kids prefer to be in situations where they have agency in their world1. Seeing others be responsive to them is understandably a good outcome. It can also be a tool kids use to make their world more predictable.
This could look like crying, whining, or making demands when they don’t get to sit in spot they wanted, or the colour cup they want, or their parent refuses to be “fed” biscuits from under the fridge.
6. It just feels good
Getting sensory feedback from different actions or sounds can just feel good. As adults this can look like twirling our hair, clicking our pen etc.
For our kids it can look like rocking back and forth, or making that incessant clicking noise with their tongue!
7. Illness/Medical Condition
A sudden or unexplained change in our kids behaviour can indicate that they’re responding to things happening inside their bodies. It’s important to rule this out before making any drastic changes to your parenting.
This can look like seeking more comfort, refusing food or crying with no clear reason.
Get Curious and Observe
Behaviour is complex, and your child might be doing the same behaviour, but for different reasons in different contexts. Notice how in the 7 Reasons for your Child’s Behaviour above, for the first 5 examples, the behaviour LOOKS exactly the same, but what happened BEFORE and/or AFTER the behaviour was different. Kids can do the same behaviour for many different reasons. I know I scroll on my phone for a variety of reasons in different contexts (e.g. to avoid an aversive chore like taking out the bins, or to avoid boredom when I’m at the bus stop, or to find out what my friends are up to while I eat breakfast). To figure out what is motivating your child’s misbehaviour in one particular situation, we need to spend some time just watching with curiosity. Some questions you might ask yourself are:
What did I say or do immediately before they started misbehaving?
What else was happening around them immediately before they started misbehaving?
Did I tell them “no”? Did my actions imply “no”?
Has it been a while since we’ve had some 1:1 time?
Is it almost mealtime?
Using all this information can give us a clue as to what need they’re trying to meet with their behaviour.
What was happening when they STOPPED misbehaving.
A great way to figure out what your child might need is to watch what makes the misbehaviour stop. In other words, what solved their problem? Think about it like this: when you’re hungry, you eat and when you’re full you stop eating. This applies to the 7 reasons for your child’s behaviour we discussed earlier.
Here are some examples to show you how it works:
Example – At the Park
A child starts to cry and whine when a parent tells them “it’s time to leave the park and go home”. The parent figures they can use some extra time finishing packing up their things so they let the child have 5 more minutes to play. All of a sudden the crying stops, and the child starts happily running around the playground again.
You might think the child was simply upset about leaving the park, and you’d be right! But there’s a little more to it. Were they having a big emotional reaction, or have they learned that crying and whining can sometimes get them more playtime? This makes a difference in how a parent responds and the skills they’ll focus on teaching.
Let’s break it down.
When we’re having an emotional response to something, it usually takes a while to calm down. This is especially true for toddlers who are still learning how to handle big feelings. But here, the child stopped crying super fast and went right back to playing when they got 5 more minutes. That tells us they’ve probably learned that crying and whining can help them delay leaving. This accidental lesson can happen so easily, and it doesn’t mean the parent did anything wrong! It just means this child still needs help with a couple of things:
1. Finding other ways to ask for more time at the park (like saying “5 more minutes, please?”
2. Learning to handle disappointment when they inevitably have to leave the park
Don’t worry, I’ll share strategies for tackling situations like this in a future blog post!
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Example – On the phone
A parent has just got home from picking up their toddler from preschool when their phone rings. While the toddler seemed perfectly fine beforehand, as soon as they hear their parents’ ringtone, they start screaming and throw themselves on the floor. The parent decides to ignore the tantrum, and answers the phone. It’s their friend calling, and they can’t hear anything over the screaming so the parent lets their friend know they’ll call them back later. The parent hangs up and puts the phone in their pocket, and crouches down to start unpacking the preschool bag. The toddler stops screaming, stands up and starts climbing on the parent.
What’s going on here? Is the child trying to annoy their parent? Sometimes it can feel like it!
But let’s break it down: the toddler’s crying started when the phone rang, and stopped when their parent got off the phone. If we put this together with the fact they’ve just gotten home from preschool, this could signal that the toddler may be “hungry” for connection.
They’ve been at preschool all day and it’s been many hours since they’ve been with their parent – like when we’re hungry after not eating for many hours. The phone ringing was perhaps a signal that the parent’s attention was going to be unavailable for a while – the equivalent of the shops having a “closed” sign out the front when you’re starving. When the parent hangs up the phone, it’s like the shops opening up again. The climbing could be a way of initiating an interaction to fulfil their craving for connection.
Example – You can’t do anything right
It’s lunch time, and a parent tells their toddler to wash their hands. The child yells “No! I don’t wanna!”, the parent continues to encourage them to wash their hands, while packing up their toys for them. The child eventually crawls towards the sink instead of walking. Once at the sink, the toddler complains they can’t turn the tap on (the parent knows they can). Deciding to pick their battles, the parent helps them turn it on by grabbing the child’s hand, and putting it on the tap while lifting up. The toddler yells, “the water is too cold!”, the parent feels the water and it’s a fine temperature, but they turn it a bit warmer anyway. It’s painstakingly slow, but eventually the child washes their hands. The parent says, “ok, sit at the table and I’ll give you your lunch”. The toddler yells, “I don’t want to sit at the table, I want to sit on the floor!”. The parent says “you can’t eat your lunch on the floor!” The child starts to cry. “Ok, fine you can either sit at the kids table, or at the big table.” The child chooses the big table and takes their seat. The parent puts their lunch plate down and says “ok, make sure you sit properly with your legs down, I don’t want you wriggling around while you eat”. The child screams “I didn’t want the yellow plate!!”
Okay, there’s a lot going on here. We’re seeing some yelling, crying and refusal behaviours, which could mean a lot of things. Maybe the child is hungry, tired, or doesn’t feel well – we all get cranky sometimes!
But notice how these behaviours always happen right after the parent tells the child to do something or when the child doesn’t get a choice. They complained about the water temperature after the parent took their hand and turned the tap on. The child demanded to sit on the floor after being told where to sit, and after being told not to wriggle around, they picked a fight about the colour of the plate.
Also, notice how the child stopped yelling and sat down when the parent offered a choice of which table to sit at. We all like feeling some control over our lives (like what outfit we’re going to wear or what netflix show to watch). Kids want this even more, which makes sense since they have little say in most things.
Giving children more age-appropriate choices is a great place to start if you’re trying to improve their cooperation. Here are some ideas:
- Which colour …(plate/cup/t-shirt etc.) do you want?
- Do you want to sit on the stool or the chair
- Do you want to wear the pink jumper or the red hoodie?
- Do you want to put the left shoe on first or the right?
- Do you want help, or do you want to try on your own?
Behaviour is complex
As we can see in these examples, behaviour is not straight forward. Oftentimes, there are multiple reasons our children are behaving a certain way. They may be trying to avoid one thing in order to access something else, while also having an emotional response to being disappointed. By spending some time observing how your child is responding to the challenges being thrown at them everyday, you can uncover valuable insights. These clues are little messages from your child about what they want and need from you, as their parents. By taking the time to just notice, without judgement, what’s happening, you can respond to the underlying need that’s motivating your child to behave that way.
Need help?
If this all sounds too much for you to do yourself, help is available. Book a free consultation with Beehive Supports.
A highly experienced Board Certified Behaviour Analyst (BCBA) can be your personal coach and help you to assess the purpose behind your child’s behaviour and will also work with you to develop strategies to help your child change their behaviour.
- Luczynski KC, Hanley GP. Examining the generality of children’s preference for contingent reinforcement via extension to different responses, reinforcers, and schedules. J Appl Behav Anal. 2010 Fall;43(3):397-409. doi: 10.1901/jaba.2010.43-397 ↩︎
