What Are They Doing When They Do What They Do (and What Do We Do Then)?

By Dr. Goldrich, Ms. Bauer, and Mr. Kemp

All parents (with exception to perhaps B.F. Skinner, John Watson, and Isaac Asimov) at some point or another have wondered why their own kids behave, react, and/or respond to life so unexpectedly.  Parents have the intra-role and inter-role challenge of simultaneously providing many things to their children from instructor, teacher, counselor, supervisor, as well as practitioner of unconditional love, support, nurture, social skills and standards of living.

So when a child reacts to life unexpectedly over a period of time and the parents have tried many things to adjust, the parents begin to see a difficulty in the child’s behavior.  What does that mean?  Behavior is really any measurable response to any stimuli, whether activity or inactivity so that might not be the best description of the child’s situation.  The best perspective might be to see what happens when the child reacts the way they do?  What happens consistently before the child reacts in this way?  What happens during?  What does the child get afterward?

These questions lead us to ask then, “What are the functions of the child’s behavior?”

Some common functions of behavior are:

Adult attention

Attention can be positive or negative, and if the child is not receiving enough positive attention, then negative attention (e.g., reprimands, scolding) may be better than no attention at all.  The child may be seeking attention from peers, adults, certain individuals, or all of the above.

Escape or avoidance

The child may be escaping from something or to something.    For example, a child might become disruptive or oppositional knowing that he or she will be suspended from school and can then escape from school (which is probably not a good place in that child’s opinion).  Perhaps the child would rather be at home watching cartoons, on the internet or hanging out with friends – which means that child, may be escaping to something.  We may be talking about avoiding a place, a task (‘I hate math!”), a person.

The child may be escaping from a strong emotion such as fear or may be trying to avoid embarrassment in front of the whole class (“I’d rather be bad than stupid.”).

     11/26/2007