Post No.: 0945
Furrywisepuppy says:
The younger a child is, the more impatient they’re naturally going to be. Temper tantrums are common with toddlers too. But there are some things you can do to improve matters.
Use distraction to get their mind off a tantrum – when their mind is on something else (that’s pleasant) then it won’t be on what’s causing their frustration. Alternatively try getting them from feeling anger to feeling sadness by comforting them.
It’s controversial whether to let a child just scream it out during a tantrum, or to succumb to their undesirable desires to stop their screaming. Some think the former approach will demoralise and scar them mentally. But possibly the greater longer-term negative effect will be to constantly reinforce the notion that throwing tantrums will get them whatever they want. It usually takes the parent enduring a bit of pain (i.e. being patient themselves and riding out the tantrum calmly) in order to reap the longer-term relief of having a child who doesn’t think that throwing aggressive tantrums is how to gain things in life.
Do first consider if your child has something like autism because they might be throwing a tantrum in a supermarket because their senses are being overwhelmed by all the sights, sounds and smells in that kind of environment? This points to a wider consideration (e.g. your child’s fussy eating behaviours might be due to something like autism too, where certain tastes, smells or textures are heightened and feel too much for them). Taking into account their age because what we consider naughty could be just kids being kids at their age (some things they’ll naturally grow out of, although children won’t all cross certain developmental milestones at exactly the same ages), plus we shouldn’t be pathologising every behaviour we disapprove of – with constantly disruptive children, we must look deeper for the causal reasons rather than instantly blame them or even their parents.
Especially with children – because they’ve yet to fully develop the ability to emotionally regulate or socially express themselves clearly – it’s important to try to investigate what may be causing a child to behave truculently or disruptively, rather than jumping immediately into shouting and punishing them for their behaviours. It might be something in school, something about their body image, something they saw on the news, or something else? Besides, if you jump immediately into defensive shouting and expressing a lack of compassion then that’d be the example you’d set for them; and you’ll reap what you sow.
Physically burning off energy to tire them out so that they have less energy to be disruptive in school is a useful idea. But if there’s a deeper reason for the disruptive behaviour then it won’t tackle that root issue, which needs to be uncovered.
Punishing children in school through suspensions (being temporarily removed from school) or expulsions (being permanently expelled from a school) will only further harm their education. However, this can be understandable in order to protect the education of the other classmates – we shouldn’t punish the 100% just because of the actions of the 4% (unless we don’t know who committed a misdeed and/or to instil a collective responsibility for each other, I guess). It’s not right to expel pupils merely because they’ll bring the school grade average down though. Suspensions or expulsions usually only make a pupil fall even further behind until they wonder what’s the point of school at all. They might consequently be pushed and pulled into the lure of street crime or gangs – a place where they’ll be accepted and can gain some respect from others.
Disruptive pupils therefore need understanding more than blame, and they need support rather than shunning. Some however argue that to give extra tuition or other special perks for disruptive pupils could create inappropriate incentives for other pupils to become disruptive too.
Young carers are often put in detention for being late to arrive at school because they were caring for their relatives – so kids always need a right to defend their cases. Without dialogue, there’s no joint problem solving. Through dialogue, teachers may also discover that things like the option of after-school tutoring sessions aren’t viable for some of their pupils because they don’t have transport if they stay in school later or they must get home to look after their siblings straight after school.
A faster pacing and style of teaching is fine for the brighter students in a class. Meanwhile, disruptive students can hold other students back from reaching their fullest potential. The ‘substitute teacher effect’ is when pupils know that a substitute teacher is only going to be there for a short while before they’re gone so the pupils misbehave more.
Pupils in East Asian countries like China tend to academically outperform those in Western countries like the UK on average. Some in the UK posit that there’s far more pressure on kids in China to perform highly and that the stress levels placed upon them aren’t actually worth it for their mental well-being. Others contend that there may be a greater sense of duty and fairness towards others in collectivist cultures like in China, thus a great social shame upon oneself to be disruptive towards one’s classmates despite the competitive environment, meaning that Chinese classes are typically more productive, individually as well as collectively.
So it’s about seeking that optimal balance between cooperation/collectivism and competition/individualism in schools, as in other contexts. The most optimal balance I believe is like with some sporting siblings – they want to beat each other individually but they’ll cooperate enough to share their best knowledge with each other and will help each other out to firstly collectively beat all external competitors. Also, by nurturing their sibling into being their toughest competitor, it raises their own game since they do want to beat them.
Morning exercises, like in schools in some East Asian countries, are also a beneficial idea. And parents should care about what their children did in school and their homework. It’s not about parents passing the entire buck onto teachers for their children’s education and behaviour in school.
For a stressed-out teacher or parent, it’s too instinctive to bark at a disruptive child, but one needs to be authoritative without escalating the temperature. One needs to get the other person in a suitable frame of mind to listen first before they’ll listen i.e. you’ll need to wait until they’re calm again. Once more enquire whether there’s something up perhaps at school or elsewhere – especially regarding ‘out of character’ behaviour. Don’t jump into disciplining them without first obtaining the facts otherwise you’ll lose their trust and respect. If you’ve shown that you don’t care to understand them before, they’ll not want to confide in you regarding their hidden problems because they’ll believe you won’t listen. Disruptive behaviours are seldom only about something that just happened there and then in isolation. There’s a background that needs to be investigated and understood. Effects have their causes.
Ask their teachers and maybe peers to cross-check the extent of their behaviour. Look at your own effects as a parent/caregiver (e.g. any spousal relationship disputes, the way you treat the child). Ask simply what’s on their mind? Ask your child alone and in an environment where they’re comfortable to tell you what may be on their mind. Ask about things they might not actively go and tell you (e.g. bullying outside of the home). Ask what events might’ve affected them recently (e.g. from the news)? Ask are they feeling happy or unhappy? (Don’t directly ask why they may be feeling the way they’re feeling since they often themselves don’t understand.) Think laterally (e.g. check their eyesight, hearing, sleeping patterns, did the behaviour only change once they had a new sibling in the family?) And furry crucially also look at the positives, the good times and where and when your child does well, is content and is flourishing, too.
Because people tend to behave consistently in the same situations – if a child is misbehaving in the same situations then try placing them in a different one (e.g. a different room, a different role, with a different group of people, doing something at a different time of day).
If they won’t follow your requests – try giving them a couple of options but both of which you’ll be happy with them accepting. (Some fixed penalty fines, like parking fines, offer the offender a chance to pay a smaller fine if they pay it promptly or a larger fine if they don’t – the psychology is that if you pay promptly, you’ll feel relieved that you dodged the larger penalty, even though you still had to pay something. Thus if you want your child to complete a chore, give them the option of doing that or if they don’t want to do that then they must do a much worse chore!)
Turn tasks into games. For instance chores or instructions can be challenges, light-hearted competitions, role-playing as adults with adult jobs, or framed as story quests. Games also have clear rules and goals thus rules and goals aren’t only necessary but are the basis for many fun games, although free play without rules is valuable at other times.
The above kind of role-play might help a child understand the perspectives of teachers, parents and other adults better too. Trying to look at things from the perspectives of others is a vital life skill so get children to try and make arguments that support an opposing side’s stance to understand that side’s position and thinking process better – this might result in them understanding compromises (or they may glean things that could be used to their own advantage!)
If you tell them to wait ‘for a minute’ then they might wait for literally a minute and then wonder why you haven’t attended to them yet! (They might also consider this as a lie and think that stretching the truth is allowed according to your example.) So if you want a child to be patient then more than asking them to just be patient – tell them what to do in the meantime (e.g. go look for a toy), or tell them to pretend to be a superhero character they know of whom displays the quality you want them to model. Then when they demonstrate patience – specifically praise their patience.
Even adults could try to (privately and not over-seriously!) assume a superhero persona to help them overcome something like shyness or doubt. Sometimes when people put on a costume, they cannot help but become an alter ego!
Sometimes children take instructions too literally because they’ve not yet learned about social nuances (e.g. if you tell them to not shout or interrupt you, they might not do so even if it’s important!) And in a way it’s not fair to punish them for following instructions literally until they’re old enough to know better, perhaps.
Which leads to treating them as the age they are – not as a baby unless they are a baby! If they fall in the garden then they’ll be fine – better to experiment with their moves there than somewhere like on a road. Support their efforts but don’t crumble and blink first and do things for them whenever they don’t do things for themselves, just to save yourself some frustration – they’ll lose an opportunity to build the confidence to do things they should be able to do for themselves. Learning to wait until others do stuff for them won’t work outside of the home too. Our short-term headache-savers can lead to longer-term headaches (e.g. for always picking up after them because they won’t, whereas if they know they must tidy up after themselves, they’ll learn to make less mess in the first place). We must always think about the attitudes and habits that we wish to instil in them and will serve them well when they grow older.
Woof!
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