It’s not about the behaviour
It’s October, so for many kids and classrooms, the honeymoon is over. Anyone who spends most of their school day trying to hold it together just can’t any more. Or they can, but then they come home and fall apart. Children may have been struggling all along, or maybe teachers are getting serious and unwittingly ending supports kids were counting on. Either way, it’s harder now, and kids are letting us know.
How? Some kids cry or whine, some get stomachaches or mystery ailments, some take it out on other kids with mean words or bullying. Some become perfectionists, easily frustrated, or paralyzed by even the smallest changes. Some become the “class clown” or interrupt learning. And some kids scream, hit, run, or do other dangerous things.
It’s all the same. Everything I just described is communication. It’s all signs that a child is overwhelmed by the environment, overtaxed by the expectations, or under-supported and needs help. Some kids are able to express this in ways that are articulate (“I need help!”) or at least sympathetic (tears that melt adult hearts and make us say “Oh, honey, let me help you.”). Other kids are not. Those kids do things that get them scolded, sent to the office, or pointed at by peers. It’s all communicating a need for help, but some kids get it, and others get left out or labeled troublemakers.
How do we know this is true? Because we know this: children want to be “good” and successful and cherished. They are already trying as hard as they can to make adults happy. There is not a single child in the world who wakes up and says, “Today, I’m gonna ruin math class, be stared at in horror by my classmates, disappoint my teacher, and spend recess on the bench. I can’t wait!” They are trying. They are trying their hardest and failing, disappointing adults they love and ending up on the bench anyway, and they feel awful about it. Often they don’t even know what they did that made everyone so mad, because they were just trying to do what we want or to tell us they can’t. We know this because we were those kids, and because we have seen what happens when they get the support they need: they thrive.
The important thing is this: we must focus on that need, on what the behaviour can tell us, not on the behaviour itself. If we are only working to teach kids to control their behaviour (“stop interrupting!), or if we are trying to incentivize them to do what we want (“you’ll earn a sticker!”), we’re not addressing the actual problem, and we will always fail. As my own sassy-but-perceptive child once told a behaviour therapist, “You don’t care how I feel. You only care that I act good.”
All this month, The Huddle for Families is focusing on what might be behind the behaviour, so that kids can do more than act good. We’re working to help teachers and families figure out what children might need, because that is the absolute best way to make classrooms, households, and communities more inclusive, safer places for everyone, so everyone’s children can thrive.
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