Bad Behavior - Is it just a Phase?
“My 5 year old has just started school. Before school she was always polite, caring, helpful. Since going to school, while she still appears to be so with her teachers (so they say), she now really pushes the boundaries at home. Some kids at school have taught her to swear, talk back, talk about sex in very broad terms. She talks back and while fundamentally she is still a wonderful and very smart little girl, her smarts have turned into “smarty-pants”.
You might not sure how I should teach her to make the right choices about right vs. wrong. She has already missed school at the insistence of her 5 year old friend. HOw can you help her when she is not under your watchful eye at school? How do I ensure she will make the right choice on her own?
Hmmm, how indeed? Let’s look at the underlying principles.
Kids, like you and me, are doing their best to succeed in life. So their behaviors are their attempts to get good results for themselves, as they themselves would define them. Those “good results” might be to satisfy basic urges such as hunger and warmth, they might be to get approval and love - from their parents, or from their friends, or they might be simply to have fun and excitement.
Whatever their priority need at the time, the behavior they use is their best attempt to meet the need.
They will find that their behaviors don’t always result in success. They learn from this and experiment with other behaviors until they find the ones that yield the desired result. When deciding what behavior to have we rely on experience, direction for our parents, and our skills and abilities. We create a group of behaviors that we hope will serve our needs effectively.
After trial and error we will find the behaviors that meet our needs. We will use these behaviors to get what we want. The more we are successful with a certain behavior, the more we engage in that behavior.
So, your little 5 year old sweetheart is experimenting! Having just arrived at school, her world has opened to a whole new range of possible behaviors that she had never considered before! That’s pretty exciting in itself! Now, she wonders, which of these behaviors will work for me? Which will get me fun, approval, friends, love, food, whatever? So she tries them to see.
Many of these behaviors, once tried, will be abandoned. Some will be kept, and incorporated into her normal lifestyle. Which will they be? That depends on what outcomes she experiences. At this age the approval of parents is pretty important, so your response to them will certainly be an influence. But so too will be outside influences, such as explicit rewards or punishments, the approval of teachers and, of course, her friends.
You have a great deal of influence as her parent. When she is this young she will listen to you. Later on is another story. Your influence appears in two ways.
1. How you respond emotionally to her behaviors. Do you approve or disapprove of her behaviors?
2. How you control her external environment. You have the power to choose her school, neighbors, and people she will be in contact with. You are the one who can give her punishments and rewards.
Weaving what he discussed together and looking at this strategically, you need to answer the following questions:
Do you think your daughter is just experimenting with her behaviors and that it will pass? If you do, then don’t worry about it at all as she will move on to better behavior. Kids tend to do mischievous things at this age and still end up to be productive adults.
Bear in mind that if you over-react to things like her swearing that may, in itself, actually make the behavior seems MORE exciting rather than less. Generally, “chilling out” is the better way to go.
If you feel as if her bad behavior is escalating too much then you need to do something to combat it.
When this happens you will need to rely on your opinion of the situation. Are you doing all the things you can as a parent? Make sure that you are a positive role model. Remember, you have a significant influence on her.
Next, check out the school and your neighborhood. How have the children who grew up in this neighborhood fared when they grew up? Do they become productive adults or do most of the kids spend time in juvenile detention for most of their teenage years?
Take the time to talk with parents and teachers at school. Each school has a culture and perhaps your daughter is trying to fit into this culture. How concerned are the teachers? Does the behavior of most kids at the school improve as they grow up out their phases?
You cannot control every factor in their lives. You cannot guarantee that they will learn right from wrong. But you can increase the chances. And, as ever, you do that by being as good, and strategic, a parent as you can.
