Is your child a Jekyll and Hyde? | Integrated Learning Therapy

Many readers will agree that their children are well-behaved at school or at their friends’ homes but turn into little monsters once they get back home.

Of course, all children misbehave sometimes, especially when they get tired after a long school day or play date. However, some children seem to behave consistently worse at home than when with other people.

Trevor Mazzucchelli explores this common problem for The Conversation and offers the following insights.

Behaviour is learned

From very early days, a child‘s behaviour produces results or outcomes. For example, babies soon learn crying is a very effective way of signalling their distress and will result in having a nappy changed or being fed. A smile often results in an adult smiling back, cooing or cuddling the baby. In these ways, children learn that their behaviours can be a way of controlling the actions of others.

The bad behaviour pay-off

Children’s behaviour, whether desirable or undesirable, is influenced by the consequences it produces.

Sometimes, the reactions of parents or siblings can accidentally reward misbehaviour, and children learn undesirable behaviour has a payoff.

For example, children may learn that when they don’t do as they’re told, they get extra attention from their parents. This attention may be unpleasant, and not regarded as a ‘reward’ by the adults but children might like the attention they get as a result.

Children may also learn when they whine, complain and nag for something they are more likely to get it.

Unfortunately, in this scenario, the child is rewarded for whining and the parent is rewarded for giving them what they want by stopping an unpleasant noise (at least in the short term). As both the child and the parent are rewarded, this interaction is likely to occur again.

Why do children behave better at school?

Children behave better at school than at home because teachers have very good systems in place. Children are kept busy with a variety of engaging activities, expectations of children’s behaviour are clear, and the payoff for desirable behaviour is reliable. Teachers are well-practiced at recognizing and rewarding desirable behaviour through attention, praise, and sometimes token reward systems.

Children also tend to copy their peers’ behaviour, particularly if they see it gets results, such as attention from the teacher or access to prized activities.

How can parents encourage children to behave better at home?

The good news is if children behave well in one setting, you know they are capable of doing the same at home.

Parents can value children‘s need to relax at home while still expecting them to be polite and follow rules. By making some small changes, it’s usually possible to see much improved behaviour.

Here are some practical things parents can do:

Establish routines. Have a routine for when your child gets home from school or outings. This might include allowing your child to unwind and relax, giving them a healthy snack, and then setting them up with an engaging activity. Routines make it easier for everyone to transition from one setting to another. It is even better if the routine includes activities—such as colouring-in or a run around outside—that are calming or burn off energy.
Set simple house rules. Have a few simple rules that clearly communicate to your child how you expect them to behave. For example: “use an inside voice” or “keep the toys on the floor”.
Notice good behaviour. Let your child know when they have done the right thing. Do this by describing what you are pleased with (“you two are sharing the toy so nicely”). This will make it more likely the behaviour will occur again.
Spend small amounts of time with your child regularly. This is especially important when your child approaches you for help or attention. It shows you’re there for them and they do not need to become louder or act out to get your attention. Spending small amounts of time—as little as one or two minutes—often throughout the day is a powerful way of strengthening your relationship with your child and preventing problem behaviour.
Have realistic expectations. Change is easier if you focus on one or two goals at a time. Also, when striving to improve behaviour, expect occasional setbacks. No child (or parent) is perfect!

Provided by The Conversation

Image provided by Freepik

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.