Hellobee

Ahh, bad behavior. It’s something every child displays at one point or another, and it’s something that every parent struggles with. Toddlers are especially known for their challenging behavior (terrible twos, anyone?) and I’ve heard so many of my parent friends ask “why is my child acting like this?”

I’m about to have a toddler on my hands myself, and as he gets older I’m starting to find that I’m dealing with some of the same behaviors I’ve heard my friends complain about for years. As a special education teacher who specializes in working with students with autism, I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to behavior. I love it. I love the challenge of figuring out how to “fix” a difficult behavior, I love seeing children turn their bad behaviors into good behaviors, and I love analyzing behavior. It’s been a passion of mine for years, and so I don’t find myself dreading the difficult time of toddlerhood quite as much as I might if I didn’t have a firm grasp on how behavior works and what I need to do about it. So, I thought today we could chat a bit about behavior, what it means, and why in the world our children act so dang crazy sometimes.

The most important thing you can ever possibly remember about behavior is this: Behavior is communication. No one does anything just because they can. There is always something to be communicated or some purpose for every behavior in the world. This is called the function of the behavior. There are four basic functions of any behavior, ever. Seems too simple to be true, right? But seriously – only four functions for just about every behavior you can possibly imagine. So what are they?

1. Attention

With toddlers and younger children, this is probably a very frequent function for behavior. Attention-seeking behaviors serve the purpose of getting attention (obviously). The key here to remember is that the attention does not have to be positive. Some kids thrive on negative attention! These behaviors can be tough to get rid of, and are maintained by any type of attention – sometimes something as small as eye contact is enough to provide the attention the child is looking for!

How can you tell if a behavior is attention-seeking? A perfect example I like to use comes from my mentor teacher when I was student teaching. They had a student that was new to them and they hadn’t really “learned” his behaviors yet. His first day, he ripped some pages out of a book during art class. They naturally made a very big deal about how that was not okay and made him apologize to the art teacher. They figured since they had expressed such clear displeasure and had him say he was sorry, he’d get the message and they wouldn’t see that again. But guess what happened the very next day in art class? More pages ripped. For this kid, he loved that they made such a big deal out of it, and it was exactly what he wanted. So of course he was going to keep doing it!

If you really want a true understanding of behavior and how it works, it’s also important to remember that “behavior” does not just mean bad behavior. Everything you do in life is technically a behavior, and much of what we as adults do can also be classified as attention-seeking! More neutral or positive examples of attention-seeking behavior would include asking a question, calling someone on the telephone, raising your hand in class to speak, or sending someone a text or email – when you do all of those things, you’re hoping to obtain some sort of response or attention from another person.

2. Escape

These behaviors pop up in order to avoid doing something unpleasant. These behaviors can also be seen as an attempt to “distract” you from the non-preferred activity, person, item, etc. Sometimes escape behaviors are displayed to avoid something completely, other times just delaying the inevitable a bit is enough. These are pretty easy to extinguish if you know what you’re doing, but the key to escape behaviors (and honestly, any behavior) is to be completely 100% consistent at all times!

What do escape behaviors look like? For a child, an escape behavior may be throwing a tantrum every time you go to the grocery store. Or, one of Jackson’s favorites, crying when playtime is over and it’s time to put pajamas on for bedtime. The behavior exists because the child is hoping that you’ll say, “Oh, you’re upset? Never mind, let’s keep playing!”

Adult examples of escape behavior could include: canceling lunch with a friend because you don’t feel up to going, calling in sick to work (regardless of whether or not you’re actually sick), hiding from someone you know in Target because you don’t want to say hi (admit it – we’ve all done it!), or even something as simple as changing the channel on the television because you don’t like the show that’s on.

3. Access to a tangible

This function is very similar to attention-seeking behavior, but instead of trying to gain attention, you’re trying to gain access to something. It might be a toy, food, an activity, or a place. This is always a desired or preferred item or activity – it may be something in your house you already own, it may be a toy at the store, or it may be an event or activity that the child likes.

Jackson, for example, displays all sorts of behavior when I have my phone in my hand and he decides he wants to play with it. Or my laptop. Or a book. Or, basically, anything that he’s not supposed to play with. He often cries, throws his entire body on the floor, and whines at me.

But, the behavior could be much simpler than that – it could be something as easy as reaching out to try and take something! Other examples of this type of behavior could be shopping (the whole reason you’re out there spending your money is to bring something home!), going on vacation, grabbing the ice cream out of the freezer, or making a registry for your baby shower!

4. Sensory

Sensory-seeking behavior is behavior that exists solely because it feels good. It can also be referred to as self-stimulatory behavior, or (if you’re familiar with the autism world) stimming. This behavior is most frequently associated with children who have autism – they often flap their hands, walk on their toes, make strange vocalizations, or twirl in circles. This is all because for whatever reason it feels good to their systems.

But these types of behaviors aren’t limited to children with autism. Not even a little bit. For your child, sensory-seeking behavior could include something like jumping on the trampoline, playing with bubbles in the bathtub, playing in the mud or with finger paints, or picking their nose (gross!).

The best way to think of self-stimulatory behavior, though, is in relation to yourself. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of sensory behavior as something your child doesn’t do, but we all have stims that we do on a daily basis! For me? I chew on straws when I’m nervous, I play with my hair, and I play with my rings. Some people chew on their nails, twirl pens, make beats on the table, or pace around the room. Even scratching your nose when it itches would be considered sensory-seeking behavior! Just remember that these behaviors serve the sole function of making you more comfortable/feel good. These behaviors are often mindless and you may not even realize that you’re doing them until someone points it out.

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And with those four functions you can explain just about anything that anyone might ever do. It’s just about impossible to actually change a child’s behavior until you truly understand why it is happening, so it’s incredibly important to know what these functions are. If you pay attention, you’ll very quickly start to be able to categorize your child’s behavior into the different functions, and it will all start to make a little more sense. Be careful not to get too into it though or you might find yourself analyzing your spouse’s behavior, and trust me when I say it tends to annoy them a bit.

Next time, I’ll delve into how you should respond to each of these behaviors, as well as how you should NOT respond to them!