Managing Children’s Behavior at Home

By: Ben Flanagan, MSW, Rachel Piper, LLMSW & Suzi Naguib, Psy.D.

Just when you think you have a situation under control, you hear the harsh cry of one of the shortest, but most powerful words within your child’s vocabulary: 

“NO!”

In this moment, part of you might be confused, frustrated and at a loss for words. Another part of you may even want to just lie down, and ignore the situation until you have more energy to confront it. While these situations may seem unexpected and impossible to handle, some well-researched behavior management strategies can help you to better navigate these challenging interactions with your child.

Challenging and oppositional behaviors are common among children and adolescents, but if any of the situations above seem to occur more often than not, it may be time to implement some alternative behavioral management strategies. For proper preparation, it is recommended that you first review some well-researched behavior management books with strategies that are applicable across a variety of contexts. A number of these particular strategies can be incorporated into homelife as soon as you read them. However, it is only through consistent use that the strategies may help to alleviate tense situations and even increase the frequency of positive parent-child interactions in your household. 

Defining Behaviors

When managing a problematic behavior with your child, it is important to first identify and define the targeted behavior you wish to address so that both you and your child can have a clear understanding of your goal. The identified behavior should be specific, observable and measurable. Take for example the difference between the following two identified behaviors:

“I want my child to stop acting out in the morning”

Or

“I want my child to put their shoes on 5 minutes before we leave for school”

The second behavior, putting shoes on 5 minutes before school, is a single highly specific behavior, it can be observed when it is occurring, and parents can track whether or not it occurs each day. Acting out, on the other hand, is a vague and negatively stated behavior. A well-defined behavior helps parents to clearly understand their desired goal and more easily track progress towards it. Once a behavior is identified and defined, you can then start working on strategies to manage it.

Controlling Antecedents

Often, the problematic behaviors we do not want to see will occur after the presence of some preceding situational circumstance. We refer to these provoking stimuli as “antecedents”. Antecedents can really be anything and are often individualized for each child. For example, one might notice that their child tends to yell after unexpected changes in routine. In this case, the antecedent would be the unexpected change in routine. As we work to change a child’s negative behavior, we want to identify the antecedent with the ultimate goal of changing it. Referring to the example provided, if a parent wants their child to yell less often, they would likely need to work on increasing warnings before transitions so that the frequency of unexpected changes in routine decreases. Essentially, the goal here is to eliminate or minimize the frequency of these unhelpful antecedents in order to decrease the likelihood of an undesired behavior occurring. 

When attempting to control antecedents it is important to keep in mind that this may require implementing creative strategies, and there is only so much you can control. Start small, and focus on strategies that are feasible, and more easily manageable for you. 

Provide Choices

A helpful strategy that can often be overlooked is providing choices to a child. When we provide children with choices, it can work to alleviate the power differential between you and your child, giving them a sense of autonomy in a situation that you ultimately still have control of. For example, if you want your child to put on their pajamas and brush their teeth, you might ask them, “Would you like to brush your teeth first, or put on your pajamas?” At the end of the night, they still completed both tasks that you needed them to complete, yet they had the autonomy to choose which task they completed first. This can help to diffuse tense situations and increase the likelihood that a child will listen to your commands. 

Clear Directions

When providing directions to your child, it can also be helpful to consider how the directions are being phrased. Directions should be clear, short, specific, and positively stated. Making sure your directions are clear can increase the likelihood of compliance simply by making sure that your child fully understands the expectations of the command. Keeping directions specific and short will make tasks seem more manageable and less overwhelming. In addition, directions are most clear when they focus on what you want a child to do rather than what not to do. This reframing strategy is referred to as using positive opposites and can be helpful to increase compliance. For example, if a child is yelling, and you would like them to be quieter, consider the difference between the two remarks below:

“Stop yelling”

Or

“Please use a quieter voice” / “Please use an indoor voice”

Using a quieter voice is a concrete direction, whereas stop yelling does not indicate what the child should be doing instead. Negatively phrased directions can also escalate an already tense parent-child interaction. 

In addition to giving clear directions, it can be beneficial to state the reason for the request. Utilizing the above example, you might follow your command with, “Thank you for listening and using your indoor voice. Now I can understand how I can support you.” This adds to the genuineness of the interaction and teaches the child the significance of the request. 

Conclusion

If you continue to have difficulties managing your child’s behaviors, consider trying some of the strategies above to help increase your positive relationship with your child and improve management of their behaviors. Remember, progress takes a lot of time and consistent use of these strategies. For more information and support related to managing your child’s behavior, please review the Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) section on the Sunfield Center website.

References

Child Mind Institute. Dealing with Disruptive Behaviors. Parents.

Hall, N., Williams, J., & Hall, P. S. (2000). Fresh approaches with oppositional students. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 8(4), 21.

Naguib, S., Kurtz S. (2004).  Managing Behavior at Home. The Parent Letter, Volume 3(2).