"WHY" then "HOW": Understanding problem behavior before responding to it.

One of the most common questions I get from parents of younger kids entering into behavioral therapy / parent coaching is how they can help their child stop doing _________.  Which I totally understand!  But something I always inform parents of at the onset of counseling is that prior to knowing “how” to respond we have to figure out “why” it’s happening in the first place.  In other words, we need to understand the function of the child’s behavior prior to determining best ways to intervene.

While the “why” isn’t always easy to ascertain – and essentially always involves some combination of influences – the broad categories of what motivates a person to do most things can be broken down into four domains.

SENSORY STIMULATION:  Sometimes I turn up the brightness of a room’s lights because it allows me to see things easier, or sometimes I turn up the volume in the car because I’m really into the music I’m listening to.  I’ll eat a hamburger because they taste good and I feel hungry, or I’ll scratch my knee because it itches.  People behave in all kinds of ways because they feel a desire to satisfy sensory-related stimulation, and for kids this might involve intense staring at spinning or dangling objects, or breaking property because they know a “hug” will likely come as a response.

ESCAPE:  This one is pretty straight forward.  Sometimes we just want to flee a situation and will act in ways that allow for us to do so.  For you and I this might include straightforward examples such as walking out of a room that’s too loud.  For kids it can be simple or might look different, like screaming and throwing tantrums at school because they know they’ll “escape” the classroom when teachers respond to their behavior by taking them to the counselor or principal’s office.  Or maybe they know that by throwing food at their sibling at the dinner table they’ll “escape” having to be there after mom or dad takes them to their room in response to their actions.

ATTENTION:  In my experience this functional explanation of behavior gets way overused by clinicians which can lead to inappropriate or ineffective treatment approaches to reduce whatever behavior is being addressed, but there’s no doubt that some problem behavior stems from desires for attention.  Humans are social creatures and sometimes kids can learn through experience some not-so-healthy ways to get this need met, especially by primary caregivers whose attention is the most reinforcing for them of all!  Something I teach many parents is that, perhaps counter-intuitively, negative attention is more reinforcing for kids than a perceived lack of attention; in other words, kids often would rather get in trouble than ignored.  So if you reflect and recognize that perhaps when it comes to high quality attention for your kid (1 on 1, on their level, intense emotions) the majority of the time it involves negative attention, there might be a problem brewing.

ACCESS TO TANGIBLES:  This is exactly what it sounds like; people behaving in certain ways because there’s something physical in their environment that they want access to.  Obvious examples are reaching for a remote because you need to use it to change the channel.  For a kid, they might climb up on furniture to reach objects that are too high to access on their own.  Problem behavior related to this might include screaming or yelling in response to limit setting because they know some percent of the time mom or dad might give in and allow them more time on the tablet, or stealing money because they want to buy a new pair of shoes that they think their parents won’t allow.

Determining what combination of the above is acting as the function of a problem behavior is pretty challenging – especially for young kids whose ability to reflect and elaborate with spoken language is limited - but incredibly important.  A great tool for this is behavior logging, or perhaps more specifically using A-B-C (antecedent, behavior, consequences) Logs.  If you haven’t utilized these before you can ask your therapist for guidance, or if you’re not currently in services with us you could call and we’d be glad to discuss a bit over the phone.    But in sum, please don’t discount the importance of order of operations – knowing “why” a thing is happening has to be what’s tackled first before knowing best “how” to respond to it.