Children, like anyone else, can get cranky, defiant, and display bad behavior from time to time. Obviously, the goal for parents is to correct these types of behaviors, and resolve the issues at hand. But, how is a parent supposed to do so?
Dr. Stuart Shanker, a research professor of philosophy and psychology at York University in Toronto, believes there is a five-step process that can help defuse such behaviors in children. He calls his strategy “Self-Reg,” which is also the title of his new book, written in cooperation with Teresa Barker, Self-Reg: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage with Life.
In his book, Shanker discloses the five step strategy and more, but you can check out the five step process that this expert in the field believes can defuse and resolve your child's worst behavior:
1. Reading signs/understanding meanings of difficult behaviors
Shanker suggests that to understand why a kid is angry or acting up, you have to understand the basic science of behavior. "The reasons are a function of how the brain works under extreme stress," says Shanker. "When the child is overstressed, the front part of his brain that he would use to think about his actions to restrain himself goes offline. The more primitive part of his brain takes over and it acts on impulses and very strong negative emotion. In stress behaviour, the child is not actually choosing anything. He’s probably not even conscious of what he’s doing."
Learn more of Dr. Shanker's ways to defuse your child's worst behavior!
2. Identifying the source of stress
Developing kids, preteens, and teens are all going to lash out or have a temper tantrum at some point. It's only natural. What parents need to first do when addressing their behavior is try to understand what the root cause of the behavior. Shanker says parents need to be astute observers of what's bothering their children before anything. Are they hungry, scared, tired, overwhelmed or stressed? These can all be causes of difficult behavior. Use general observation skills to try to determine what's troubling them and work from there.
3. Reducing stress
Now that you know why bad behaviors arise, and you've determined the reason for this particular situation, you can work to reduce stress in your child. This obviously depends on what your child's source of stress is, so prepare to be flexible in how to defuse the behavior. "There’s no one-size-fits-all. Parents have to find out through experimenting what works for their kids," says Shanker. In any case, the key is to remain calm. You needn't add to the tension or stress by raising your voice, or punishing your kid. Work to resolve the situation.
4, Recognizing the feeling of excessive stress
Empathy is a powerful tool when it comes to parenting. Try to relate your own experiences with being overly stressed and try to use that to your advantage. If you can understand the feeling that your child is experiencing, you'll find it much easier to defuse the situation.
5. Determining how to regain calmness
"We have to get them back into a calmly focused and alert state," says Shanker. "When we’ve done that, now the child can process whatever we’re trying to teach, provided that we don’t turn the alarm back on, don’t threaten, don’t shout."
How do we reach this state of calm? "We have to help them recognize when they’re overstressed, what the signs are, what the stressors are and to learn how to reduce those stressors," he adds. Furthermore, he suggests that we need to teach children to effectively resolve these issues by themselves and that we have to teach them how to do that.
Dr. Shanker's "Self-Reg" strategy was originally shared by The Globe and Mail
READ: 10 Ways for kids to take risks in a world full of no’s
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