Bad Behavior for Children
Bad behavior in children can be very distressing for parents. Bad behaviors include using abusive language, violent and aggressive actions, lying, throwing or breaking things, stealing and refusing to cooperate in any simple tasks or household chores. Children of different ages may tend to show different kinds of bad behaviors.
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Is the Behavior Intentional?
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There are many reasons why a child may behave badly. Sometimes such behaviors are accidental and sometimes intentional. If a child is deliberately stealing or breaking things around the house, the bad behavior is intentional. However, if the child accidentally hurts another child at school, this may be unintentional behavior that simply has bad consequences.
Causes of Bad Behavior
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Depending on the environment around the child, there may be many different reasons why a child may choose to behave badly. Younger children are impulsive and may not always understand the consequences of their actions. Most of the time, bad behavior in young children occurs only because the child is not able to understand how to behave nicely. Older children on the other hand, may simply be defiant and behave badly because of resentment of rules. Other causes for bad behavior include fear of something and pressures due to stress.
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How to Determine the Cause of Bad Behavior
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According to Child Central, most children only behave badly if they have some kind of incentive. This incentive could be anything. For instance, a child may bully other children to feel power over others. The cause of the bad behavior is almost always the incentive to perform such behavior. If you are able to understand what the child gains from behaving badly, you can understand the cause of the behavior.
How to Deal with Child's Bad Behavior
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Parents often make the mistake of getting angry or yelling at their child if he is behaving badly. According to history's most noted behavioral psychologist, B.F. Skinner, who founded behaviorism, positive reinforcement of good behavior and negative reinforcement of bad behavior are two of the best methods for shaping a child's behavior. This means that if children are rewarded when they perform a good behavior, they tend to repeat it and it becomes a behavioral pattern. Similarly, if children are made to feel unpleasant for bad behavior, they tend to avoid it. Being assertive with children, when trying to get your point across, is also helpful.
Passive Behavior
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Though hardly considered bad behavior, behaving in a passive manner may not be a healthy sign for your child. Passive behavior may simply mean that the child withdraws from everyone around him. The child may prefer to remain silent, and speak only on rare occasions. Such passivity may quickly convert into depression, if not dealt with in time. Depression is also one of the most common causes of teen suicide and may often stem from passive behaviors exhibited during childhood.
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