TYPICAL MISBEHAVIOR OF CHILDREN

AIM

To provide an in-depth exploration of children’s misbehavior.

To observe social-emotional behavior of children.

INTRODUCTION

Temper tantrums are unpleasant and disruptive behaviors or emotional outbursts (Kaneshiro, 2013).

As children are still young, they cannot express their needs or control their emotions when their needs or desire unmet.

The video is about a girl named Sophia, throwing tantrum because she lost her stamp that she won in school.

This include whining, crying, kicking, throwing and screaming.

HOW THE BEHAVIOR COULD HAVE BEEN LEARNT

There are several ways that this misbehavior of the children could be learnt1. Personality2. Learned behavior3. Family relationships4. Lack of social interactions

1. PERSONALITY

"Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristics behavior and though" (Allport, 1961, p. 28).

Egocentrism refers to the child's inability to see a situation from another person's point of view.

According to Piaget, the egocentric child assumes that other people see, hear, and feel exactly the same as the child does.

From the observation, Sophia might be egocentric. At her age, she was not able to stand on her mother’s point of view and understand how her mother feels when she threw tantrum.

When Sophia’s need is unmet (she lost her hand stamp), she assumed that her mother can feel her, and yet her mother did not give any response on that. That might be one of the reasons that explain Sophia’s misbehavior.

Sophia knew that she is wrong and apologized to her mother. But at her age, she might not fully develop the ability to control her emotion.

2. LEARNED BEHAVIOR

According to Albert Bandura social learning theory, he states that behavior is learnt from the environment (McLeod, 2011)

Through observation, children learn both good and bad behavior.

They pay attention to some of these behaviors and encode them.

They will use the behavior that works best.

Sophia might have learnt the ‘throwing tantrum’ behavior where she observe other children before.

She might not know how to react when she lost something – thus throw tantrums.

Trial and error where she kicks and throws things – didn’t work.

Then, she told the mother that she needs her mother and said “I love you” – trying some other way to attract the mother’s attention.

3. FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

4. LACK OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

The opportunity for social interactions with others is very important for the development of all children. Through social interactions, children begin to establish a sense of ‘self’ and to learn what others expect of them.

Social interactions for young children primarily occur within family and later, as children grow and develop, they become more and more interested in playing and interacting with peers.

The nature of parent-child interactions is related to a child’s development of social skills (Seefeldt, 2010).

In addition, while interacting with their families and peers, young children learn communication and cognitive skills.

Children who learn appropriate social skills often have a higher self-esteem and show a greater willingness to interact with their environment as they grow.

Lack of social interaction can leads to misbehavior in young children. Generally, children misbehavior takes place when their needs are not met, for example, their needs to communicate.

Children with profound difficulties in understanding others and in communicating with them it is hardly surprising for frustration, anger and anxiety to build up (Mark Hutten, 2009).

Also, lack of social interaction may affects children social functioning and their ability to react and deal with stressful situations.

Sophia demonstrated a number of characteristic behaviors, including screaming, kicking and throwing things, crying and lying on floor.

This may due to lack of social interactions where she was unable to express her emotions and feelings in a proper way. Instead of speaking in a proper way and calmly talk to her mother, she screamed and threw things around the kitchen and room.

Sophia felt upset when she had lost her hand stamp which I think it was her favorite and when her request of speaking to her mother was rejected and ignored, she was getting even upset and depressed. This lack of interactions between Sophia’s mother and her might lead to her misbehavior.

Sophia does not develop and acquire proper communication skills and this might be due to lack of social interactions with peers in school. She might be rejected by peers in her school. Hence, peer rejection leads to her depression, aggression and feelings of insecurity. Hence, she tends to seek for attention from her mother.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Adults need to intervene in children’s misbehavior in order to correct it – it may cause difficulties in the near future.

Adults can help the children to understand the appropriate rules, to conform to the rules and to encourage the positive behavior.

The rules or pinpoints need to be explained in an age appropriate form to children.

Instead of saying “You lost it”, The mother can start by calming her down and try

talking to her. Instead of sending her to her room, sit down and

talk to her – as requested by the daughter, “I need you”, “I want to talk to you”.

Can reason with her – like get a new stamp ‘if’.. Can try to distract her by offering a replacement

or other choices. Can use empathy (but not give in or lose it) like “I

know it’s very frustrating, I understand you lost it, but…”

CONCLUSION All children have reasons for misbehavior –

basic needs (hungry, sleepy, bored), change in routine, challenging situation.

Adults are encouraged to discover what is causing their children’s misbehavior and prevent any unnecessary misbehavior.

To do so, adults can help the children to understand the rules, show them acceptance and love, protect them from overstimulation, provide with a rich learning environment and show appropriate independence-seeking (UK & K-State University, n.d.).

Ignoring the tantrum behavior and helping a young child learn how to handle and express anger and frustration are usually effective ways to deal with the behavior. Also, paying attention to what triggers tantrums can help you act before a youngster's emotions escalate beyond the point where he or she can control them. This is supposed to identify the cause of the behavior and prevent ‘blaming’ the individual (Mark Hutten, 2009).

REFERENCE

Kaneshiro, N. K. (2013). Temper tantrums: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001922.htm

McLeod, S. A. (2011). Bandura - Social Learning Theory. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html

UK & K-State University,. Why Young Children Behave and Misbehave. Retrieved from http://www2.ca.uky.edu/hes/fcs/keys/Why_Young_Children_Behave_and_Misbehave.pdf

http://www.simplypsychology.org/personality-theories.html

http://www.simplypsychology.org/preoperational.html

Mark Hutten, M. A. (2009). Tantrums and Meltdown in Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Retrieved from

http://www.myaspergerschild.com/2009/07/temper-tantrums-and-meltdowns-in.html

Seefeldt, C. (2010). Factors Affecting Social Development. Retrieved from

http://www.education.com/reference/article/factors-affecting-social-development/

Thank you!