5 Common Behavior Myths Every Parent Should Know

Parenting is a tough task for all, especially parenting a child with special needs. This can include bouncing from one therapy session to another, attending IEP meetings, navigating our children’s rights, etc. It includes balancing schedules to ensure the proper amount of time for both learning and leisure. The items on the daily schedule can begin to build up. This sometimes leads to high stress and low patience. Within that state, our assumptions about behavior become reality, and as a result, limits our ability to troubleshoot solutions. This article is aimed to help parents understand their child’s behavior a little better and bust the myths of uncontrollable behaviors in hopes to increase the overall quality of life for the child and the family.

When thinking of the word “behaviors”, we tend to think about very complex or extravagant behaviors. However, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) takes a different approach, defining a behavior as anything a person can do or has done. Some examples can include running, frowning your face, eating, or moving vegetables off a plate. Anything a person does is considered behavior, and if it is considered behavior, then you can measure it.

You can also begin to work on solutions to reduce behaviors that are harmful. But this takes time and effort. In our everyday lives, we usually are not watching our children’s behaviors closely enough to track and determine how we can change things to support our children. This is why parents sometimes look for support from therapists, including Behavior Analysts. But even your best Behavior Analyst aren’t tracking their own kid’s behaviors that close. However, when there is a behavior that catches our attention, we then begin to use a few basic strategies that we will share with you. But first, we want to uncover common myths we come across.

Imagine going to the park on a sunny afternoon as a family, and when you start to unload the car, your child begins to cry and have a meltdown. As parents, we have our “go-to” games or activities for coping and calming our child down and making everyone happy. However, in this instance the games or silly faces we make aren’t quite doing the job. In some situations, it can intensify the situation and now panic mode starts set in as we begin to scramble for solutions.

Myth #1:

One of the myths about these types of situations is that the behavior happened out of nowhere or there was not a clear reason. Typically, when we can’t identify the reason or specifically pinpoint the root of a behavior, we tend to say there is no reason and the child is just “acting out of control”. However, we may not have the proper tools to help us identify the reasons.

Myth #2:

Another thing we often see (or, let’s be honest, do ourselves) is make an assumption on our child’s intent. For instance, we might hear, “He wanted to hurt me” or “She’s doing this out of spite”. In reality, that meltdown or behavior issue is functioning for the child in some way. We will discuss how it can function later in this article.

Myth #3:

“Treatment from providers should work immediately.” Unfortunately, there is no magic pill for teaching our children behaviors that are less harmful and work better for them. This takes time, and generally takes multiple types of therapy providers.

Myth #4:

“If their child can do it, mine should be able to as well.” Many adults with special needs that recall these types of comparisons in their childhood and note how this mindset affects them in their later years. They recommend looking at children more individually. For example, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) states, “There are lots of different ways to be autistic.” This can go for treatments too. ABA won’t be appropriate for everyone, just like Speech therapy won’t work for everyone.

Myth #5:

“Tantrums and crying are not ‘normal’.” Everyone cries or has a tantrum! It can look different for everyone as well. It only becomes an issue when it impedes on their quality of life. Allowing our children the space and time to express their feelings through crying is a much better solution than them being so overwhelmed that they harm themselves. One of the most difficult parts of being a parent is seeing our children frustrated, sad, or in pain. We have to accept that this is a part of life, and work with our therapy providers to give our children the tools they need to express those frustrations in a way that isn’t harmful to them or others.

Some of us reading this have had the thought, “I know, I know these aren’t true. I just want to help my child and I don’t know what else to do.” Well, we have some ideas to help you. The first tip to navigate through a meltdown in the car, or a similar scenario, is to understand what started the meltdown (behavior issue). When troubleshooting behavior issues, we need to identify what has changed in the environment. Generally, environmental changes can have a large impact on people of all ages. These changes don’t always have to be significant or noticeable changes either. For example, taking a different route to the park or bringing sandals instead of tennis shoes could be the “change” that triggered the meltdown in the car. So, try to remain calm and begin to observe and identify what changed in environment to trigger this behavior. You may not identify it right away, and it may take a little time or a few trips to the park to notice.

The next strategy is to determine the function (or why) this behavior occurred. This is slightly different, because before we were just looking for any changes in the environment. However, now we are digging deeper to determine what our child is getting out of having the meltdown. According to ABA and PBS, all behaviors have 4 functions (Cooper et al., 2007). This includes even our own! These “functions” include access to an items and activities, avoiding or trying to leave a demand, seeking attention, or are sensory based. We recommend working with your therapy provider in identifying why your child is behaving the way they are that will involve a full evaluation. However, your therapy provider is going to ask, “what did the child gain from acting this way?” Once we can get an idea of the function, we can then start to plan for how to manage the child’s behavior issue, and plan to proactively prepare the child before the behavior occurs.

You and your therapy team can teach them how to manage their behavior issues, given the changes in environment.

All behaviors start from somewhere, and as you continue to practice these strategies, the idea of unpredictability becomes more and more of a myth. These tools can be implemented during any setting or activity, so it’s best to practice during calm or playful interactions. Just like in a sport, they might need practice before they can be good!

About Author Holly Downs

Holly is the Director of Ethical Compliance at [PBS Corp] (https://www.teampbs.com/). and an instructor at Capella University. She is a certified behavior analyst with over a decade of experience in various populations

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This post originally appeared on our November/December 2023 Magazine