Families who suffer from these behaviors in their children often feel exhausted, angry, helpless and cornered. In fact, some families, especially those with expressive children, prefer to remain silent in order not to anger their children because they are afraid of their children. Sometimes, under the influence of frustration, they cannot stand their children and adopt an attitude of hitting, constantly getting angry, yelling or punishing them.
Dear parents, first of all, it is useful to realize this. Problem behaviors are not produced by the child in order to disturb, wear out, or annoy those around him. Especially upsetting the parents is a guilty enough feeling for a child. Maladaptive behaviors have only one function. That is, the person copes with the stress he is in. We can also call it a defense mechanism of the brain. We can compare this to your body's defense mechanism trying to kill germs by increasing the fever when you are sick. Fever is a disturbing situation, but it also breaks the activity of microbes in the body. The same applies to adults. Adults also produce problem behavior to cope with internal pressure. Sometimes this even happens to their children. For example, an anxious parent may be overly restrictive to suppress the anxiety of something happening to their child. When these limits are pushed, even anger towards the child may emerge. Let's think of a stingy person with another example. This person may show intense avoidance of spending his money in order to control his anxiety about the future. Likewise, think of an annoying person who criticizes every action others take. Perhaps he was never appreciated by his parents in his childhood, his actions were ignored and then criticized. Could this person be constantly criticizing others to avoid receiving criticism in adult life? Or he may have believed that having a perfectionist nature would solve the problem in order to avoid facing these criticisms. Examples can be multiplied. However, when you realized the underlying causes of disturbing behavior, didn't the incident become much more innocent? Moreover, the person realizes that problematic behavior harms himself the most. You have done it. This is a reason that makes the situation a little more sad.
Let's talk about our children's problems a little. For example, the angry child. Could this child be venting his anger to protect himself? Maybe the parents are over-interfering with their child's boundaries, and the child may be making his family step back in anger in order to protect these boundaries. We can perceive this as a warning sign. The child who does the exact opposite of what his family says may want to attract their attention. Their parents may have been indifferent to their children. Although this may sound strange, the child may have found the solution to do the opposite of what is said because he knows that he will get a reaction (interest), even if it is negative, with a negative behavior. It's just a way of trying to say "mom, dad, I'm here, notice me." Let's think of a child clinging to his mother. This child may be worried about losing his mother due to a negative situation in his early relationships with his mother and may cling to her tightly to avoid losing her. An overly obedient child may have been raised by his or her family in an authoritarian and punitive manner. Or, due to some mistakes in the attitudes of my parents, I may have the thought that as long as I obey, I will be accepted and loved by my family. He may have come up with a solution to obey in order to cope with the stress caused by this situation.
Similar situation also applies to impulsive children (who cannot control their behavior and do not follow the rules). They also act impulsively because they cannot suppress their desire to take action and the feeling of pleasure and excitement they will experience in the end. We describe them most as children who act without thinking. They cannot sit still, they react suddenly without thinking about the consequences, they can suddenly unleash aggression, they speak very loudly, these are the individuals that teachers constantly call "disruptive children". In adults, impulse control problems can manifest themselves as stealing disease, hair pulling, gambling or even arson at advanced levels. People cannot stop themselves from doing it even though they know it is wrong. Because the excitement they feel Their desire and pleasure are so strong that they cannot cope with the internal tension it creates and they just keep doing it. The solution is medication and psychotherapy.
Problem behaviors are a vicious cycle unless help is received. Your child engages in a dysfunctional behavior to cope, the pressure creates another dysfunctional behavior in you, and then this continues by activating your child's dysfunctional behavior. Breaking this cycle is possible by first finding the cause of the problem behavior and then breaking the behavioral patterns of you and your child.
In summary, problem behaviors are non-functional behaviors that reduce the internal tension produced by our brain, even for a short time. Psychologists replace these behaviors with functional and adaptive versions.
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