Turning It Around
What To Say To A Child Who Hurts Others
Lynne Namka, Ed. D. © l997
Parents, teachers and principals, you are on the front
line of fire daily dealing with children's aggressive behavior.
Your job is a tough one and you deserve all the help that you
can get. Here are some ideas of helping children process their
behavior that has hurt others. These ideas are based on the
growing evidence that children with chronic antisocial behavior
are slow to learn through punishment and aversive conditioning.
How you correct a child after he misbehaves will affect whether
he will increase or decrease the undesired behavior in the future!
Have you ever felt frustrated because a child repeated his
inappropriate behavior shortly after you scolded him? The
research shows what we all know. The old way of treating aggressive
children with reprimands and punishment does not work.
Why Punishment Does Not Work
The research literature gives clear guidelines about the
ineffectiveness of punishment as the only correction procedure
for children's misbehavior. Yelling, shaming, scolding, and
corporal punishment backfire and create a mind set in the child
where he misbehaves more. Some children do worse when words
like "never," "don t," "should not," and "It's not okay" are
used during correction. There are many negative side effects
associated with being punished:
- Punishment for aggression may stop the behavior temporarily,
but may further stimulate aggressive behavior.
- The child may stop the punished behavior but may increase
another aggressive behavior.
- Punishment may serve as a model for aggression. Children
imitate what they see adults do.
- The punished behavior may stop only in the presence of
the adult and increase in other settings.
- The child may strike back at the punishing adult or displace
his anger at someone else.
- Frequent punishment may cause some children to withdraw
and regress.
- Angry children who do not fear authority may become more
angry and focus on revenge.
- The child may feel shame and harbor thoughts of lowered
self- esteem (I'm a bad person. I'm mean.)
- Punishment merely suppresses the response but does not
teach the child what to do.
In the short term, punishment may be effective in suppressing
negative behavior when the punisher is present, but it does
not teach the child positive ways to act. Punishing techniques
that make the child feel bad about himself may make him act
out more!
What Does Work
The research shows that praise for appropriate behavior,
reasoning, giving consequences, withholding privileges, time
out and teaching the appropriate social skills do help a frustrated
child make better behavioral choices.
The child who misbehaves constantly needs to hear correction
statements phrased in positive language to implant alternative
ways of thinking and acting in his developing value system.
Telling the child with behavior problems what not to do often
guarantees that he will go and do it! Instead tell him what
to do and help him to feel good just thinking about acting
in positive ways. Give a choice between two alternatives.
Teaching social skills gives a process of correcting the
inappropriate behavior instead of suppressing it through punishment.
Social skills training offers a more humane way of giving
children tools to deal with conflict so that they can take
care of themselves. Learning social skills helps children
reduce aggressive and violent behavior. Teaching the prosocial
skills helps all of us. When children learn and use positive
reciprocal ways of interacting with each other, this adds
to peace in our world.
Processing Cues To Say After Conflict
What you say to an aggressive child will determine the likelihood
of his decreasing the inappropriate behavior the next time.
To break into the child's negative thinking patterns, process
what happened and what could be different next time in a non-
threatening way. The research shows that people are most ripe
for change after a situation of high emotional arousal. Being
corrected is generally a high arousal situation so the child
should be ripe for new learning. You have a golden opportunity
to help your child make the commitment to change by using this
teaching approach.
If you can get to the child's vulnerability and sense of
fair play after a situation of conflict, you can help him
make changes. Show the child the consequences of his actions
on others. Whenever possible, give him a choice. Ask him to
make a value judgment on what he did. Give him solid information
on how he could react in positive ways. Always leave him feeling
good about himself with hope for the future.
"It's Not My Fault!"--
The Dynamics of Denial and Fear of Vulnerability
Children who get in trouble continuously receive so much
punishment that they become hardened to it. They shrug it off
with an "I don't care" attitude or laugh off your attempts at
correction. This pose of indifference and toughness is a defense
mechanism against feeling guilt and feeds into the rationalization
of not being at fault. With this type of defense against feeling
bad, blame is externalized to someone else: "I don't dare allow
myself to feel bad inside, so I'll send those bad feelings towards
someone else." This pattern is generally learned from parents
and the cycle of aggression is often repeated down through generations
of families.
Externalization of blame and rationalization of misbehavior
is a tricky defense to break into. Get the child to feel his
vulnerability and show him that you are on his side. Challenge
him to learn different ways to think and act. Showing aggressive
children a better way to deal with conflict and encouraging
them to take responsibility for their own feelings and behavior
is a loving and humane response to their cycle of aggression,
rejection by others and the resulting poor self-esteem.
Children deserve to be nurtured even when they have not
been nurturing to others. Watch that you do not identify with
the child who has been the object of the aggression. Adults
who have been victimized as a child may easily slip into anger
over seeing another child being hurt. Go past your anger at
your sense of injustice to the child who has been hurt. Your
anger at the aggressor will guarantee that he will continue
this behavior. Your nurturing and positive teaching will make
a difference in the child who has hurt someone else. A key
point of turning around his behavior is talking with the child
about alternative ways that he could have handled conflict.
Expect denial from the child if you ask him to own up to
his behavior when he is upset and angry. Children, like the
rest of us, are not rational creatures when angry. Anger throws
reason out the window. The research shows that cognitive distortions
such as minimizing, justifying or rationalizing their destructive
behavior has been associated with individuals with antisocial
behavior. Their pain is so great and their defenses so practiced
that they cannot see their own part in the conflict.
Do not set up a situation of threat where the child will
feel the need to go into his defenses. Give him a cool down
period before talking to him. Give him a choice of the place
where he wants to cool down. Giving the child choices helps
him to feel respect and helps him to be part of figuring out
solutions. Imperatives given in a loud voice will cause him
to shut down and be unavailable to your correction.
Angry children feel shame about being weak inside and turn
around and victimize others. Your modeling firmness and fairness
to the child will increase the likelihood that he will choose
better ways of acting in the future. Scolding and shaming
the child will only cause him to dislike himself even more
resulting in a cycle of aggressive behavior. Helping the child
save face and reduce the shame that he feels at being caught
is part of getting him to understand and change his behavior.
Negative labels (bully, impossible, bad, mean, etc.) make
the child feel shameful and cause him to put up his defenses
to shut out what you say. He will feel bad enough just being
found out. The child who is labeled often internalizes what
is being said about him in a negative way. Talk about poor
choices of behavior that can be changed with understanding
and practice. Talk about the child's actions that are hurtful
to others. The child can take responsibility for behavior;
he cannot change a label which more than likely will turn
into a self-fulling prophecy.
Recognize the child's ability to change his own behavior.
Discuss the things that he does that causes other people to
refuse to be his friend (when true) or the things that he
does that are not respectful to others. Tell the child that
he may feel bad, but that he is not a bad kid. He just hasn't
learned the rules to take care of himself in healthy ways.
This takes the focus away from internal character attributes
that can't be changed and puts the emphasis on learning. Emphasize
that he just has some learning to do to take care of himself.
Tell him that you are here to help him learn the skills of
getting along with others.
Have the child review rules for getting along with each
other and treating people with respect. Ask him to make a
value judgment on a specific behavior, asking him "Was that
a good thing to do?" If he responds with a rationalization
regarding what the other person did to him, tell him that
he is always responsible for his actions no matter what was
done to him. Remind the child that choosing to use his words
and talk about what upsets him is always the best choice.
This type of processing after misbehavior helps the child
make better decisions for next time.
Error Correction:
"I Can Feel Good About Making the Wrong Right"
Stress that there need be no blame if each person takes
responsibility for his own actions and takes steps to correct
the situation so it does not happen again. Error correction
teaches self responsibility. Review the rationale about mistakes
being okay if you learn from them. This is the concept of error
correction--if you make an error, correct it. That is why pencils
have erasers. That is why we have word processing programs for
computers with delete buttons. That is why we have U turns.
The neat thing about making a mistake is the learning that you
can gain from it. Mistakes are for learning. If we are smart,
we don t have to keep making the same mistakes over and over
like the one trick pony.
The skill of correcting your own mistake will be more evident
if you make several dumb mistakes (like calling the principal
by the wrong name or giving the wrong day of the week). Recognize
your errors with the cheery message that mistakes are allowed
in your class as long as people learn from them. This gives
a positive model to the children about learning through errors.
Errors are for learning!
Help the child to see that blaming someone else is an unnecessary
defense. Tell him, "You don t have to defend yourself by blaming
someone else. That doesn't help solve the problem. We are
problem solvers here. I m here to help you. You need to learn
how to take care of yourself next time. That is the most wonderful
thing you can do for yourself! Now tell me your part in this
so we can work it out so it won't have to happen again." This
approach takes the child out of the defensive mode and into
error correction.
Ask the child to describe the poor choice of behavior that
he made. Ask him how he will act differently next time. Ask
him what he will say to help himself. Ask the child what he
can do to correct his error to make amends for his behavior.
Give choices for the penalty of the infraction of the rules
and send the child off to make his amends.
Shame Removal and the Silly Game of "Pull
Outs"
The child who is called on the carpet most likely will feel
ashamed although this may be covered up by actions of bravado.
It may help you to think of macho behavior as the mask for underlying
fear and shame. Shame reactions are shown in postural and facial
ways such as hanging the head and refusing to look you in the
eye, playing dumb, avoiding talking about the event or talking
in short phrases. Shame locks in bad behavior! Unreleased shame
results in decreasing self esteem thus setting the internal
climate for more aggression with others. Unless you help the
child take responsibility for his inappropriate behavior and
release the shame that he feels, he will continue to feel bad
inside and the misbehavior most likely will continue.
Use the techniques of "Pull Outs" as a way to humorously
release shame after the child has taken responsibility about
his behavior. Tell the child that if he has made the decision
to do it differently next time, he doesn't need to hold on
to bad feelings. If he has made amends and corrected his error
for the future, then the bad feelings can go away.
Ask the child where the bad feelings are in his body. They
usually are in the chest, stomach or brain areas. Ask him
to let the feelings come up and feel their worst. "Okay, let's
make them really strong. Let those feeling come up and feel
BAD. Have you got them up now so you can move them? Tell yourself,
'I don't have to do that behavior anymore so I can let go
of the bad feelings.' Get ready to pull them out. Here we
go. I'll help you. Let's pull them out!" Using pulling motions
with your hands pretend to pull from the area that the child
described. Flick your fingers to indicate getting rid of the
negative energy. Encourage him to throw the bad feelings in
the wastebasket or dumpster and remind him that he can let
go of bad feelings if he can take responsibility for changing
his behavior. Add more reassurance about believing in his
ability to make good choices in the future.
Disclaimer:
Do not use this technique on children who act in ways that
they appear to have no conscience. Other steps are needed for
the child who has no remorse about hurting others. This type
of child needs to develop empathy for those caught in the victim
role. Professional help will be needed to teach the unremorseful
child to feel the effects of his negative action on others and
to make value judgments about his behavior.
When Talking To Two Children At The Same
Time
Ask each child what his part was in the conflict. Stress
responsibility for problem solving and using words to handle
the threat. Go over the rules about treating people with respect
and ask each child to describe how he forgot a rule of being
fair and friendly. Say to each child "Can you own your part
of this problem? What did you do? You can feel good about owning
your own part in this fight. Tell me about your behavior." Show
enthusiastic appreciation for the child who can stick to describing
what he did wrong without going into blaming the other person.
Stress the importance of being part of the solution, not part
of the problem.
After each child has had a turn talking, ask the children
to see the conflict from the other persons eyes. Role play
the situation switching roles. Humor added here will break
into the tension around the situation.
Teaching Responsibility for One's Own Actions
Ask the children "What could you have done differently?
What is our rule about that? What will you do next time that
someone ____ ? What can you do when you feel threatened?"
PRAISE, PRAISE, PRAISE any remarks that show a child is
catching on to the idea of learning about himself instead
of blaming the other child. Ask them for a self talk statement
they will use next time to handle their own feelings of threat
that come up. Practice saying the self talk statements several
times.
Children who have conflict, sometimes want to be friends,
but they need your help in figuring out how they can handle
the conflict. Tell the children that you would like them to
be friends but whether they can or not is really up to them.
Send the two children off to agree on a solution, should the
same incident happen again, and report back to you what they
have worked out.
PRAISE AND RECOGNITION FOR CREATIVE PROBLEM
SOLVING WILL INCREASE THIS BEHAVIOR!
Remember, your energy should go to helping children feel
good about solving their own problems. Putting your energy in
scolding children can become a stimulus for their continued
misbehavior!
MORE FOR TEACHERS & THERAPISTS
Back To Angries
Out
