Understanding and improving behaviour

Contents

Summary

Communication

Perspective

Approaches

Tactics

Specialist support

This is our longest guide for guardians, as challenging behaviour is one of the most common topics special guardians ask us about.

This guide covers:

• Communication – seeing behaviour as a way of communicating unmet needs

• Perspective – how to gain valuable new perspectives on behaviour to see new opportunities to improve

• Approaches – why alternative approaches to traditional parenting can be more successful with children under guardianship

• Tactics – small changes in what you do and say that can have a positive impact on the child you care for

• Specialist support – links to proven tools and support designed to improve challenging behaviour.

At the bottom of this page, you will find the ‘Things you can do now’ section with links to further support, tools and guides.

All behaviour is communication

When children and young people display challenging behaviour, they are often communicating what they need and feel in the only way they know how.

Every behaviour communicates something. What that is and why it happens can be unclear at first – to you, other people and even the child. 

Behaviour may seem to occur after a triggering event or reaction to something specific. But the real reason may be hidden deeper beneath the surface.

This can make an already challenging situation more difficult for everyone. It can lead to unwanted anger, confusion, frustration and shame.

Be the source of support

As the person caring for the child, it’s important to be their source of safety and support in challenging times. This is especially important for children under special guardianship, who often mistrust adults and will have experienced early life trauma.

The challenges you are experiencing are unlikely to be unique. We can provide practical, non-judgmental support that can make a big difference your family. You can see a list of some of the common behavioural challenges we regularly support special guardians and children with.

Responding better

Once adults understand what children are communicating through their behaviour, we can respond better. When children feel respected and have their needs met, they no longer need to use challenging behaviour to communicate. 

Punishing a child for poor behaviour may stop it in the moment, but it does not support them or give them alternative ways to behave in difficult situations.

It can also leave you behaving in ways you don't expect, which can lead to feeling guilty or frustrated. Punishment can create a negative cycle that benefits no one.

Every child under guardianship has experienced trauma. This can have an impact in different ways, some not always obvious. Traditional approaches to parenting often don’t work as intended for children in this situation.

You should aim to help the child you care for find positive ways to communicate what they need. They will learn important social and problem-solving skills that will help them throughout their life.

Reframe the situation

You usually need to take a fresh perspective to start understanding a child's behaviour. That means stepping back from the pressure of the immediate situation and ‘reframing the situation’. 

It's natural and common in the heat of the moment to take what a child says and does personally. That can affect and intensify how you react.

In reality, the child’s behaviour is rarely caused by you or about you, even if it looks and feels that way. More often than not, they are instinctively reacting to deeper unmet needs in a way that comes most naturally to them. 

It’s not you, it’s what they’ve been through.

In short, think about how the child feels, as well as how the situation is making you feel. This change in mindset can help you focus on their need to feel safe and connected in those difficult moments.

Attachment seeking, not attention seeking

Another way to reframe the situation is to see challenging behaviour as ‘attachment seeking’ rather than ‘attention seeking’. This means children are looking for a connection. They often don't know how to ask you for it, so they behave in a way that gets you to notice. 

This can be especially true of children living under special guardianship. They will often have had poor experiences with adults when younger and not gained the skills and awareness to build connections with people. 

The good news is that every interaction you have with a child is a chance to repair those connections.

Remembering to change your mindset and adjust your response in the heat of the moment is easier said than done. Like learning any skill, it is a case of giving it a go, learning from mistakes and gaining new strategies.

Responding, not reacting

Children and young people who display challenging behaviour need calm adults to respond to them. When working with guardians and children having a hard time with behaviour, we help them build skills to respond to a child's needs, rather than react to a situation. 

Here’s a simple example. Say the child you care for comes home from school and throws their bag down in the hallway. You might have told them previously to hang their bag and your natural reaction may be to say, “pick the bag up right now”.

If you have told them lots of times before, throwing the bag is likely them communicating something else. There is a chance they are not just being defiant or lazy. Children’s behaviour does the job of communicating, “I’m having a tough time,” even if they don’t say it out loud.

How might you respond? Instead of immediately telling them off, choose to be available and curious. You could say, “It looks like you may have had a rough day. How about we make a snack together, then we can hang your bag up?”

Of course, the child may push back at first. But if you are patient, persevere and keep reassuring them that you are available, even in tough times, you may see that your connection improves.

Therapeutic parenting

Looking for ways to respond and not react is a more nurturing approach to parenting, also called therapeutic parenting. It can be hard because, for most people, it’s not how they were cared for themselves as children.

At first, therapeutic parenting can feel unfamiliar and counter-intuitive. It’s common for guardians to feel they are ‘coddling’ children or rewarding bad behaviour when they need discipline or punishment.

However, it is an approach backed by evidence – it works. When practiced over time, therapeutic parenting help you teach the child you care for how to communicate and behave. It is backed by many studies and childcare experts from around the world, as summarised in The Complete Guide to Therapeutic Parenting [Amazon ↗].

Our team can give you the support you need to learn more and get started. You can also read more about therapeutic parenting in our guide to Supporting a child with trauma.

Benefits of therapeutic parenting

Many long-term studies show therapeutic parenting styles can help children grow up to be more confident. They become capable of problem-solving and forming deeper connections to their family and friends than children raised with more traditional parenting methods. 

Therapeutic parenting approaches are especially beneficial to children who have experienced early life trauma too. They help them build feelings of trust, security and openness. Children are still given the clear boundaries they need, but get support during difficult moments.

The guidebook The A - Z of Therapeutic Parenting (read a free sample on Amazon ↗) provides step-by-step guides on how to approach 60 common behavioural challenges in raising children (and has 1000+ 5 star reviews you can see on Amazon ↗).

Many guardians find this approach to behaviour makes more sense to them when we think about how these principles apply to their own lives.

Punishment-based parenting often sees children learn to hide their emotions, instead of how to deal with them. This is the opposite of what most parents and carers are trying to achieve in the first place.

Small changes, big impact

It can be difficult to ‘respond rather than react’ when behaviour seems to make things harder and more stressful. Being calm and measured in those key moments takes time and practice. Small changes can eventually have a big impact for you and the child you care for.

The change starts with you as a carer. It may seem counter-intuitive as it is the child who is displaying challenging behaviour. But for that to change, typically you have to first adapt how you communicate with them. You need to develop a positive connection so you can help them grow.

Try to use curiosity and actively observing what is happening just before the child displays their behaviour. What happened after the behaviour? What did you both do during the behaviour?

Not only can this help you start to become more aware of the details, it naturally forces you to be more responsive and less reactive.

It can also help to keep a diary or brief notes of your observations. That makes it easier to reflect on or discuss what happened with someone from our support team. We find many guardians who start tracking behaviour spot a pattern or something they hadn't seen before. That in turn prompts new ideas on things to try or questions to ask our team.

Strategies to help you cope

If you find you’re having trouble staying calm or coping with your emotions there are a few practical things you can do. They can help, even if you feel like you are the type of person who will always struggle to be calm when faced with challenging behaviour, which a lot of people have said to our team. 

The first step is to try and apply that same observation technique to your own mood and situation when challenging behaviour occurs. The aim is to try and observe and reflect on what it is about the child’s behaviour you might find particularly triggering.

Is your response to the behaviour different depending on your levels of sleep or stress? Does it matter where you are, what time of day it is or what you are doing? Often, behaviour can also stir-up emotional reactions for you based on things in your own past or how you were cared for.

Being aware of these questions can help you start to think about how much of the reaction is in your control. You can work out how you might take steps to address some of these contributing factors.

Another quick technique to help manage your reaction is learning calming breathing techniques. We’ve seen many parents and carers see the benefits of breathing exercises, either in the moment or as a daily practice.

The 4-7-8 breathing technique [medicalnewstoday.com ↗] is one of the simplest and most popular. Many people, including famous athletes and business people, say they start feeling the benefits after just a few goes.

Small changes to the way you communicate with your child and how you help structure your daily lives can also have a huge impact on a child’s behaviour and mood.

If you’re dealing with any of the behaviours listed on our common behaviours page, we can suggest practical strategies to try.

Each child is different, but there are many tried and tested techniques you can use for different types of behavioural challenges. Just like the example below, many are things you can immediately put into action. Our team can often share them over a quick phone call.

Our team recommends hands-on guides to working on common behavioural challenges including The Great Behaviour Breakdown [Amazon ↗] and The A - Z of Therapeutic Parenting [Amazon ↗]. Lots of guardians who have successfully put the advice into practice recommend them too.

You can also learn the strategies shared in these books through practical workshop courses. If you prefer that style of learning, our team can direct you to recommended trainers.

Get professional help

As well as things you can do as a child's carer, many children living under guardianship would also benefit from structured behavioural support with professionals.

We offer a range of support services to guardians and children, many of which can be accessed directly via our in-house support team. You can start by contacting our advice line to discuss your situation.

The different types of professional support are all aimed at helping you understand the child you care for’s behaviour and giving you both the knowledge and tools to cope and make progress. 

That support might include play therapy, therapeutic behavioural sessions, training courses on therapeutic parenting approaches, and life story work.

Learn more about all of these, including their benefits and how to access them, by reading and watching the guides on the ‘Our services’ page.

Things can improve more than you expect

Every interaction we have with a child or young person has the potential to help improve their wellbeing and behaviour. We have lots of proven strategies to help you tackle different types of behavioural challenges.

The child you care for is not ‘bad’ or ‘broken’ and neither is your relationship. We know things can get better because we see it all the time with other guardians.

Get in touch with our advice line to have a chat about your situation. It’s never too late to start and we’ll make sure you feel heard and get supported. 

You are not alone and support is available once you make the first step.