Here are my notes from "The Science of Parenting" about understanding and dealing with "misbehaviour" in toddlers:
Six main reasons for bad behaviour:
1. Tiredness & hunger
- Sleep deprivation is associated with imbalances in the autonomic nervous system – when this system is imbalanced, mood stabilizing mechanisms don’t work well, tipping the child into states of overarousal.
- Hunger – if blood sugar levels are too low, adrenal glands release stress hormones (cortisol and epinephrine) which are designed to raise blood sugar levels, but which may also cause anxiety, agitation, aggression, panic and confusion.
- Food additives can have mood-altering effects on a child’s brain and are common triggers for misbehaviour. Watch out for: FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Red No. 3, Caramel colour, Benzoats and parabens, sulfites (including sulfur dioxide), Nitrates and sweeteners.
2. Undeveloped emotional brain
- In young children, the higher brain is still very undeveloped, which means they can’t inhibit their primitive impulses to lash out, bite, or run and climb things all the time.
- The glutamate system in the frontal lobes enables us to have clearly defined thoughts & intentions. This system only starts to develop in the first year of life, so infants and toddlers lack the sophistication required to be deliberately naughty or manipulative.
3. Psychological hungers
- All people have three psychological hungers: stimulation, recognition, structure (defined by Eric Berne).
- Stimulation hunger: the brain registers understimulation as stress, prompting people to DO something to increase their arousal state. Adults turn on the radio; infants head-bang or crib-rock; toddlers run around screaming.
- Recognition hunger: this makes a child seek attention. Children need lots of attention for healthy brain development, and will instinctively turn to bad behaviour if good behaviour isn’t doing the trick. We all have a fundamental psychological need to feel we are making an impact on the world.
- Structure hunger: in adults, lack of structure can lead to depression, anxiety, anger, loss of focus and meaning. Without structure and law, civilization would break down. Children need the structure of clear house rules and clear routines.
4. Needing help with a big feeling
- A big, painful feeling activates stress chemicals in a child’s brain, so ear-piercing outbursts are often a child’s way of relieving tension.
- If we help children deal with these feelings, instead of criticizing them for these lower-brain-triggered emotional outbursts, we can help their higher brain to develop the nerve pathways essential for natural regulation of feelings.
5. Picking up on your stress
- The right prefrontal part of a child’s brain can pick up emotional atmospheres in milliseconds. Children are deeply affected on a bodily and emotional level by stress or unhappiness in their family, while if you are calm, chances are your child will be as well. If there is tension in the home, your child may be unbearable.
6. You activate the wrong part of your child’s brain
- If you shout and issue endless commands, you could be activating the primitive RAGE and FEAR systems in the mammalian and reptilian parts of the brain. Lots of play, laughter and cuddles are likely to activate the brain’s PLAY and CARE systems, releasing calming opiods.
TANTRUMS
There are two types of tantrums, each needing a different response.
1. Distress tantrum: you need to move toward the child with comfort and solace.
2. “Little Nero” tantrum: you need to move away from your child.
It is essential during a tantrum that the parent stay calm, and think of rational and creative ways to manage the child’s feelings.
Tantrums are important
- Tantrums are key times for brain sculpting. The emotional regulation of a child’s feelings during storms of feeling enables him to establish essential brain pathways for managing stress and being assertive later in life.
- The “too good” child may have learned that expression of big feelings resulted in a frightening parental response, and that the price of parental love was total compliance. This child misses out on the vital brain sculpting that he gets from his parents when he expresses big feelings, meaning that when he faces frustrations later in life, he may respond with angry outbursts or struggle to be assertive.
Brain activity is different between the two types of tantrums
- Distress tantrums: your child can’t think or speak clearly because his upper brain functions are hijacked by primitive emotional systems – all he can do is discharge his emotions..
- “Little Nero” tantrums: Little Nero is using his upper lobes to produce behaviours that are calculated and deliberate, to get an intended result.
Distress Tantrums (DTs)
- DTs happen because essential brain pathways between a child’s higher brain and lower brain haven’t developed yet – these are necessary for managing big feelings.
- As a parent, your role is to soothe your child during these tantrums. If you get angry, he may stop crying, but this may mean that the FEAR system has been triggered, or he may have shifted to silent crying, which floods his brain with toxic levels of cortisol.
- When a child has a distress tantrum, you can see real anguish in his face – he needs comfort.
Handling DTs
- Use simple, calm actions, or provide a simple choice.
- Distraction – this activates the SEEKING system, triggering high levels of dopamine, which reduces stress and triggers interest and motivation.
- Hold your child tenderly – only if you are calm though. Your mature bodily arousal system will help calm her immature one. You must feel calm and in control in order to help bring her body and brain back into balance, and release calming oxytocin and opioids.
- Some children prefer that you sit next to them, talking gently, as this allows them freedom to move.
- Avoid using Time-Outs during a DT. You wouldn’t walk away from a friend in emotional distress, so this is certainly not appropriate for children, who have far fewer emotional resources than adults, and who need your help establishing effective stress-regulating systems in the brain.
- Avoid putting a child in a room on his own. Although this may stop vocal crying, he may continue to cry internally – this silent crying is a worrisome sign that the child has lost faith that help will come, and in some people, this loss of faith can stay for life.
- Remind yourself that a child’s stress is genuine. A two-year old who screams because his toy was snatched is reacting to pain – a sense of loss activates the pain centers in the brain, causing agonizing opioid withdrawal.
- If DTs are repeatedly punished, the child switches off feelings of hurt because they are no longer safe to have – which has negative impacts on managing feelings in adulthood.
- It is very common for a child to have nightmares after they have a DT during the day.
Little Nero Tantrums (LNTs)
- A child having a LNT doesn’t experience or show the anguish, desperation or panic that characterizes the DT, and doesn’t have stress chemicals flooding his brain and body.
- There is usually an absence of tears, and the child is able to articulate his demands and to argue when you say “no”.
- A LNT is about a child trying to get what he wants by bullying his parents into submission.
- If you reward frequent LNTs, you are in danger of setting up a trigger-happy RAGE system in your child’s brain. This is because the mere experience of rage without capacity for reasoned thinking can result in rage becoming a part of your child’s personality.
- Some children whos LNTs are not handled well grow into power-seeking bullies. These people are developmentally arrested – Little Nero two-year-olds in adult bodies – and bring misery to the people around them.
- If you ignore a LNT, you are helping your child to develop important social skills, but it is essential that you do not humiliate the child. Reward the child with your attention as soon as his behaviour improves.
Handling LNTs
- Do not provide an audience – if you are absolutely sure your child is not having a DT, simply walk out of the room. It’s no fun if no one’s watching, so the LNT will stop.
- Don’t try to reason, argue or persuade – attention and words reward negative behaviours, taking your one step farther toward setting up a hot temper as a personality trait.
- Don’t “kiss it better” – this teaches that you reward rage with love.
- Do not negotiate – this is also rewarding controlling behaviour. If a child discovers that rage works well in manipulating parents, he may continue to use it in adulthood.
- Give clear, firm “nos”, and try to manage your own rage.
- Deal firmly with your child’s commands. Give a clear, firm message about commands being unacceptable as a way of getting what you want. If your child is screaming for a cookie, try saying “I’ll be happy to talk about what you would like when your voice is as quiet as mine”. The go about your business until your child is calmer and says “please”.
- Give info on social charm (works better on an older child, whose higher brain function is more developed).
- Use humour and play when appropriate. This can deflate their power bubble, and give the message that they will not win in a “power over” transaction. Try something like “You really want to boss me around don’t you? Let’s do it together to this can of peas – Peas, get me that cookie now!” Your child will look at you like you’re crazy, but his serves to upstage him, stop him in his tracks, move you both toward humour and play, mirror him back to himself, and show him you do not take his bullying seriously.
- Use Time Outs only as a last resort – only appropriate for hurting (biting, hitting, kicking) particularly over the age of five. Take him to the time out room, and explain why he is being put in time out.
- Distinguish between an LNT and a DT. Sometimes this can be difficult because one can run into the other. i.e. You say no to a LN command – this “no” could cause your child grief, sending him into a grief reaction. If you feel his grief is genuine, he will need help with his feelings. The message is “I won’t respond to commands, but I will help if you are in pain”.
And the Gentle Discipline forum is a great resource when you've got specific frustrations.
There's a whole book out there looking at why time-outs don't work:
