How to Reduce Your Child's Challenging Behavior

Often parents describe their frustrations with their child in terms of what they perceive to be their child’s purposeful non-compliance and annoying behavior.

I’ve heard statements like:

• “She just doesn’t make good choices!”
• “He’s just trying to get attention.”
• “They just want their own way all the time!”
• “She acts out for no reason!”

It’s understandable. When you’re repeatedly faced with kid behaviors that are anywhere from mildly challenging to very concerning, you can be so exhausted and frustrated that through the lens of your activated nervous system you mostly see negativity. It’s hard to consider any other explanation for your child’s behavior other than a lack of motivation or refusal to do better.

Not wanting to be a permissive, lax, or neglectful parent, it might be hard to imagine that there are alternatives to taking a hard line with your child. So you double down on restrictions, take away privileges, or impose consequences in hopes that your child will start doing what you want them to do if environmental conditions get unpleasant enough.

Alternatively, you might blame your child’s diagnosis—like ADHD—for their challenging behavior and spend a lot of time trying to fix what you and consulting professionals see as problematic about your child. Just get them to focus more, try harder, follow directions more, and/or listen more and things will get better—right?

What if you looked at your child’s behavior from a different perspective?

Your child isn’t giving you a hard time, they are having a hard time

The main tenet of the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions  (CPS) communication model originated by Dr. Ross Greene is that “kids do well if they can.” Kids would prefer to do well—they want their adults to feel and act positively toward them. So challenging behaviors are a signal that something is getting in their way. There’s an incompatibility between your child’s unique characteristics (their personality, preferences, abilities, developmental stage, mood, etc.) and the demands being placed on them.

Challenging kids struggle to meet demands because they’re lacking crucial cognitive, social, and emotional regulation skills, without which they really can’t do any better than they’re doing in any given moment. The environment is demanding that they use skills that they haven’t developed yet! Dr. Greene refers to this developmental delay as “lagging skills.” We all respond maladaptively when we lack the skills to respond...

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