Questioning Children About Their Behavior

Understanding Is Important

• When you understand your child̵7;s strengths and weaknesses and what motivates him to act, you can parent your child more effectively, according to licensed social worker Mary B. Moore at Southeast Psych in Charlotte, North Carolina. To understand your child you need to know his personality, temperament and specific needs, and his likes and dislikes. You should also understand what happened, why, where and when. You could ask, ̶0;Can you explain to me why you hit Sharon?̶1; or ̶0;What happened that made you angry or uncomfortable?̶1; Your next question could be, ̶0;What happened after you did that?̶1; Open-ended questions elicit more information than questions your child can answer with a single word.

Purpose

• One question that could establish motivation is ̶0;What did you hope to gain by what you did?̶1; Moore writes that common purposes include avoiding unpleasant experiences, causing something to occur, getting something you don̵7;t have and venting anger or anxiety. Your child̵7;s basic needs to belong, to exercise choice or control and to have fun determine her purpose. When your child tells you what she thought she would accomplish by her behavior, you can often establish which need was driving your child.

Consequences

• Once you understand your child̵7;s motivation and purpose, you can decide how you will respond. If your 2-year-old pulls all the pots out of the kitchen cabinet and scatters them across the room, you might pick them up and put a lock on the cabinet, or get your child to help put them back up. You don̵7;t punish the child, because it is age-appropriate behavior. If your young one hit a child because that child hit him first, you could counsel your child that violence doesn̵7;t settle things, while you acknowledge that being hit could make him very angry. Your response will take a different tack if your child was the aggressor, however. In both situations, you could require him to apologize to the other child and find a way to reconcile. If your child was the aggressor, you might restrict his interaction with others until he understands that the hitting is wrong, make him shadowbox for the same number of minutes as his age in years or use a punching bag for the same amount of time; you might also require your child to perform chores and lessons if the school expels him.

Follow-Up

• After you respond to the behavior in a manner that corresponds with the motivation, you can determine how you want her to respond in the future. You could accomplish this by suggesting acceptable behaviors, providing clear limits and consequences if the behavior recurs, and help your child role-play what could happen if a similar situation occurs. At the end of the follow-up process, you could ask her, ̶0;Now tell me again what you will do if this happens again.̶1;