Accepting Kids’ Appalling Behaviour As Normal Is Dangerous!
It’s fairly obvious that adults accepting children’s appalling behaviour as normal is dangerous! 10 out of 10 for that observation, Liz…
However, look around you, read the papers, talk to people and see what’s happening in schools and society at large…
There is much evidence that adults are accepting appalling behaviour with comments such as, ‘What do you expect’, ‘Kids are just like that now’, ‘We have no choice other than to put up with it’, or ‘Kids have changed so much’.
So what are adults doing? Just accepting the appalling behaviour, accepting that it’s normal now and nothing can be done to stop it? That’s a very dangerous stance for adults to take! It’s accepted that behaviour’s getting worse – in schools and in society in general. Well the question needs to be asked, if adults aren’t going to tackle kids’ behaviour then who’s going to? There’s no chance of children making the changes themselves…
I was involved in an incident recently and that is the basis of this article… I deal with children’s challenging and extreme behaviour — well no, actually I don’t! How come? Well, the strategies I use are so successful that they may try and behave badly but escalation just isn’t allowed to happen! Prevention is the key…
Is what I do trickery or magic? No way – just dealing with kids’ behaviour is a way that’s plain common sense that you can learn to implement very easily and from which you can see instant results. No magic at all – but extremely effective…
It’s quite different however, walking into an incident that has already escalated and has been managed by someone else – well, mismanaged actually! Do-able but a lot trickier!
When I went to see one of my group at school, I was told that one of my ex-kids (who’d been doing brilliantly at school – he’d been reintegrated back into school more than a year ago) had thrown a tantrum and run away! The head teacher said he should return but all efforts to make this happen had failed. Then dad rang to say he’d landed at home, agreed he must go back to school but didn’t think he could make it happen…
What to do? Because the child had been told he had to return then this had to happen. So I was asked to go with the ‘rescue party’.
On reaching the house, to cut a long story short there was one hell of a performance… but, eventually the boy was returned to school. That’s what had to happen.
But, to me the most shocking thing was a chat I had with the boy’s father. At school, the boy’s behaviour had been absolutely fine, but at home it was a different story! Mayhem and destruction! Prior to the work I did with the family over a year earlier the boy had completely controlled everything at school and home – with violence, aggression and any other behaviour that would get him his own way… So that was his pattern and why change? He’s not dumb – this behaviour had got him what he wanted so where’s the problem?
Anyway his parents had taken my advice and all this awful stuff stopped. Good result? Yes and no because it only stopped for the length of time they put the strategies into place. As my recent article said – ‘If You Stop Managing Behaviour It’ll Stop Happening…’. This case is a prime example. They stopped the behaviour management, the kid took back control and the fallout was potentially devastating.
The parent’s reaction? ‘Well this is how he is….’, ‘This is what he does…’, ‘We can’t do anything about it…’.
I had to point out that they had managed him before and made the necessary changes… I had to tell him that they had to start managing the behaviour otherwise next time it may not be me on the doorstep but the police who may well be forced to cuff him and put him in a police van!
Then I asked his dad if he realised that he was talking about his son’s behaviour as if their situation was normal…
‘Well it is for us,’ he replied.
‘That behaviour isn’t normal and it’s dangerous to consider for a moment that it is! Your son is behaving so badly because you’ve stopped managing him and he’s taken control away from you again! By doing nothing you are making his future very risky!’
A very bright boy with a very dim and damaging future unless his parents start managing his behaviour again… They can’t just renege on their responsibility and accept his behaviour as normal – it isn’t normal. In fact it’s totally abnormal!!
These parents must assert their authority. They’ve done it before so they can do it again. Any adult can learn to deal with children’s behaviour with confidence and do the job well. It’s not difficult – it’s actually easy. It’s too vital for children’s futures to do nothing…
