Your Child is Misbehaving, Are You Listening? ~ Heather T. Forbes, LCSW

[qcarolr]

This brief article is from a monthly newsletter I receive from Heather Forbes organization Beyond Consequences Institute. Her books and a workshop I attended have helped me so much in raising my granddaughter who is 9 now. She has always lived in our home; we have had custody since she was 18 months. Her mom is my BPDDD28 who has substance abuse issues as well as mental health and learning disabilities that impact how she relates to each of us.

You can find more at www.beyondconsequences.com/

qcr

Q&A for Parents

Your Child is Misbehaving, Are You Listening?

By: Heather T. Forbes, LCSW

When reviewing records of many of the children with whom I work, I am forever perplexed at one particular notation I continually see written by therapists and counselors. Under the list of negative traits of the child, it is often written, "Child exhibits attention-seeking behaviors."

I strongly believe that children seek attention because they NEED attention. Nature has designed children to be completely dependent on their parents at the moment they are born. A baby crying is the signaling to the parent the baby has a need, a need that the baby cannot satisfy on his own. The baby is indeed exhibiting attention-seeking behaviors.

The natural flow of the developmental journey of a child is to gradually release this need for attention, moving from a state of dependence to a state of balanced independence. The time period for this is about 18 years. We are the only animals in the animal kingdom that have our children under our care for this length of time. Expecting our children to not need our attention or to view it as a negative behavioral issue during these 18 years goes against our biology.

When children do not know how to verbally express their needs (which is predominately the case during early childhood), they "speak" through their behaviors. In other words, behavior is a form of communication. When a parent can stop, pause, and "listen" to the behavior of a child, it can become quite obvious what the child is saying. Looking at the behavior from an objective perspective also unveils the logic behind the child's behavior. Here is a list of ten behaviors along with an interpretation of each behavior to demonstrate this:

Slamming Doors. When a child begins slamming doors, it is an indication that he does not feel like he is being heard. By slamming a door, he is making loud noises, hence forcing the parent to "hear" him. He is essentially saying, "I need to have a voice and I need you to listen to me now!"

Cursing. Most children know that they should not curse. They use profanity to jar the parent's nervous system into listening. It is a way to get a parent to respond to the child, even if the response is negative. The child's fear of not being good enough for the parent to pay attention to him, is also playing out in such a scenario.

Shutting Down. A child who shuts down, refuses eye contact, walks away, or gives the parent the silent treatment is a child who is overwhelmed. We have traditionally labeled a child like this as defiant. This is a child who is saying, "Life is too big to handle. I'm shutting down my world in order to survive."

Hitting Sibling. Sibling rivalry is more about the relationship between the child and parent than it is between two siblings. If a child is not feeling secure in his relationship with his parent(s), he will perceive the sibling as a threat to this relationship with the parent(s). Reacting against the sibling is the basic game of "King of the Hill" in order to win the attention of the parents. The child may receive negative attention from the parent ("Billy, stop picking on your brother!" but to a child, especially a child with a trauma history, any form of attention, whether positive or negative, is love.

Challenging Authority. A child who challenges authority is a child who has lost his trust in authority figures. Look back into the child's history and you will likely see a child who was abused, neglected, or abandoned by someone who was supposed to care for and nurture the child. A child who fights having someone else in charge, is a child saying, "I can't trust anyone. It is too much of a risk."

Saying, "I hate you!". Such hurtful words directed towards a parent from a child are simply a window into the child's heart. The child is projecting his self-hatred and self-rejection back onto the parent. What he is communicating is, "I hate myself!" It is easier to hurt someone else than it is to feel the internal hurt within one's own heart.

Arguing About Everything. A child who argues about everything and anything is keeping the parent looped in a conversation in order to keep the parent attuned to him. He feels that if the parent were to stop talking with him, he would cease to exist. Arguing is his way of staying connected. It is a negative form of attachment.

Laziness. Describing a child as being "lazy" is like calling a child crying in a crib a "cry baby." It is a gross misinterpretation of the child. Laziness is typically a sign of a child who experienced helplessness early in his childhood; it is a learned behavior. Neglect happens when a child tries to elicit attention from his caregiver and the result is nothing. No attention. No help. Zilch. The child learns that his energy does not produce results and as he grows older and gets challenged by life, he will simply shut down and do nothing. He is saying, "My efforts don't produce results so therefore I won't even try."

Pushing Every Boundary. Many children have such intense behaviors that the adults around them in the past demonstrated a lack of ability to handle them or an unwillingness to stick with them. When parents find the child pushing every boundary, every rule, and every limit, the child is asking, "Can you really handle me?" and "You say you're my parent, but I need to know you're not going to give up on me so I will test you to make sure you really are committed before I put any trust into you!"

Becoming Unglued During Transitions. Trauma happens by surprise and when it happens, there is typically a major change in the child's life. It is transitional trauma. The aftermath of such traumatic experiences is that the child becomes fearful of EVERY transition, whether large or small. A child's belief around transitions becomes, "Something bad is going to a happen. Guaranteed." Past traumatic experiences create the black and white thinking that "All change equals pain." When a parent sees a child's negative behaviors intensifying during a transitional time, the parent needs to remember that the child is saying, "I'm so scared that my entire world is going to fall apart in a flash just like it did in the past!"

When parenting a child with challenging behaviors on a day-to day basis, it is easy to lose sight of the idea that behavior is the language of a child. Negative behaviors are tiring! Keep taking care of yourself and keep your cup filled so that you have enough space inside of you to keep looking beyond the behaviors and listening to the behaviors instead of reacting to the behaviors.

The parent/child relationship is a dyad - a two-part system. Remember that your behavioral response also signals a communication to your child. Thus, it is imperative for you to stay mindful and attuned. Give enough attention to yourself as to stay in a place of love so you are always speaking the language of truth, love, and acceptance to your child in return.

Heather   

Heather T. Forbes, LCSW

Parent and Author of Beyond Consequences, Logic & Control: Volume 1 & Volume 2,

Dare to Love, and Help for Billy.

[Turkish]

I remember swearing not to get my mother's attention (because I knew I'd get in trouble), but because everybody else was doing it. I remember my mom listened into one of my phone conversations with a friend, and she was shocked, so I guess I controlled it around her.

I'm glad that the techniques have worked for you. I'm trying to determine how best to raise as well as discipline my two young children (D2 and Stb5 in a week). A story:

Grandma (mother of uBPDx) and an uncle got the kids identical tablets for Christmas. Leaving aside the fact that getting a tablet for a 2 year old seems to me a waste of money (they have an account on my tablet, and it's just books, no games or apps), I was given the devices to set up when my Ex left for 11 days to go on holiday.

The first day, I let them have the tablets unsupervised. So of course S4 went straight to the games after looking through the books I downloaded. D2 threw her tablet to the ground because she wanted her brother's even though they are identical (sometimes out of this whole group of people, I feel like I'm the only one who understands the children  

I took it away from her, gave her a stern rebuke. She cried a little bit, but was ok. I encouraged them both to share S4's. Some rivalry there, but I told them I'd take it away if they couldn't both share it.

The second day, I set up parental controls. 1/2 hour of mandatory reading before the apps and videos were unlocked. 1 hour of apps and 1.5 hours of videos and then those would lock. Book reading was unlimited. S4 came to me asking why the game stopped. I told him he had to read first and that was all the time he was allotted for the day for games. He got mad and hit me. I hit him back lightly on the hand and said, "You know I don't like hitting, either me or your sister!" He started bawling. I sent him to his room.

D2 is ok with timeouts. S4 is emotionally sensitive. After 10 mins of him almost screaming, I went into the room, picked him up and hugged him and said, "I know you're upset about the tablet buddy, but you know I don't like you hitting me." He made a weak attempt to hit me, I said, "S4... ." then he bit me pretty hard on the shoulder. That set me off and I dropped him onto the bed (about a foot, it's a trundle and there was a pile of blankets on the top "bunk". I said, "that's enough! You can stay in your room!" and left.

I got mad enough that I knew I had to walk out. After 10 mins where his screaming died down a little, I went back in and he had pulled the comforter over his head and was still sobbing a little. I actually wanted to take the kids to the park before it got dark and we were running against the clock.

I said, "S4, do you know why I put you in your room?"

"*sob* *sob* Y-y-yes."

"Why did I put you in here?" No answer. I repeated the question.

"Yes, *sob*, because I hit you."

"Yes, buddy. That is why." I picked him up to hug him again. "I know that you wanted to play the game on your tablet more, but as your daddy, I set it up so that you have to read more than play games. If we do enough reading, then the games open up again. And if you do a lot of reading, I may even set it so that you can have more game time. Now, do you want to go to the park?"

"No."

"Ok, then I and D2 will go and you can stay here by yourself." (I play this game with both of them, even when they're not upset).

"No, I want to go!" *sob*

"Ok then. Go to the bathroom, get your shoes on and let's go."

He did. We went and 10 mins later, he was back to his normal, irreverent self. He was ok the rest of the night.

The next day, when the tablet shut off the apps, he was disappointed, but ok with it. Instead of leaving him to read by himself (he figured out to flip through the pages fast to kill time without trying to read), I sat down with him and we read together.

So in my way of thinking, I walk the line between "old school" which is "that's the way it is" or "because I said so!" and letting the inmates run the asylum, so to speak. If it were up to the kids, they'd play games all day or have cookies lollipops for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The balance is enforcing discipline while still validating that they know that I hear them, and am not just Angry Dad.

I never had a father, so I'm "inventing" as my T said. I devour data (so thanks for posting, I had a look around, and also was reading the Amazon reviews of one of the books), and trust myself enough to take what works, and alter my approaches accordingly. I altered my approach to S4's time outs, because just leaving him in his room, he'd sit there and scream for 20 mins (abandonment?). D2 isn't like that. So that's why I shortened the time-outs.

[qcarolr]

Hi Turkish,

Thanks for sharing this story with your kids. It shows what an attuned dad you are. You show that you can be consistent, firm and loving. Adapting the responses according to your kids ages and temperamental abilities.

What have you done to bring yourself to this place out of the struggles you had with your mom? I am sorry that I do not know more about your story here. I am usually on the board for parents supporting their kids with BPD re: BPDDD28. I am grateful that I have reached a point that I can focus more on parenting my gd9.

Heather Forbes does have some ideas that work well for the "Billy's" in her books. These are often the children in trouble at home and school. None of the typical discipline strategies seem to work. In fact they can make things worse. The book that I connected with the best was ":)are to Love". It also carried a sad side for me as I could see so many ways I shut down with my DD28 when she was so difficult to understand throughout her life. I am trying to be a different and better parent with my gd.

So in my way of thinking, I walk the line between "old school" which is "that's the way it is" or "because I said so!" and letting the inmates run the asylum, so to speak. If it were up to the kids, they'd play games all day or have cookies lollipops for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The balance is enforcing discipline while still validating that they know that I hear them, and am not just Angry Dad.

I never had a father, so I'm "inventing" as my T said. I devour data (so thanks for posting, I had a look around, and also was reading the Amazon reviews of one of the books), and trust myself enough to take what works, and alter my approaches accordingly. I altered my approach to S4's time outs, because just leaving him in his room, he'd sit there and scream for 20 mins (abandonment?). D2 isn't like that. So that's why I shortened the time-outs.

Your statement here expresses a good approach that fits with several "models" for parenting. Dealing with my own issues of attachment and abandonment - even though I came from a very strong, loving family. Life happens to everyone, some are better able to respond, process and move on. Others are not as resilient and need a different angle on the love and discipline balance. I have to get myself into a calm, stable place to be effective as a parent. This was extremely hard with my DD. My GD has her own set of struggles - she responds so differently than her mom.

Does anyone else have a story about how they manage with their kids - esp when there are different personalities involved?

qcr

[livednlearned]

My son is what some refer to as a "highly sensitive child" and has some sensory processing issues I've been trying to understand better. I have a fairly sensitive temperament myself, but also grew up in a dysfunctional, abusive, and in some ways negligent (covert) narcissistic family. So I swung toward overcompensating and cultivated a strong, invincible, tough but ultimately fragile persona. It was from that persona that I raised S13 for the first 8-9 years of his life until I started the long slow process of healing. I made a lot of mistakes. Some still bring me to tears when I think about how ignorant I was, how poorly I handled our interactions. We're so similar, it turns out. I think I was raising him to be strong like me because I was worried about my own sensitivities, trying to save him from my childhood as though he wasn't having his own unique one. I even married a combination of my uBPD brother and narcissistic dad, like I was trying to recreate the exact same conditions for my S13 to survive.   Different play, same script.

S13 tended to shut down as a coping mechanism, and he was a real "stuffer" which inevitably led to emotional flooding. I can picture his face so well when he experienced the confusion of being overwhelmed as a little kid.  :'(  Breaks my heart. He still has problems. I had this lala fantasy after my divorce that things would heal up and he would become a resilient, authentic kid. S13 has cured me of that fantasy  . I feel like we're going through some big weather systems, but we have a compass and blankets, enough water for the journey and a bunch of batteries for the flashlight, whereas before it was big weather all the time, no survival gear. Puberty and adolescence is one hairy ride -- it looks so different from the parent side than it does from the teen side. All those hormones, it's like it's own temporary microclimate of mental illness. Ok, that's exaggerating, but not by much.

The biggest challenge I'm finding is the line between too much rescue and intervention, and just enough. I'm in the early stages of working with a pediatric psychiatrist, and met him for the first time earlier this week. I didn't realize how starved I was to have someone say that my protectiveness for S13 is warranted given what we've been through. Talk about thirsty for validation. I had just finished saying that maybe some of S13's insecurities were because I was always there, being codependent, and the doctor said, "I think when you and your child experience trauma like this, the situation calls for this kind of protectiveness, and no less."

Coulda hugged him right there.

I really like how the article describes behavior as a form of communication. What has puzzled me so much -- aside from my own healing in order to really see my child for who he is -- is the neurological part of personality. The brain chemistry that may predispose even a young child to depression, for example, or how there may be a predisposition to OCD that environmental stressors can trigger. It's not all about me, I guess is what I'm trying to say. But I can parent in a way that helps S13 learn how to advocate for himself and take care of himself so he stays within a zone of comfort for him. I really had no understanding of biological or emotional/psychological mental health so have some catching up to do.

Thanks for posting this, qcarolr. I hope lots of people read it, especially parents with young kids. It makes such a difference to get it right when they're young. 

[Turkish]

Thank your doctor for me lnl!

Some members here, my friends, and even my T had said at various times that I minimize all that has happened. Yet this is my defense mechansim, and how I coped growing up with a BPD mother. I don't remember exactly how many times my mom told me, "sometimes I wish I'd never adopted you!" But it started before I was 10. How hard is it to not project my Lonely Child issues onto my children?

Before their mom left on her 11 day "honeymoon," she went off on S4 at the clinic, "you need to stop crying and be tougher!" He was upset because D2 took his book. I wanted to say something, but not in front of the kids (alienation). I think I should have. S4 didn't seem affected by it ten mins later, but is this "death by a thousand pinpricks?" I think I was triggered, even though she moved out 11 months ago and I only see her every 2 weeks. Did I fail?

D2 fell asleep on the way home. I read to my son and sang a song on my bed (so we wouldn't wake The Monster Baby), then put him to sleep in their room. I hugged him and told him that he was a good boy, and the best son ever, after I got on his case a little for jumping on my bed.

[qcarolr]

Turkish - a thought: maybe we should delete ":)id I fail" from our vocabulary! You had a nano second to make a choice. Intervene with your way of responding to your children. D2 is really still  part baby/part toddler. Sharing is not yet in her developmental range. It is OK to ask her for the book back and offer her something else instead. The risk with this is for your ex to REACT and make a big scene - worse for the kids than the invalid comments to S4. This can be repaired later by your connection with him.

How can you connect to repair this damage for your S? Can you talk to him in preschooler language about D's learning to share and offer him a strategy to manage this better the next time. For him to ask for his book back and offer her something else? He is young too, so guide him in this response with your presence and support. When you are all away from ex.

Daniel Hughes has a lot of good ideas about parenting. Especially kids that have experienced trauma - either concrete trauma or perceived trauma. There is a lot about this in his Attachment Focused Parenting materials. He has another book that focuses on teaching the parent so they can be a therapeutic parent when needed. I also really like the first part of the book that discusses the interpersonal neuro-biology of development.

This book is reviewed at this link:

"Brain Based Parenting"   https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=195469.0#lastPost

The reading list for this board looks like it has some great books. I will have to check these out. Here is the link:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=56211.0

livednlearned - what a gift to find this kid pdoc. Yes - we need to get our validation needs met. For me this is the only way I can be sincere in responding to either DD28 or gd9 with validation.

I am glad I came here to share this information. I think it would be good for me to work through the tools and lessons here too. For my dh and I, having custody of gd9 since she was a baby, it is like being divorced from DD28 in some ways. Though we are no longer co-parenting. I am learning, baby steps, to shift out of my head and find my heart with all this info.  Hard for this mom/grandma that uses my mind to avoid my emotions!

qcr

[livednlearned]

Before their mom left on her 11 day "honeymoon," she went off on S4 at the clinic, "you need to stop crying and be tougher!" He was upset because D2 took his book. I wanted to say something, but not in front of the kids (alienation). I think I should have. S4 didn't seem affected by it ten mins later, but is this "death by a thousand pinpricks?" I think I was triggered, even though she moved out 11 months ago and I only see her every 2 weeks. Did I fail?

I really get this, Turkish. Seeing my sensitive child -- a boy -- respond the way he did to small things was so tough. In some ways, I've felt like the dad, expecting my son to be strong and tough, when he is anything but that. When he cried over things that were minor I would cringe inside. Not because I was rejecting him, but because I was projecting my own script on him, and reacting to him through that script. ":)on't let them see you cry! Then they win." It's like S13 was put on earth to teach me something. And N/BPDx was so victimized, which made me worry that S13 would become that way too. I would have two little kids to raise for the rest of my life, that's how I thought about them. I was recovering from abdominal surgery and bedridden, and the two of them resented me, and regressed, becoming even more needy. I resented them right back.  :'(

What I've learned is that the more I honor his feelings, no matter why or what they're about, the more resilient my son becomes. He is discovering who he is in an authentic way, and I'm the coach on the side with both thumbs up. Sometimes I'm distracted, looking away. Sometimes I don't cheer him on when he needs it. And there are days when I wonder if he's ever going to *get it,* and that feels like I'm failing. But like qcarolr says, there is no failing. There's just too much living going on in so many directions, over such a long period of time, and the take-home message for our kids is that we're their sympathetic witness.

I know my son will be angry at me some day for terminating visitation, removing his dad from his life, and I hope I'm strong enough to let that pain take up space in our relationship, as long as it takes for him to work through it. There's no way to know if terminating visitation is the biggest failure ever, or the best thing in the world for S13. No one can weigh in on this because it's for S13 to decide. All I can do is try to prepare him, and me, for the healing when he's ready to untangle the relationship he has with his dad.

Same idea for your kids, I imagine. I am always so surprised what my son gets mad at me about, and then suddenly he forgives me once he recognizes that he does the same thing. Ding ding ding! He can grow just like me.

I'll have to take a look at the book you recommended qcarolr. I'm similar in the sense that I can get very thinky and lose track of my feelings. But being this way has also accelerated a lot of understanding, as long as I'm willing to stop and feel things, no matter how painful.

Since we're having a bit of a book club here, another one that really shifted my thinking was The Conscious Parent. It really speaks to that whole idea of "egoic" self, the one that we project on our kids, which prevents us from seeing who they truly are, their authentic selves and experiences. It was one of those books that I skimmed and could go back and read again, but just having it and absorbing the idea of what the book was about helped me.