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					When Your Kids Push Your Buttons: The Newsletter by Bonnie Harris, M.S.Ed. Issue 34 - How does Misbehavior Turn Criminal? Greetings! "Once you adopt the mindset that ordinary childhood misbehavior is criminal behavior, it's easy to start seeing young children as somehow monstrous." — Bob Herbert, Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times What is reality? Isn't it just what we perceive it is? Who has the right perception or the right reality? It seems to me that how well we relate to our children depends on how well our realities relate. Discussion of Key Points: How does Misbehavior Turn Criminal? A six-year-old black girl was arrested from her kindergarten class by the chief of police of Avon Park, Florida when she had a meltdown the school was unable to handle. When Bob Herbert from the New York Times interviewed him, the chief told him this was not the first six-year-old they had arrested. Apparently school districts across the country are criminalizing very young children, a large percentage of whom are black, by turning to the legal system to handle difficult behavior. What have we become? Herbert is absolutely right that this mindset—this assumption that a child's out-of-control behavior is criminal—is outrageous catastrophizing that can destroy a child's life. Can any of us imagine what it must have felt like to be that terrified little black girl being pulled out from under a table by a policeman, handcuffed around her upper arms (they aren't made for six-year-olds wrists), driven to the police station in the back of a police car, finger-printed, and put behind bars. Desre'e Watson is now a felon in the eyes of the law. She was charged with battery on a school official, disruption of a school function and resisting a law enforcement officer. Anyone want to bet on the odds for her future behavior? We're going in the wrong direction. We apparently think that children's behavior will improve when we belittle them. Have your children felt belittled lately? Do you know? If you don't, ask. Angry behavior always hides fear. Desre'e's behavior is a screaming red flag of emotional turmoil. Your child's red flag may not scream so loudly but do you see it? We can understand the exasperation and anger of this child's teacher. But what happens when exasperation becomes accusation, which prompts action that marks a child for life? This child needs help getting back on track and feeling in balance with her world. Only there will her behavior change, as it is a reflection of her emotional state. Desre'e is being forced to look into many mirrors, perhaps every day, that reflect back to her what a bad, undeserving disappointment she is. This reflection will continue to solidify her belief that she is indeed a bad, undeserving disappointment. She has no choice but to act that way. To turn things around, we must understand that all children want to succeed, want to please, want to do the right thing, until adults, who don't know any better, get in their way and present obstacle after obstacle. Desire'e has already, in her short life, been pulled far off her track. By what? We don't know. But her behavior, and that of so many children, is a cry for help that must be paid attention to if we want these inexcusable punishments to stop. Poor Desire'e is on the road to failure, possibly real criminal behavior, fully and absolutely put there by many of the adults in her life. Questions and Answers Please send your questions. Here's how it works: You email me a question, and I answer you right away. Then it goes in a newsletter at a later date. But you get your answer much sooner than its appearance in the newsletter Q. My 3 1/2 year old daughter overall is sweet, caring, and playful. Some of her behavior definitely pushes my buttons though. She seems to be seeking control of others too often. Today at the park she was blocking off passageways with her arms so that friends we knew and other children couldn't pass through. She sometimes grabs, hits, pushes, and last week was yelling in friends' faces. We don't model those behaviors at home, and I had hoped we would never see them in our kids. Wrong!!! Our goal has been to foster secure attachment with our children, which I think has been successful. We try to give our daughter choices and control in her life so that she doesn't need to try to control other kids, but this hasn't seemed to work. What else can we try? At the park today I let her know in a calm manner that we needed to move out of the way so that the other kids could take their turns. She wouldn't release her hands so I gave her the choice of removing them or letting me help her. She didn't so I gently helped her. Another tricky situation comes when we have friends to our house. Again, the control factor comes up and she wants to put things up high so other children can't play with them, tell other kids what to do, etc. I try to tell her that the things we have out are available for sharing and that the other moms will take care of their children so she doesn't need to worry. If we are in public or at someone else's house we can leave. But when we have other families over, all I can think of doing is taking her into another room and talking about what is expected/appropriate. But it never works moving forward. What are we missing, or is time on our side? A. Your daughter's temperament is high-spirited and forceful. Your job is to accept that. You are doing a fine job except that you are catastrophizing and expecting her to be a mild mannered child who lets others take the lead from her. That you will have little success with! At 3 1/2, she is too immature to use her leadership abilities appropriately. Developmentally, she is egocentric. Together with her temperament of a strong will, she has strong opinions about how things should go—she likely always will. The adjustment for you is minor but critical. All you need is understand that there is nothing wrong with her drive to seek control. It will in fact serve her well one day as long as she learns respect for others, which you will teach her as you respect her and who she is. Your expectation can adjust from: She shouldn't be so controlling but should step aside and be polite, to: She has a strong desire to lead and will learn how to do it graciously as she grows and as we continue to model it for her. You handled the park situation well by giving her a choice and making it for her when she didn't. Choices will always be the way to go with her as she learns the power of making them. Her desire to put certain toys away when a friend comes over is right on. She is telling you that she doesn't want to fight over her things. Let her put away the toys she doesn't want to share and choose ones she does. This is good problem-solving. If she has to share everything, she will hoard and control more and more. Q. My 14 yr. old son is being bullied at school. He is short for his age and is really getting picked on. He is begging us to do nothing about it, insisting it will make it worse. I do understand his position but don't know how to proceed. A. Do follow your son's cues. He knows he could experience a backlash if you get involved. I think it's fine to speak to his teacher, ask her what she sees and to watch out for problems in this area, but get your son's permission promising him that's as far as you will go. It's important for kids who are bullied to understand that the bully is usually an insecure child who is being "bullied" him/herself, either at home or by other children, and is attempting to buoy himself up. Don't expect your son to "understand" and be kind, but it may give him an added perspective. See if he will do some role playing with you. You need to be completely neutral and your button must be defused! Switch back and forth between you and your son playing the bully and yourselves. Let him scream and yell all he wants "at the bully." Let him get it all out. Then work toward what he can and wants to say. If it's provoking, instead of telling him that's not okay, ask him what he thinks the result would be. Let him think it through and keep working until he has a good comeback line that would not provoke but take the wind out of the bully's sails by making himself a boring target. But telling him to ignore the bully is impossible. Perhaps he could think of something to say about his shortness before the bully gets a chance. The idea is to go with it rather than to act defensively. It's hard not to take it personally at that age. However, working it through with you may be all he needs to change his perception of it. He may be able to just walk away from the bully with a different attitude. Stories from Readers The first thing that you have to do when your child is ADHD is change your dreams. You can still have your dreams of course-you simply have to change them a bit. One of my dreams was to take my someday-perfect child to Disney World. I dreamed of us twirling about in the Disney teacups and just having a perfect time. Well our trip was a nightmare until we changed our focus. He was not along with us on our vacation—we were along with him on his. We couldn't enjoy long quiet meals—we had to find the buffets and hit those. An ADHD child will not sit still for even a short meal. If he can get up and choose his own food to eat—BINGO—mealtime is fun. If you can pull him out of school and go during a time when Disney is slow—no Lines, no crowds—BINGO—you win again. You simply have to relax your dreams and work with what your child can and cannot handle. My Disney dream trip did come true (except for the teacup ride—my six year old and I preferred Space Mountain). News I will be in London next month doing the When Your Kids Push Your Buttons workshop. Part 1, May 17 and 18 will be in Clapham — For more details, email enquiries@theparentpractice.com. A second Part 1 will be held May 21 and 22 in Notting Hill. Part 2 (for anyone who has ever taken Part 1) will be held in Notting Hill on May 24 and 25. Contact albaguinness@aol.com for more info. I am busy at work on my next book and would love your stories. If you have something that works around the following issues, and your child is between two and twelve, I would love your stories: getting out the door in the morning, mealtimes, chores, car time, homework, and bedtime. Fondly, Bonnie Bonnie Harris Core Parenting Click here to read previous newsletters. Email Bonnie with questions or comments at bh@bonnieharris.com. © 2011 Bonnie Harris, LLC | P : 603.924.6639 | E : bh@bonnieharris.com