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Sometimes children behave in such a way that you feel helpless in front of them. How can we explain these sometimes problematic outbursts? Positive education expert Isabelle Filliozat reveals six causes that could explain them.
To calm family relationships and better understand the different behaviors of children, positive parenting specialist Isabelle Filliozat has developed a program on the subject.
Aimed at parents who feel lost and helpless when dealing with their children, this program offers tools and ways to understand children’s behavior. The psychotherapist details six causes that can explain them.
Stress changes children’s behavior
Stress, which often affects adults, does not, in reality, spare children. According to Isabelle Filliozat, it manifests itself in them in the form of three attitudes: avoidance, blocking or attack. In practice, a child is confronted with stress when he gets angry, when he isolates himself and cries or when he freezes.
In all these situations, it is useless to reason with the child. The expert recommends giving him a hug or offering him breathing exercises to calm him down. In a second step, you can talk to him.
Lack of information and skills
Children are blank pages that must learn everything. And parents tend to forget this because they consider that certain rules are acquired, by dint of repeating them. But a child does not retain everything and is not supposed to know everything. Isabelle Filliozat’s recommendation: constantly inform children, remind them of the rules and tell them what is forbidden but also what is allowed.
An “unmet need”
The needs of toddlers are numerous and the role of the parent is to detect them. But it is far from being innate and it is necessary to question the needs of a child, before scolding him. Because the child will go through tears to express a need very often, because he remains emotionally immature and unable to verbalize what he feels until the age of 7. To meet the emotional needs of a child, you must make yourself available to provide him with all the love, affection and attention he needs.
Attitudes related to their age
Your child doesn’t follow the rules, even though you’ve told them countless times? This is normal, especially if he’s young. You have to accept that his development takes time and that remaining lenient is the most important thing you can do.
A setback
A child may have an annoyance related to a friend at school or at the park. And it is possible to overlook his problem if he does not talk about it. It is important to talk with him to defuse the situation and help him express himself. For the expert, it is necessary to help him to evoke his emotions by avoiding interrogative questions beginning with “why”, so as not to put pressure on the child.
Limitation
We are our children’s first role models. They often imitate us, as do their siblings or other people around them. This is how children learn! So we must apply the rules we impose to set an example for our children and ensure that they do the same.
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