There can be various reasons as to why a child will exhibit “oppositional” behavior. While some children exhibit willful behavior simply because they do not wish to engage in the task, other children struggle to manage internal barriers. Internal barriers may include low frustration tolerance, difficulty managing transitions, and low language skills/inability to express their resistance. Children with these types of internal barriers face increased difficulty as they contradict the misconception of children intrinsically seeking adult approval. While some children are internally motivated to complete tasks requested by adults, not all children respond in this manner.
When a child does not appear to be intrinsically motivated by adult approval, adults usually rely on consequences/punishment as a method of externally motivating a child. Resorting to punishment to gain compliance is a natural response that has been endorsed by society. There are few things more embarrassing than being in a public place with a willful child who is throwing a tantrum. The embarrassment increases as onlookers remark about the adult’s lack of control of the child.
To gain compliance, adults become more focused on making the child follow directions. They do not take the time to listen and understand if there is a reason for their resistance. Granted, there are lessons that even children with internal struggles must learn to function within society. These lessons include:
- You will not always get your way. Life is nothing if not getting up every day to do things we do not want to do.
- You must learn how to self-regulate in the face of adversity. Having a tantrum is not prosocial method to handle conflict.
- You need to be able to communicate your frustration. Other people cannot read your mind, thus you need to be able to explain how you feel and why.
However, using punishment as a method to gain compliance often has the opposite effect. Consequences reinforce to not engage in undesirable behavior, but do not teach more acceptable alternatives. Punishment does not teach a child how to self-regulate or how to communicate. It reinforces that the adult’s way is the right way and the adult is not interested in the child’s feelings and does not want to hear about them. This is particularly damaging for children that need to have a relationship with an adult before they will respond to the adult’s request.
How do I know if it is a problem?
While temper tantrums and general defiance are common in children between the ages of 2 to 3. Children around the age of 4, generally, have less tantrums and are able to exhibit some self-regulation strategies. However, tantrums are developmentally appropriate past the age 4, usually ceasing around the age of 8. Excessive tantrums/defiance occurring almost daily especially without any perceivable trigger, may be an indication a child struggles with an internal barrier.
Another way to identify a child with internal barriers is to look to the adults in their lives. Adults who regularly engage with particularly willful children are usually exhausted. They report having tried various tactics with few results. In many cases, the adults feel as if they are at the end of their rope.
Can anything help?
Good Choice Dollars intervention allows a child to earn pretend play money by exhibiting “good choices”. Once earned, the Good Choice Dollars are put into a Good Choice Bank which the child can use to purchase preferred activities/items. Good Choice Dollars can be earned for a variety of good choices which can range from “completing a task the first time it is requested” to “spontaneously initiated nice behavior towards others” as it is the adult’s discretion to determine the behavior and the level of reinforcement. It provides an opportunity to motivate a child to complete an adult requested task that is reinforced with a reinforcement of a child’s choosing. Before I go further, I would like to discuss the importance of “paying a child to do what they are already supposed to be doing”. The most common resistance to this intervention is the concept that children should not be paid to do what they should already be doing. The problem with this concept is two-fold:
- They are already not doing what you want them to do. If you have tried everything and it is not working, why not give this intervention a chance.
- Adults get paid to do things they do not want to do all the time. For example, few adults would continue to show up to their jobs if they were not receiving a pay check.
The purpose of this activity is to increase the child’s intrinsic motivation to complete an adult requested task. Once intrinsic motivation is established, extrinsic motivators can be modified. For younger children, create a list of activities/items that the child likes. Set up a dollar to activity ratio. For example, two good choice dollars equates to 10 minutes of tablet time. It is important to have the reward chart posted so the child is aware of how many good choices it takes to earn a desired activity. This increases structure which is extremely important for children with internal struggles as knowing what is coming and what to expect reduces some degree of internal struggles.
It is also helpful to pre-correct the child to let them know what they are working towards in advance. For example, “John, you will earn 2 Good Choice Dollars if you can sit in the cart quietly while I check out at the pharmacy”. This way John knows what the expected behavior is and what he will receive if he exhibits the expected behavior. In the beginning, if John is able to exhibit the expected behavior for half of the allotted time; he would earn 1 Good Choice Dollar with a discussion about why he only earned 1 Good Choice Dollar and what he would need to do next time to earn 2 Good Choice Dollars. As time progresses and John understands the expected behavior, he would earn no Good Choice Dollars if he is unable to sit quietly during the allotted time.
For children who are older, it may be more helpful to work with them to create a list of what they can earn for dollars. Increased child involvement, will increase buy-in from the child and make them more willing to engage in the activity.
Contact me for more information about the details of this activity.
The Results
This intervention has been extremely successful in families where parents have different parenting styles. Parents can determine behaviors that are most important to them, and reinforce at the level they believe to be appropriate. This intervention is also beneficial in changing the dialogue around the child’s behavior. It reinforces positive choices the child made instead of focusing on inappropriate choices which contributes to increased self-esteem in the child.
Children with internal struggles often receive a lot of negative feedback about their behavior without an understanding of how to improve. Children quickly begin to internalize these critiques on their behavior and begin to believe they are a bad person. By using the language “good choice” and “not-good choice”, it focuses the attention on the action and not the person who committed the action. In younger children, it is important to stress to them that everyone makes “not-good choices” and “not-good choices” help us learn how to make “good choices”.
Lastly, removal of earned Good Choice Dollars for inappropriate behavior undermines the intent behind the intervention. The purpose of Good Choice Dollars is to teach the child and reinforce prosocial choices. Using the pharmacy example above, if John were unable to sit quietly in the pharmacy; he would not earn any Good Choice Dollars but none of the previous dollars he earned would be taken away. In this intervention, not earning the reinforcement is the punishment. This intervention is best when used to reinforce prosocial behaviors, behaviors that are intentional and extreme should be reprimanded accordingly.
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