What are children trying to tell us with their repetitive behaviours?
When should we pay attention?
Parents often ask themselves in their everyday life: "Is it normal for my child to behave like this?”; „What does this reaction mean?”; "Are we doing something wrong?".
Children are different and even in everyday situations they react according to their temperamental characteristics, their age characteristics, the life situation they are in, etc. Some children are anxious and worried, others show aggression, others seem unresponsive and unmoved. Very often with specific behavioral patterns or somatic reactions they show that they are going through something and/or going through a difficult time.
Specific repetitive behaviors and/or emotional reactions always occur for a reason and are often the only way a child has to cope with their experiences and are most often provoked by the environment. For normal children, they are a reflection of something happening in the family, at school, in communication with others, and the longer nothing changes, the more persistent the patterns become and may even deepen. It is naive to think that such well-established behaviors will stop by themselves or that the child will "outgrow them". Sometimes, of course, children find a resource to cope on their own and the behavior goes away on its own, but in most cases, left unattended or neglected, it persists because it serves specific important functions.
This does not mean that any child's behavior is worrisome, but repeated features in reactions, behaviors or relationships should be looked at from another angle.
How do we understand children's problematic behaviour?
Psychodrama conceptualizes disorders and symptoms as failed or inappropriate attempts at regulation or adaptation. Errors in experience, actions and behavior arise from failed attempts to adapt to the environment, which could not be regulated and organized differently at the given moment (Schacht, 2010). Symptoms manifested through problem behavior represent children's attempts to deal with their internal conflicts.
The first and most important priority related to working out a given type of problem is to understand the child's behavior and evaluate his effort to find a solution to the problem. The symptom represents the best coping strategy the child has discovered at the moment. Therefore, it is very valuable when the child has the feeling that he is accepted and understood, and not that someone perceives him as a problem. This is a major step in the direction of acceptance and integration of problematic behavior by the child himself. Quite often, children intuitively know that their behavior is an attempt to deal with a problem, and they do not always agree to immediately get rid of it. In fact, they may even “fight” the adult and not give up easily if they feel that their only goal is to change this behavior (Flegelskamp & Dudler, 2014-2017).
When is it advisable to seek psychotherapeutic assistance and what should we expect?
Usually, by the time a psychotherapist meets a child, he or she comes with clearly prominent behaviors or emotional reactions that parents and/or teachers are concerned about. The more time that has passed, the more this has contributed to the symptoms becoming stronger and even worse (Aichinger & Holl, 2017). In many children, the duration of symptoms can be explained by developmental moments and repeated trials for them in different social contexts. Then we specialists, perhaps also parents, are faced with the questions "What can be done?”, „What is this child not getting enough of, or getting too much of?”, „What can be changed at home or at school?"
The idea of the psychotherapeutic process is not for children to be a part of it for life, and to build stable strategies of constructive functioning. It is only later that the symptom can be "replaced" and cease to control the child, and conversely - the child can manage to control the problematic behavior. Sometimes this can be a long process if the child is not ready to give up what serves him well. It is not realistic to expect big changes after only a few meetings or after a few attempts at change. Noticeable changes in children's behavior and responses occur depending on many factors, some of which have to do with how much time has passed, how severe the problem behavior is, the parents' efforts, the child's temperament, etc.
One thing is certain, however, that with efforts made by the therapist, but also by parents and/or teachers, to provoke changes in the environment, children very often manage to cope successfully and feel calmer.
If something in your child's behavior seems worrisome or makes a particular impression on you, it is still a good idea to consult a specialist.