What’s Your Biggest Child Behavior Concern Today?
- Brainz Magazine
- Dec 3
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 5
Written by Tina Feigal, M.S., Ed., Parent Coach
Former school psychologist Tina Feigal specializes in helping caregivers heal trauma associated with adoption, foster care, and children's losses of any kind. She's the author of Present Moment Parenting: The Guide to a Peaceful Life with Your Intense Child and has trained and mentored 850 coaches worldwide.
Do you ever feel like life gets out of control way too often with your child? I get it. Parenting in this day and age just gets more complex every day. With screen time, AI, questions about how much independence your child should have, the high rate of childhood/teen anxiety, and balancing work and family life, we get nostalgic for the good old days when life was so much simpler. Maybe others are judging you for your parenting, and if it’s not them, you’re judging yourself. You're definitely not alone. I want to assure you that there’s hope. In this article, you will find practical tips to help you heal your relationship with your child and find peace in your home. Ready for some relief? You’ve come to the right spot!
Why does parenting pose such a challenge?
You desperately want to raise a healthy, loving, successful child, but so often it feels impossible. You’re faced with opposition, defiance, disrespect, and/or you watch helplessly when your child is too anxious to function well with peers or with their studies. At times, you even see withdrawal that may point to depression, which is frankly frightening and overwhelming. Why doesn’t the parenting you received as a child work with your own kids? You’ve tried consequences, being “gentle,” speaking logically, and every other thing you can think of, but nothing changes. Maybe you even enrolled your child in therapy, with no or mixed results. The key lies in a new understanding of the root cause of behaviors, which I’m happy to share here.
What causes unwanted child behavior?
Most adults were raised with an authoritarian approach, “Do what I say, or there will be consequences!” Have you found that consequences, such as picking your young child up and relocating him to a different spot, just don’t have a lasting effect? Sending your 5th grader to her room may work for today, but tomorrow, you notice the same issues. Taking away electronics from your tween or teen works for the evening, but never lasts. How do you get lasting results after desperately trying to do what seemed effective years ago?
The answer may not be one simple statement, but I want to assure you that we truly know more now about where behavior comes from than adults did when we were young. This will likely sound foreign, but please stay tuned. We now understand the physiological effects of communication on the child’s body, which can shine a light on so many unanswered questions. The child’s brain has a threat alarm called the amygdala. It’s located near the brain stem, where all the other automatic survival mechanisms live. Breathing, blood circulation, and digestion are the things we don’t have to think about to stay alive. The amygdala is the same. It protects us and helps us survive physically and emotionally. Its message to the child is, “If your parents see you, you will survive.” Most kids know what gets parents’ attention, negative behavior. The amygdala is a rather fundamental organ that doesn’t distinguish between positive and negative attention. Whatever the behavior, if parents give it attention, the amygdala says to the child, “Your mom saw you. Do that again!” As adults, we are actually rewarding the very behavior we don’t want! I know, this is new information, but please believe me that understanding it can make all the difference for you as a parent. Because of your relationship (as the one your child depends upon for survival), you have enormous power to help kids’ behavior improve.
More on the physiology of the child
The heart is actively involved in the child’s reception and interpretation of adult input. The adult says, “I can’t believe you just ignored my request to clear the dishes. How many times do I have to ask you? Will you ever learn?” This goes deep into the child’s heart with the message, “I’m not a good kid. I can never do the right thing.” If the adult responds to a positive experience with, “Wow, I was really impressed with the way you handled your brother just then!” the message goes into the heart, “I’m a good kid. I can do the right thing. Dad saw me, and that felt great!” HeartMath Institute studied the effects of communication on the heart and found that it is definitely talking to the brain with unique neural pathways. As the parent, you have the power to form these neural pathways for the child’s goodness by repeating the positive observations of his or her behavior. All learning that sticks depends on repetition. Want to have a child who believes in herself as a positive person, and therefore is able to behave as such? Download four positive messages into her heart for three days and watch her blossom into the wonderful kid she’s always been.
Another way to bring out the best in your child
You certainly want respect from your child. He has to learn it to function in the world, which you realize starts at home. The best way to teach respect is to show it. So instead of issuing directives and expecting immediate compliance, try using collaborative decision-making, which shows and generates respect. It looks like this, “Since we’re expecting company in a few hours, what needs to happen in this living room?” Asking instead of telling includes the child in the process. An added advantage is that it helps another part of the brain to develop. It’s called the pre-frontal cortex, which is fully developed at age 23 in females and 25 in males. (Trauma, adverse life circumstances, and ADHD can delay this, just in case you’re dealing with one or all of these.) The PFC is the area of the brain that deals with logic, planning ahead, and reasoning. If you are always the source of logic, planning ahead, and reasoning, you’re not helping the child’s PFC to develop. If you ask thoughtful questions about what needs to happen, collaborating with the child instead of issuing directives, you will see a child needs to consider the logical answer and whose PFC comes to life!
The amygdala and the PFC
You have learned that the two are both brain parts, and that you have enormous power to bring out the best in your child by understanding their functions. Another vital thing to realize is that when a child is melting down or throwing a tantrum, the amygdala is activated and the PFC is turned off. In order to help calm the amygdala, you can use reflective listening. “You’re really upset right now. You wanted to go out with your friends, but it’s dinner time, and there’s homework to be done.” The behavior is saying, “See me! I need your attention to survive!” When you effectively use reflective listening, the child is seen, the amygdala registers this fact, and the PFC can come online, but only when that amygdala is calm. (Wait a bit to watch this happen. It may not be immediate, and you can keep reflecting until you see his body relax.) Reflective listening is not agreeing with the child, nor condoning the “see me” behaviors. It’s simply calming the threat alarm so logic can be received. Keep in mind, the child has no awareness that the brain is causing the big reaction, any more than he’s aware that his brain is helping his food digest. You can now acknowledge that he’s innocently trying to survive, not wilfully being disrespectful or defiant.
Acknowledge your accomplishments
Starting to see improvements in your child’s behavior and attitude? As I often cheekily say to my coaching clients, “I’m blaming this positivity on you!” Now look in the mirror and tell yourself what a great parent you’ve become. You deserve this. Repeat until you feel it sink in. Don’t expect 100% positivity from yourself. Shoot for 67%. This is the self-care you need to stay in the game as a powerful parent.
Related articles: Tina’s parenting blog
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Read more from Tina Feigal, M.S., Ed.
Tina Feigal, M.S., Ed., Parent Coach
Tina Feigal, M.S., Ed. works with parents of children of all ages, specializing in, but not exclusive to, child losses and trauma (foster care, adoption, reunification). Tina sees parents' power to heal their children's hearts in a way that they often miss. She offers tried-and-true ways of connecting with children of all ages to create emotional safety, the key to better relationships and behaviors. She uses a non-judgmental approach, understanding that every parent carries "how I was raised" as their model, often with unsatisfactory results. She helps parents get what they truly want from their parenting experience - peace of mind!
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