Don’t let those cherublike faces fool you. Your smart kids have goals.
One of my goals in life is to make any kind of education informative and entertaining. That’s why, when I was teaching at the University of Arizona, I made sure my classes were practical and hands-on in nature, and there was takeaway. Anyone who has read a Leman book knows you’re not going to find a big chunk of high-and-mighty-sounding psychological research. Instead, you’ll find informative, entertaining, practical material to help with real life. But there are a few people and ideas you need to know about because they directly impact you and your child.
Psychiatrist Alfred Adler is one. He believed that behavior had a purpose—he was the first to talk about that concept—and was instrumental in my thinking as I developed my own psychological theories on people, relationships, and life. Alfred Adler was at one time a colleague of Sigmund Freud’s in Vienna, Austria. But a public debate once uncovered that the two colleagues saw life completely different.
If they were both alive and debating each other today, and they were asked why they thought people smoked, here’s what they’d say:
Siggy: “You smoke cigarettes today because you were fixated on the oral stage of development at your mother’s breast.”
Alfie: “You smoke because you’re stupid.”
I like old Alfie. He was very practical. But if you’ve ever read Alfred Adler, it can be pretty heavy reading. It’s a bit like trying to read The Merck Manual for fun on a Saturday night or picking up James Michener’s Hawaii for a quick read. The guy was brilliant, but he used too many big words for me.
So along came Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs, a well-known and respected educator and a student of Alfred Adler’s in the 1930s. He, too, believed that all behavior had a purpose, so he took a lot of Adler’s academic-sounding materials and, for lack of a better term, westernized them into four goals of misbehavior so guys like me could understand them. The four goals, in order, were attention, power, revenge, and display of inadequacy. His book Children: The Challenge is a wonderful little book that’s worthwhile reading for anyone who’s interested in Adlerian theory applied to child rearing.
In all my years as a practicing psychologist, I’ve seen thousands of children. Less than 1 percent of them have passed the first two levels and moved on to revenge or display of inadequacy. Ninety-nine percent of them are at the attention and power levels. That’s why, for the purposes of this book, I’ve chosen to address those two basic stages of misbehavior: (1) attention and (2) power.
Also, in the scope of my private practice, I dealt with generally “normal” people—within normal limits of behavior—and didn’t deal with severely disturbed people (those beyond stage two). However, for your overall understanding of the goals of misbehavior, I’ll do a quick pass over all four of them. Following Dreikurs, other people—notably Don Dinkmeyer and Gary McKay (a classmate of mine at the University of Arizona grad school)—have further refined Adler’s theories and helped thousands of people, both parents and professionals, to understand the nature of misbehavior in children and what to do about it.
The most important thing for parents to know is that if a child doesn’t receive satisfactory results in his striving for attention (the first stage), he then moves to power (the second stage), and so on. Remember what we discovered about behavior? It’s purposive—it serves a purpose.
Attention: Stage One
Some kids live for being the center of attention, and they’ll do almost anything to be noticed—which means everything from arguing constantly with you (even negative attention is attention) to being the clown at school or at home. They don’t care what it takes to get attention, as long as they get it. These are the kids others can view as rude, annoying, and, at times, unacceptable. They might temporarily stop their attention-getting behavior when they are given attention, but that doesn’t last long. In order to gain more attention, they often begin a new annoying behavior.
A child who is an attention-getter is mildly discouraged. He feels as if his opinions don’t count, so he has to work hard to get any notice for himself. His life mantra is, I only count when others pay attention to me. Oftentimes that child is dealing with the high expectations of a parent who pushes him to excel or talks about how bright a sibling is. The child feels like he can never measure up to such a high expectation, and he worries about it. So he works hard at entertaining or getting attention other ways.
How do you deal with an attention-getting child? We’ll talk in depth about this later in the book, but here are a couple pointers for now. First, you ignore him when he demands your attention. You simply turn your back and walk away. But then you surprise him by giving him attention in unexpected ways—for positive behavior. You won’t have to wait long—that kid of yours is smart. He’ll soon be doing loops to get your attention in a positive way.
Kids start by seeking attention, but if they don’t get attention, they move to the next level.
Power: Stage Two
Powerful kids simply want their way. They are willing to do whatever it takes to be in charge and stay in charge. Their life mantra is, I only count when I’m dominant—when I can get others to do whatever I want them to, and when I can do whatever I want to. They are the kids who disobey, are uncooperative, talk back, and don’t show respect for others. They’re the kinds of kids who continually challenge you, provoke you, and make you want to lash back with “So you don’t want to do it? Well then, I’ll make you do it. How dare you! You can’t get away with that!”
If a child’s needs for basic attention are not met in a positive way, and the parental expectations are not lowered to a realistic level for her abilities and talents, she ramps up to the next stage: power. She’s thinking, I have skills, and I’ll show you who’s boss. I’m going to control all the shots. So if good grades are all that’s important to you, I can take care of that. This child who was voraciously reading four books a week at home suddenly isn’t doing as well at school. Parents begin to see slipping grades.
My advice? Parent, back off. If your child is devouring that many books, she’s a natural learner. Communicate privately with the school faculty that you have faith in them. Then let the school take your buzzard by the beak and work with her in upping her accountability and responsibility in getting her homework done. If she’s an athlete, she’ll have some additional motivation: if she doesn’t pull good enough grades, she won’t be eligible to play. That’s much better than you hovering over the kid, having the same argument—complete with tears, yelling, and slammed doors—that you have every night when you encourage her to do her homework.
You be the adult. Choose to withdraw from the conflict. Put the ball in the court where it belongs, and don’t go pick it up from the other side. If you put yourself on equal footing with your child, not as an almighty dictator but as a human being (even though you play different roles in the family), your child will no longer need to fight. It takes two to tango. You’ll be amazed what happens as you and your child learn together to redirect all that negative energy (from both of you!) into constructive activities and a growing relationship.
Revenge: Stage Three
If a child’s needs for attention and power are not met in a positive way, he moves to the next stage: revenge. If your child is at this stage, he needs more assistance than the scope of this book can give. These are the kids you read about in the paper. They’re the ones who strike out against society and will likely spend time in prison. Their thinking is, I’ve been so hurt by life that I have a right to hurt others. Even when the others they hurt might be innocent individuals.
We’ve all read accounts of people in the newspaper or seen stories on television of those who’ve felt hurt by life and struck out at others in horrific ways. The shooting sprees at Sandy Hook Elementary School and Columbine High School are only two of the tragic examples that have left a number of children and teachers dead and many others injured. After their murderous rampage, the gunmen turned their guns on themselves.
In many cases, suicide is revenge. After all, you send a message when you kill yourself. It’s the biggest spit in somebody’s soup that you can give. Take that, you’re saying. I’ve been so hurt by life and by you that I’m going to fix this mess myself. Suicide is their final act of revenge and gains the attention and power they seek by making the headlines. When people leave behind a suicide note, the words are always some rendition of “Take that.”
Those kids who lash out in revenge—to get even—are compensating for real or imagined hurts. The revenge can be either physical or psychological. For example, bullies often use revenge to excuse their shoving, pushing, and teasing.
Many kids in the revenge stage have developed a life view that the world is not safe. As a result, they’ve never felt safe or secure, and they can’t trust anyone. Their response when feeling hurt in any way is to strike back (“I’ll show you . . .”), either by becoming juvenile delinquents or by taking their own lives since they can’t measure up in their minds.
What’s really sad is that these kids in the revenge stage started by seeking attention, which they didn’t get. They then moved on to power, which didn’t work either.
Revenge can also take a passive form, like the kid who won’t say anything combative to people’s faces, but behind their backs—watch out. How else do you explain people who sit on a freeway with a gun and pick off total strangers?
Most adults, when faced with a revengeful child, are at first hurt and shocked. How can she do this to me? they think. Then they get angry and try to get even, “punishing” the child. All that process does is increase the child’s drive to seek revenge. There’s no winning on either side of that battle.
What can a parent do? Get professional help right now. Don’t wait. Try to maintain order with a minimum of rules (most of the revengeful kids have no respect for punishment or the punisher anyway), and take time to understand and build a bridge of trust with that child. No, change won’t be instant, but nothing good in life ever is.
Display of Inadequacy: Stage Four
Some psychologists call this assumed disability. These are the kids who’ve given up on life. I can’t do anything right, so I won’t even try at all, they think. They decide to hide out rather than engage.
I once met a homeless man who lived under a bridge, and I discovered that he’d once been a brilliant engineer. Another homeless man, who was selling newspapers on a street corner in Tucson (the local paper allows homeless people to sell papers to make some money), worked on a book of crossword puzzles in between sales. Anyone who does crossword puzzles loves words and is a voracious reader. That means the man wasn’t too low in brains. But something happened in that guy’s life that was so devastating he gave up. So he sells papers, hoping someone will be generous.
People in stage four may be extremely brilliant and skilled in their fields, like the engineer under the bridge. Yet they feel that, no matter how well they do in that chosen field, they’re never quite good enough. Life has so beaten them down that they don’t care anymore. They’ve gone past the revenge stage to giving up on themselves, giving up on life. They’re passive, never improving in any areas, because they feel it’s useless to try.
Many grew up with a critical parent who was “shoulding” on them at every turn and telling them they could never measure up. If they had siblings, they heard frequently, “Why can’t you be like your brother?” To avoid that failure, they simply gave up. They appeared to be discouraged and helpless. They didn’t try anything, because trying could mean failing. They lived in the shadows, hoping others would forget about them and not hold them responsible for anything.
These are the people who, when they grow up, don’t need any critics. They become the critical parent of themselves. Every time they do something, they remind themselves, It’s not good enough. You’re not good enough.
Let’s say someone is an accomplished artist, and everyone is talking about how talented she is in watercolors and oils. But she can’t hear or process what people are saying because that critical voice inside is screaming, It isn’t good enough. It’ll never be good enough. Or someone could be a successful businessman and make good money, but inside he’s telling himself, If those people only knew how that project should look, they wouldn’t give me a dime for it.
This behavior is self-defeating. In the animal world, it would be like the dog that cowers and hits the floor the instant it meets people. The logic is, I’m going to get beat up in this situation, so I might as well put myself on the floor. That’s what stage four people do. They lay down before anybody can have a chance to knock them down.
Parents who are dealing with a stage four child feel hopeless and discouraged. They often simply give up, believing that change in their family life is impossible. That’s not true, but it will take a lot of assistance from a professional who can work with not only the child but the parents as well.
The first way parents of these children can help is by encouraging any positive effort—even the slightest effort, such as picking a jacket up off the floor. They can also be overheard in “good gossip” with a friend on the phone, saying, “You know, Jimmy is amazingly good at technology. The other day, when I was stuck on a computer issue, he . . .” Children have excellent hearing; you can bet that Jimmy will hear your words.
Parents should also never give up, never fall into the “poor kid” or “poor me” trap, and never criticize. Patience and love, along with professional counseling for the entire family, will slowly win.
The goals of misbehavior are the reason some parents try all kinds of techniques to handle the same behavior problems over and over and get little or no results. As soon as parents find a way to stop one misbehavior, another behavior problem surfaces. It may look different on the outside, but it’s based on the same goal of misbehavior. That’s because the child still has the same underlying belief about himself. His view of who he is and what his role in the world is haven’t changed.
For example, if a child thinks she only counts when she’s getting attention or when others notice her, she’ll continue to seek attention.
If he thinks he only counts when he’s the guy in control—because then nobody can boss him around—he’ll ramp up the power play.
Kids only misbehave when they have a reason—and their behavior works.
That’s a truth you can count on.
Powerful Ideas That Work
My son, Kent, was 3 when we adopted his sister, Tricia. A short while after his sister arrived home, I caught Kent biting her on the arm. I was shocked and punished him for it.
Kent had been potty-trained for over a year, but he started wetting his pants. And he kept biting his sister or pinching her when I wasn’t looking. Finally, I had to lock him in his room when she was taking a nap because I couldn’t trust him.
I read a bunch of books and talked to a lot of parents over the next six months. I tried their advice, but nothing worked. He was still biting, pinching, and wetting his pants. And when he was 4, he told me he hated his sister.
The lightbulb went on when I read your Birth Order Book. Kent was jealous of his sister, yes. (I’d figured that much out. After all, I am a college graduate.) But he was also scared of being replaced by his sister. He wanted my attention—however he could get it. That was clear. As a firstborn, he didn’t like change and needed to know the ropes.
So when I found him trying his sister’s diapers on, I got an idea. I leaned down and whispered in his ear, “I’ve got a secret to tell you.” He perked right up. I told him that I needed his help. “You’re such a big boy now that you can help me out. And I can count on you. So . . .” I explained that his sister was so little that there were many things she couldn’t do that he could do. His little chest puffed up with pride. I won his cooperation, as you suggested. Now he even brings me diapers and wipes—his nose pinched dramatically, of course—when his sister has a stinky diaper. He’s stopped pinching and biting her.
I got a kick out of him yesterday. I’d put Tricia in her stroller so we could walk to a nearby park when I realized I’d forgotten my house keys. A kid with a dog walked by, and the dog started to stick its nose into Tricia’s stroller.
“Hey!” Kent yelled and whipped the stroller behind him. “That’s my sister. And nobody touches my sister.”
He was so loud, I’m sure the whole neighborhood heard it. But to me, it was one of those pivotal moments in parenting you talk about. We’d gotten over a major hump. Your advice made all the difference.
Michelle, California
Power Points