Children of all ages and stages of development present us with a range of behaviours which at one time or another can be quite challenging to us as parents and teachers. When a child misbehaves, we at Puzzle believe it is helpful to think of this as the child trying to communicate something to us. He / she may not be going about it in an appropriate way e.g. being aggressive verbally or physically, having a tantrum, because they lack the skills or experience to tell us how they feel or what they want or need in a way which is easy for us to understand and respond to.
For example when a child is shouting at us or hitting out what he/she may be trying to say is “I feel rejected, hurt or angry”. How we think affects how we feel and therefore how we behave. Our understanding at Puzzle is that many factors contribute to a child’s behaviour including their age, early experiences, personality as well as their environment, parenting styles, friendship groups and school. The feelings generated in us as adults and how we respond to the behaviour will have a vital impact on reducing or changing the behaviour itself. At Puzzle, we would explore the meaning of the behaviour and assess the effect of different factors so that together we can understand the child’s experience which helps us to identify strategies to improve the behaviour and bring about change.