Why is She Acting Like This? The Five Functions of Behavior
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. ”
You may ask, “why do I need to understand behavior?” What I will tell you is this, when I became a parent, I knew very little about behavior, what motivates behavior or what effected behavior. Through a very rocky road, I have learned how impactful it is to understand children’s behavior to parent from a peaceful place! Most of this, I have learned through our family’s amazing ABA therapists.
ABA is the science of changing socially significant behavior. It is arguably one of THE most effective methods for achieving behavior change. ABA is not just treatment for individuals with autism.Instead, it focuses on changing the environment and analyzing the ‘function’ of behavior to create behavioral change.I have found it to be the most effective parenting method for all of my children, neuro-diverse, attachment challenged, developmentally delayed, and typical.
Understanding and addressing the question of “why the behavior is occurring” was a game changer for our family. Simplistically, both good and bad behavior is your child’s effort to meet some specific need! I was used to seeing “bad behavior” and disciplining my children for it after the fact. ABA teaches, instead, to focus on the function of the behavior – the why. This allows us to choose the more appropriate replacement behavior to guide our children to meet that need long term.
Generally, there are 4 understood functions of behavior
(1) Access to a tangible item
(2) Escape
(3) attention
(4) Automatic (the pleasure created by the behavior itself).
(5) Control
There is conversation in the psychological/behavioral community about whether the 5th function of behavior for control is truly a function, but in my home, control is clearly a motivation or function of behavior for Hope in particular. Let’s dive into these functions just a little bit to understand what they might look like in real life.
First, often kids actions are motivated by a want or need for a tangible item or activity. These can be anything from food, toys, time on a device to playing outside or cuddling with mom. When your 2-year-old pushes her friend and takes their toy, they are very clearly doing this to get the toy. My developmentally challenged daughter often cries and asks for hugs when she wants something her siblings have because they used to give it to her to stop the crying. She knew exactly how to get her need met. There was nothing malicious about it, it was animalistic survival to her.
Second, children often act to escape situations, responsibilities or people. When your child, throws a fit after an hour at the grocery store, he is trying to get the heck out of the store! When my parents put me to bed at night, I was suddenly thirsty, had to go to the bathroom, needed food, forgot something I had to do for school. I was absolutely trying to “escape” going to bed. I did not like being alone and I just wanted them to stay with me.
Third, they want attention! To many many uniquely challenging kiddos, attention is attention is attention. It does not matter whether we are yelling at them, lecturing them or hugging them. They are getting one on one attention and that is what they need. I don’t even feel like I need to give examples for this, but I will. A child has not seen their momma for a few hours and momma arrives home, the child begins weeping uncontrollably. They feel desperate for attention from their mom and they get it by crying. This same child also, throws a fit when momma gives attention to another child. Even though she often gets scolded for interrupting mom’s time with someone else, she “wins” when mom address the bad behavior. Mom scolding the child suddenly shifts her attention to the crying child and away from the other child.
Fourth, some unwanted behavior is motivated purely by the pleasure or stimulation created by the behavior itself. The term “stimming” has become synonymous for this function of behavior. This function becomes obvious when the behavior does not change depending on the environment, people or activities involved at the time. Kids flapping their hands, screaming, making vocal noises, “picking”, sniffing and many other stimming type behaviors. One of my kids makes vocal noises constantly. We have not determined whether it is officially turrets or not, but either way, the function is the behavior does not change depending on her surroundings or stress level. This behavior persists because it is providing her with some soothing stimulation.
Last, needing to be in control of a situation, item or experience can certainly cause unwanted to behavior. In particular, kids with bonding issues and traumatic pasts will do anything to gain control. My Hope believes it is crucial to her survival to be in control of everything. As such, she exhibits all kinds of behavior to giver herself the perception that she is in control. For example, when it is time to leave our house, I generally yell out “shoes and in the car please.” 100% of the time, everyone but Hope is in the car and we are all waiting on Hope. The justification is always changing. “I couldn’t find my glasses,” “ I had to go potty,” “I didn’t hear you,” “I can’t get the knot out of my shoelaces….” When it is time to get out of the car, I put the car in park and say “unbuckle and get out please.” 100% of the time, we are waiting for Hope to get out of the car. Again, her justifications vary, but the behavior is consistent.
Understanding the function behind your child’s behavior allows you, as their parent, caregiver, or teacher, to address the function rather than the behavior itself. I think of this as healing the cause of a sickness, rather than medicating the symptoms. Over time, addressing the subconscious motivation for their bad behavior will make an amazing long-term difference on their general behavior. This is true for 2 reasons. (1) you are providing them with alternative ways to satisfy their needs that don’t include unwanted behaviors. And, (2), ultimately the goal of addressing these functions is to provide them with the skills and strategies to notice when they have a need and find ways to satisfy that need in an appropriate way. Thank God. That is our goal as parents right? To give our kids the tools they need to succeed and the motivation to control their impulses.
We will talk a lot about the functions of behavior and I have several helpful blog posts on behavior that will help you start to identify the “why” for your child’s unwanted behaviors. This will allow you to address the cause rather than just the behavior.
Next:
Start trying to answer the question of why the behavior is occurring.
Start paying attention to what is happening BEFORE your child’s unwanted behavior.
More:
ABA for the Families – Functions of Behavior
Positive Reinforcement - What Is It and How to Successfully Use It
Praise! - More On the Power of Positive Reinforcement