As befitting a book entitled Positive Discipline, misbehavior is prominent. After all, there is little need for discipline if there is no misbehavior. What is misbehavior? This is not a spurious question. To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, is misbehavior something that is hard to define but we know it when we see it (maybe)? Does everyone have the same idea of what constitutes misbehavior (no)? Is misbehavior something that concerns teachers and parents (yes)?
Since misbehavior is a concern, Positive Discipline addresses it by first defining misbehavior as:
“nothing more than a lack of knowledge (or awareness), a lack of effective skills and developmentally appropriate behavior, discouragement – or, often, a matter of some incident that invites us to revert to our primitive brains where the only option is power struggles or withdrawal and poor communication.”
Positive Discipline pg 68
Defining misbehavior is only one part of the solution. The second part is to discover why children misbehave. Positive Discipline looks to Rudolf Dreikurs, an Austrian psychologist who worked with Alfred Adler. According to Dreikurs, children misbehave because they have four mistake beliefs and goals about behavior. You will quickly see a common thread among the beliefs.
Mistaken Beliefs and Goals:
- Undue attention: A child feels they belong only when people pay attention to them.
- Misguided power: A child feels they belong only when they are in charge, or at least not being bossed around by others.
- Revenge: A child does not feel they belong but can at least strike back.
- Assumed Inadequacy: A child feels it is impossible to belong and they should simply give up.
It is pretty obvious from these beliefs that misbehavior can result from a child sensing they do not belong to the group. Our brains do not reach full maturity until about age 25. This means as teachers and parents we may think we “know” the child does belong to the group and their feelings of exclusion are factually not true. However, we need to support children and validate their feelings if we are to help them grow into well-functioning adults.
The Keasy Depot 