A Case Study of Difficult Child Behaviour – Advice to Parents and Teachers

The following was prepared for the parents and teachers of a six-year old boy Max (not his real name), who was described as a significant behaviour management problem at school. 

Developmentally, children ordinarily progress in a relatively predictable sequence, with variations, from one milestone to the next. Over the past year we would expect a child to: 

• To (physically) have grown about 6 cm, gained about 3 kg in weight; to be developing his first molars and starting to lose his baby teeth.  
• To (cognitively) be losing the “magical thinking” of a pre-schooler; be able to tell you his age, count to “10” and understand the concept of “10”; learning to express himself well through words and be learning to write; beginning to understand cause-and-effect and with rudimentary grasp of the concept of time. 

• To (emotionally and socially) still have pre-schooler fears of monsters, the dark etc. To still be wanting his parents to play with him as his main source of companionship and affection although he should now begin a gradual shift to fulfilling more of these needs with friends and other people (e.g. teachers). Play will probably include a lot of imagination and fantasy, with the same gender with “big kid” sometimes taking care of the “little kid”. Still focused on himself but with encouragement starting to understand the feelings of others. A sense of humour is appearing, and he may like simple jokes, funny books and rhymes. 
• To (language) describe his favourite television show, movie, story, or other activity. Be able to speak with correct grammar most of the time, spell his first name, write some letters and numbers and read some simple words. 
• To (sensory and motor development) now have control over his major muscles, have good balance and enjoy running, jumping, skipping, and other physical play, catch a ball, skip, draw a person with at least 8 parts, copy shapes, make designs, write his name, and dress himself with help with difficult buttons or laces. 

Conflict, escalation, authority, responsibility 

Central developmental precepts are that a person (child or adult): 

• Does not have authority over anything they cannot actually be responsible for; developmental psychology appears to say very little about this. 
• Does not have authority over something on the “outside” that they cannot cognitively process on the “inside”. 

The problem is that Max can escalate conflict, almost at will, against his teachers, well beyond what would ordinarily be expected of a child of his age. He is able to demand and seize authority from a teacher so that the teacher is impotent to set reasonable limits around behaviour and emotions with him. He then exploits that authority to gain a perceived “benefit” from the teacher e.g. exclusion from the class and freedom the demands of schoolwork. 

Ultimately this works to Max‘s disadvantage in that it propels him, well beyond the forward range of his developing cognitive ability. He is unable to emotionally and cognitively handle the authority he has purloined and ends up behaving badly by exercising that authority over other students; demanding, bullying, unable to accept “no”, being physically violent toward them. This gets himself into serious strife with the school management who feel they need to step in to support the teacher, protect other children, and protect themselves from the welter of complaints from other parents they know will come if they don’t act decisively. 

If he tries this at home, you step in as his parent, and cut short the escalation by contesting the authority he is trying to take. This means he is clear what the hierarchy in the house and who has what authority over what and whom. You do this through vigorous engagement with Max and processes that are inclusive and affirming. That means that the house rules are reinforced consistently in a way that is meaningful to him.  

Our view is that Max can’t handle the authority that almost naturally falls into his hands; his brain isn’t mature enough to handle this. We need school to adopt a similar approach to home: inclusive not exclusive, reinforced hierarchy, he’s not the boss here, authority in the hands of the teacher, preparedness to do battle with him. School must be prepared to do battle with Max on terms that are acceptable to you and win on terms that are acceptable to you.