Rebellious behavior is part of the development process in healthy children and adolescents. As a child grows and matures, his desire to control his environment and autonomy increases, leading in some cases to a Power fight. This struggle can create a wedge between the parent and child relationship. Many parents tend to think that being tough and strict is the best way to quell rebellious behavior, but it could make your child rebel against strict rules even more.
Trying to create an open relationship with your child in which he feels safe and comfortable enough to share his feelings and concerns with you, respecting your position as a parent, is one of the best ways to correct your child’s rebellious behaviors. In this Psychology-Online article, we show you some guidelines to know How to educate rebellious children.
Tips for raising rebellious children
Identify the reason why your child rebels and what type of disobedience it is
Sometimes in younger children, disobedient behaviors are simple childhood whims. In these cases, your toddler is just trying to test his limits, see how far he can go, that is, it would be a way of exploring. The intentional rebellion It occurs more often in older children and adolescents who try hard to rebel against you. Intentional rebellious behaviors should be taken more seriously since in the case of childhood rebellion it is more of an aspect of development.
Avoid interpreting the behavior as something personal
Remember that when your child rebels, he usually look for a reaction. Yelling at him, not responding, getting angry or losing your cool are not the most appropriate reactions, they only show your child that expressing himself aggressively is okay and you run the risk of worsening the situation by turning it into a power struggle. He tries to stay calm and see the situation as an outsider would, as if you were not involved. It is important to know how to raise a child without screaming.
Don’t try to protect your child from the natural consequences of his disobedient behavior.
For example, if he responds badly to his teachers or skips class without permission, instead of trying to diffuse the situation, stay out of it and let your child experience the consequences (suspension, reprimand…). In this way, your child learns that these types of behaviors that are not appropriate and that must be eliminated from his repertoire have a series of consequences in his life, and he can learn what will happen if he continues to behave that way.
Reinforces those behaviors that are appropriate
Looking for the negative in your child when they are misbehaving is very easy, since there are more negative behaviors in their repertoire than positive ones. However, you should not focus only on the bad, because in this way you would only be telling him what he should not do, but not giving him alternatives. Therefore, you should think about positive things that he does, reinforce them and encourage him to perform desirable behaviors, without taking into account the difficulty of the behaviors. Once you focus your attention more on the positive than on the negative, you are motivating him to get more reinforcements and thus his behavior will slowly change.
Be reasonable
The punishment is due adjust to the behavior that is intended to be punished, as well as parents’ expectations of change. Choose reasonable rules and consequences for each rule if they are broken, and try to be consistent in applying discipline and consequences. The important thing is that everything is well established from the beginning, avoiding any type of ambiguity, so your child will learn faster.
Talkative and disobedient children: causes
Some possible causes of your child’s disobedience are:
Deny the existence of authority
A child may use disobedience to exercise autonomy or independence. For example, a small child could express it by asking everyone, Why? While an older child can contradict everything his parents tell him and a teenager does not follow the rules or does the opposite of what they tell him. Psychologist Carl Pickhardt states that this use of rebellion to express her independence is actually an act of dependence because the son’s actions depend on doing the opposite of what her parents ask of him.
Test limits
As the child grows, he acquires skills to test the established limits and thus see how far he can really go. For example, a child may refuse to go to bed at the usual time to see how long his parents will let him stay awake if he pressures them. Another option is for the child or adolescent to test the limits because she does not really understand them or because she is developing her own identity.
Defense mechanism
When a child or adolescent feels nervous or scared, he or she may use disobedience as a response. According to Kahn, a young child tests his or her parents’ limits to see if his or her fears regarding consequences are real or imagined. If a child or adolescent feels anxious about being disappointed by someone or is afraid of disappointing someone, she could use rebellion to see how the other person acts and check the consequences.
brain development
As the adolescent brain develops cognitively, it becomes more complex giving the youth the ability to reason and think abstractly and increasing risky behaviors. It is normal for a teenager to act defiantly while exercising his or her newly developed thinking, communication, and social skills. That is why it is essential to obtain guidelines to know.
Should I go to a specialist?
At times, most children defy their parents. This is part of growing up and is a way of testing parental guidelines and expectations to learn their own self, express their individuality, and achieve their sense of autonomy. As they gain independence and generate small conflicts with their parents, they discover the limits of their parents’ rules and their own self-control.
However, sometimes these conflicts are more than occasional disturbances and become a pattern of interaction between parents and children. Disobedience can have numerous causes: unreasonable parental expectations, the child’s temperament, school problems, family stress, conflicts between parents, etc. When the conflicts with your child They become part of your daily life, interfering in your lives. You should go to a specialist to provide you with follow-up and guidelines to know how to educate rebellious children.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.