Below See: TIPS, IDEAS & SUGGESTIONS FOR REBELLIOUS BEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN
Rebellious Children
As I begin to write about tips, ideas, and suggestions on how to deal with rebellious behavior and rebellious children it is important for me to stop and reflect on my own personal parenting journey throughout the years.
Years ago, while raising my five children, I would have described specific reasons why parents should do or not do this or that with rebellious children. I may have suggested various techniques for parents to determine how to deal with rebellious behavior.
But honestly, over the past several years, while raising my two grandkids, my parenting methods and styles have drastically changed. Or perhaps morphed!
Now, as I parent my grandkids, I see and understand kids and teens much differently than I did with my own children.
Rebellious Behavior
Rebellious behavior can be attributed to various unexpected or unusual behaviors that are often overlooked.
Over the years I have identified several of these characteristics, viewed mostly as emotions, in rebellious children.
However, recognizing how these sentiments or traits can contribute to rebellion is important to avoid rebellious behavior throughout a child’s life.
What Causes Rebellious Behavior?
Over the years of parenting, I’ve witnessed unexpected reasons for rebellious behavior, that may not be considered typical causes.
Such as:
Fear:
Fear is often a trigger for rebellious behavior. When children feel fearful or frightened, they typically try to avoid those situations.
This fear could be something very simple or benign to a parent or adult, but spark internal terror within the child.
When children are forced into environments that they consider fearful, they may become extremely aggressive or rebellious.
Additionally, children may not clearly understand or distinguish the source of their fear. Parents and/or adults can become frustrated and feel the child is demonstrating rebellious behavior unnecessarily without understanding the child’s underlying cause for feeling fearful.
Parents and adults, need to analyze the root cause of the child’s fear so they can accurately address the fear and avoid overreacting to the child’s rebellious behavior.
Jealousy:
Jealousy is often not an emotion that is identified with rebellious behavior in children. However, children can show rebellious behavior if they have jealous feelings toward a sibling or another person in their life.
Rebellious behavior may occur if a parent is in a new relationship or a relationship with someone the child is not quite comfortable with.
Jealousy can also create rebellious behavior if parents are remarried and/or have other children and new families. Some children from divorced or separated families can feel left out which can generate rebellious behavior.
Discussing feelings of jealousy with your child, either from a sibling or for another reason, can help them understand how to manage rebellious feelings when they arise.
Frustration:
Frustration, on many levels, can cause rebellious behavior in children. Recognizing the various frustrations your child may encounter throughout their day may be key in reducing rebellion and rebellious behavior.
Parents and adults frequently dismiss how frustrating situations and scenarios may be for children.
For example, watching a toddler who can’t open a toy or put on their clothes correctly can lead to frustration. The toddler may throw the unopened toy or clothes due to their lack of success in achieving their goal.
As the child grows older, their frustration levels increase and rebellious behavior typically occurs. Therefore, parents and adults witnessing frustration in children should calmly intervene during frustration periods to provide gentle support.
Offering help or assistance to a child during frustrating times reminds children that you are there for them when and if they need you.
Knowing they can reach out to someone when they are frustrated may decrease rebellious behavior and offer them comfort instead.
Anger:
Although children can become angry when they are frustrated, these emotions are very different. Anger can be deep-rooted through a variety of experiences.
Children may show signs of rebellious behavior when they are angry at their parents for simply saying no to something. Of course, all parents need to say no to their child at one time or another.
Yet children want what they want and may worsen behaviors when being told no. Parental NOs begin early in a child’s life mostly for safety purposes. Hot items, steps, breakables, running in the street, snacks, hitting, etc., etc.
And, as the children grow up, additional limits and NOs follow. TV, screens, going out at dark times, friends, dating, etc., etc.
Typically, at each stage of a child’s life parents set boundaries and limits as to the dos and don’ts. But children may become extremely angry with the parent’s rules and expectations which can lead to rebellious behavior.
It is crucial for parents to openly discuss guidelines and restrictions with children before establishing hard-set rules. Asking for feedback from children on specific expectations will help alleviate anger and show trust in our children.
Intimidation:
Sadly, children can be intimidated very easily without understanding the situation. However, many children do not know the danger of intimidation. Especially if they are being intimidated by an adult or parent, they feel they can trust.
Intimidation is scary. It can lead children to believe lies or things that are wrong or exaggerated.
Children can be easily intimidated by the size of adults or the power adults have over children, such as money, food, and shelter.
Parents often, and perhaps unknowingly, intimidate their children through their words or actions. Raising a hand to a child demonstrates intimidation. Therefore, children learn through intimidation to stay quiet and do what they’re told. What a sad existence.
However, when children get older, they may begin to show rebellious behavior against their parents or others. They may break free from their childhood intimidation but may become rebellious to spite the pressure and fear they felt when they were younger.
Intimidation should not be used as a parenting technique or discipline. Showing love and respect for your child offers an authentic productive method of parenting and guidance.
Confusion:
It is important to remember that children are not born with language and receptive skills. Meaning, that everything and I mean EVERYTHING is new to them.
As newborns, and within the first year of life, babies learn and absorb more than they do for the rest of their lives. But young children continue to learn and grow. Children, especially young children, do not fully comprehend the meaning of words, directions, and instructions.
Parents and adults often get upset repeating themselves when children don’t complete a task or do something incorrectly. But the realization is, that many times, children are confused and don’t understand why they are doing something or what they are supposed to be doing.
While the information may be totally clear to adults, children may be confused. Many times, children may see negative reactions from adults but in their confusion, they may not know what causes their response.
I recently observed an annoyed father leaving a convenience store with two young children. His little boy was about 3 or 4 years old. Apparently, the boy was playing with the ball in the store and was told to stop, but didn’t.
When they got outside, the dad grabbed the ball from the boy’s hand and proceeded to aggressively throw the ball into the trash can. (It almost hit me!)
While the dad was throwing the ball he told the boy, “You should have listened to me, now you don’t have a ball because you wouldn’t stop bouncing it in the store”. Of course, the boy cried and the dad pulled him away into their car. I was so sad.
I wondered why the dad didn’t take the ball from the boy’s hand while in the store to avoid him bouncing it. Instead, he allowed a young boy to freely play with the ball, then punished him outside of the store for his behavior.
I saw the confusion in the little boy’s eyes. He literally did not understand how playing with a small ball…which comes naturally to all children…created such a nasty and upsetting outcome.
Honestly, I thought about that boy a lot and thought, that if he or other children are not clear about their expectations and behaviors, they will grow up being confused about lots of life lessons.
Being confused and not fully understanding expectations can certainly lead to rebellious behavior in children, especially teens.
Innocence:
All of us are born innocent and pure. There is true beauty in children’s innocence. Seeing and watching an innocent child grow and learn feels joyful and somewhat miraculous.
However, innocence can create confusion in children. Especially, if they are not given truthful and correct explanations of things.
As children grow and learn, they begin to understand their own behaviors, as well as others.
If innocent children are teased or tricked into doing something uncomfortable, they can easily become angry and frustrated.
If children are taken advantage of because of their innocence, they can ultimately demonstrate rebellious behavior, without understanding why they are being rebellious.
It is essential for parents and adults to remember the innocence of a child throughout each stage of their life. Children learn quickly, but their pure and innocent hearts try to protect them from ugly or negative exposure.
Of course, your child will encounter undesirable situations, but shielding their innocence and providing thorough explanations is vital for parents and all adults throughout your child’s life.
Sadness:
Sadness is an emotion that is difficult to control. While one person may feel sad about something, it may not affect another person the same way.
Yet, if a child feels continuously sad, they may not know how to manage their emotions and lash out through rebellious behavior.
Being rebellious may provide a child with the attention they may be seeking or simply give them something to focus on, other than their feelings of sadness.
Additionally, sadness comes in all forms. Some sad feelings are brief and others can be or feel overwhelming. Understanding and talking about feelings of sadness with your child will help you determine what support your child may need.
Sad children can seek dangerous or thrill-seeking activities in order to lessen their internal emotions. Therefore, it is important to identify the cause of your child’s sadness and pursue the necessary assistance for them.
Hurt:
Children may not completely understand their feelings of being hurt. However, hurt children may withdraw from their parents, friends, and others.
Although children may not recognize “hurt” itself, they may feel rejection and loneliness that arise from hurt feelings. These emotions, especially over time, can cause rebellious behavior.
Often when children do not know how to deal with specific emotions, such as hurt, they may become rebellious and instigate negativity toward themselves and others.
Surprise:
Believe it or not, being surprised can sometimes lead to rebellious behavior. While parents and adults often believe that all children enjoy being surprised; the truth is, that being unknowingly surprised can create anxiety and angst in some children.
Although surprising children in various ways may be exciting to adults, the sense of anticipating a surprise can manifest fear and worry for children.
Also, children are expected to react happy and enthusiastic when they are surprised. However, some surprises can have the opposite effect on children and generate rebellion and rebellious behavior due to embarrassment or social anxiety.
Parents and adults should evaluate and try to anticipate how a child may react to a surprise beforehand. Likewise, if a surprise is being videoed or filmed, it should not be shared with anyone unless the child agrees to make it public.
Again, surprise can spark a feeling of shame or humiliation for the recipient. Being respectful of a child’s reaction or overreaction is imperative.
Competitiveness:
Regardless if you have one child or ten children, competitiveness is inevitable. Even though an only child may not compete with other siblings, there is typically some type of competitiveness in their life.
Children frequently feel competitive with friends in and outside of school. They can also be competitive playing sports or earning good grades.
Some children exhibit extreme competitiveness that can escalate into rebellious behavior with teachers, parents, or coaches.
It is important that parents and other adults, understand children’s individual skill sets and give praise and support to all children, regardless of their abilities and talents.
Understanding Rebellious Children
As a grandparent, parenting grandchildren, I see areas where I went wrong in my earlier years of parenting my own children.
Now, I recognize the power struggles I had or felt with my kids and my teenagers as a young parent. I also acknowledge my tone of voice, affect, temperament, and reasoning skills were lacking during those years.
Thankfully, because I acknowledge my past parenting errors and downfalls, I parent with a newfound confidence and respect for myself and my grandkids.
Childhood trauma may also play a role in rebellious behavior. To learn more about childhood, see How To Learn From These 5 Traumatic Childhood Experiences.
Dangerous Behavior
Parenting my grandchildren has taught me many things. Most importantly, it has shown me the significance of including children in conversations.
Of course, dangerous rebellious behavior needs to be addressed immediately. Therefore, be direct and specific with your child or teenager about what constitutes dangerous behavior.
Children and teens may need to understand specific dangerous situations so they do not allow themselves to be talked into something by their friends.
Naturally, any violent or self-destructive behaviors need to be dealt with immediately.
Additionally, physical risk-taking, drugs and alcohol, and breaking laws would need instant attention and consequences.
Ultimately, understanding the root cause of rebellious behavior in children and teenagers will help parents and children identify how to resolve behaviors with positive outcomes.
TIPS, IDEAS & SUGGESTIONS FOR REBELLIOUS BEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN
- Talk calmly, directly, and honestly to your child about expected behaviors.
- Be sure you are EXTREMELY clear when discussing behavioral expectations with your child.
- Don’t embarrass or tease your child. Embarrassment and shame can lead to rebellious behavior. (See the 11 other unexpected reasons for rebellious behavior above)
- Be respectful to your children and require their respect toward you.
- Rebellious behavior is part of growing up. Don’t overreact if your child is searching for their independence.
- BE PATIENT, KIND AND LOVING. Rebellious behavior isn’t ALL bad and is a normal part of growing up!
To learn more Tips for Managing a Rebellious Child at Any Age.
