Behavior Problems in Children With Special Needs

What is Behavior Problems 

• Unwanted behavior which needs changing 
• Which makes daily routines ( eating, dressing, going school, brushing teeth ...) difficult for both.
• That are continuous 

        Prevents 

• Social relationships 
• Learning skills 
• Communication with other children and people 
• Cause harm to them and families and teachers .....

   There are many forms of problem behaviors in children with special needs ;

Self Harm "   Your children did not want to taste the soup and than began to hit his head." 

Tantrums " While driving home you changed your route because of the traffic jam, your child gave a terrible reaction in the car."

Screaming and crying " Just about yo leave home your child began to cry and scream but you didn't understand what is happening ."

Throwing or breaking toys and objects " you said that he/she should give up watching tv and saw fling objects in livind room."

Hitting ,kicking ,biting others " Playing with children in the playground and suddenly something happened and your child started to kick or bite the other children."

Running Away ( Elopement) " while eating cake  in your childs classmate's birthday party, he/she began to run away faster and faster "

Eating or biting objects ( Pica) " your child didn't want to color the house picture and began to bite the crayons "

 

     Do you have memories like that ? or more ? or still tring to solve the problems like those ? I can heartily say that I can undertand you and your child deeply . Problem Behaviors make life very diffucult for both parents and children . Living with an child who has problem behaviors and trying to solve this problems are tiring processes . 

    When you use your energy to solve this difficult situation instead of trying to live with , you will get result of your exertion after a while . On the other hand probably you should get help to overcome this situation. Before  telling  about the tips you should use, i would like yo remind that the length of struggle depends on your child's specific needs. the other important point is working as a team while applying the processes.   

Some Strategies For Success 

Find out the answer " When does the problem behavior occur? " 

- Sleepy ?, Hungry ?, Tired ?, Anxious ?, Excited ? .....  For most children PB occurs for a purpose. Maybe child wants to have something (toy, sweets, attention ...) or wants to escape from a situation ( noise, crowd  ...) or wants to get out of something that he/she dont wanna do like lessons. like an inspector you should observe your child's behaviors :) 

Take The Precautions 

What does it mean? You identified the reason and you almost know when the problem behavior will occur. Now you have a chance to prevent the chaos. for example you identified that your child shows problem behavior for only take attention, you should keep calm and try not to pay attention to his/her reaction. This means you dont give her/him what he/she wants. You must be sure that your child won't hurt himself/herself. 

or you discovered that your child hits his head to have something that he want and he learned that he can have the sweets by hitting his head. He is quite sure that this is the precise way. Now, you have refuse giving him that sweets if he hits his head. 

The aim is ; your child will learn a right way to have the sweets in time .

Rewarding 

Reinforcing your child's appropriate and correct behavior will certainly help you. Rewarding - not important how small - is better and useful way then punishing non acceptable behavior . Punishing will increase frequency of your child's unwanted behaviors . Your chils may think that " yeah, i can have their attention by this way and i should go on"

Using some virtual methods like a daily schedule will be helpful

Children wants to know what is coming next . Some children specially diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder are feel really nervous changing from one activity to other . 

A daily schedule includes school ,baht ,meal , play , outside activity times can degrease the possibility of having  tantrums. 

Redirection 

Redirecting yoru child's attention at the right time may prevent your child's screaming, crying ...

 

      Starting behavior change process with small steps, achievable goals will encourage you during the journey . every smal step you succeeded will make you feel motivated and ready for the next step .

      Maybe you should get help from an expert during this journey . I tried to summarise the general rules, but I believe that every child is unique so we should select the best method due to the specialties of your child....