Children's Behavior Is Natural, So Build On It Constructively

Kids don't stay the same. The way a child acts and reacts shifts as they grow, and those shifts can leave a parent genuinely confused. Ask any mother or father of two or more children and you'll hear the same bafflement. Why does Johnny keep chucking his toys at his older sister? Why does a child turn into a terror at home yet behave like an angel the moment he's in a classroom? And why, no matter how spotless you keep the rest of the house, does one child's room stay in a state of chaos you can barely stay ahead of?

These are ordinary situations, and ordinary doesn't mean easy. With several children under one roof, each doing something you'd rather they didn't, you can find yourself stepping into another room just to hold onto your temper. The usual responses are to ignore it as best the situation allows, or to reach for a spanking as the automatic consequence. Neither is the only option. There are better ways to work through it.

Everybody has heard of the terrible twos, that patch where a child pushes back against everything and tips into tantrums without much warning. It even has a proper clinical name. You see it coming, and you can ask your doctor or other mothers how to get through it. What comes after is harder. Past that age children start developing real complexity and a personality of their own, and that makes reading them far trickier. Some parents hesitate even to raise the subject with a friend or their physician, convinced it points to something they themselves are doing wrong, or to a disorder in the child. There's no reason to lie awake over it. Several approaches can carry you through the rough stretches more easily than you'd expect.

Start in the self-help aisle of a bookstore. Parenting titles are everywhere, covering what's typical for children at different ages and offering guidance on all sorts of situations. The good ones lean on real-life examples and spell out how a parent might best handle each one. Go looking for those. See what's on the shelf and read up. Most are written by psychologists working from different theoretical schools, so browse until you land on one whose advice strikes you as sensible. Your local library almost certainly stocks a decent range too, so look there before you buy.

If you'd rather not spend money on books, the library is a fine place to begin. Borrow a handful at once, since any of them might hold something useful. When you come across an author who seems to understand how children behave in a way that clicks for you, track down their other titles and keep reading.

You might discover that your messy child fits an artistic, creative temperament. He may never grow out of it, or he may turn out to be the genius sort. Then again it could be nothing more than age-driven rebellion against your own tidy ways. Johnny might simply be jealous of his older sibling, who in his eyes gets privileges he's denied. And the one who acts up at home may do it precisely because he can get away with it there, while a teacher who holds the line keeps him in check.

Children's behavior puzzles most parents at one point or another. Working out why they do what they do, and how it ties to their age, is what makes for a calmer house.