Activities for children with behavioral problems are useful for many parents who often find themselves with children who behave inappropriately , who systematically disobey, have disruptive behaviors, or have tremendous tantrums that are difficult to redress. These behaviors can be produced by various situations such as the birth of a sibling, the separation of parents, learning difficulties, high abilities…
In most cases, it happens that one does not know how to handle these situations and frustration and excessive anger towards the child appear, which tends to deepen the problem instead of helping to improve it. That is why we want to share in this blog activities for parents of children with behavioral problems.
Patience and affection are the main ingredients in helping children who are misbehaving . Based on this advice, we are going to see some strategies to work on some of these behavior problems that appear in the childhood stage.
Positive reinforcement techniques to work disruptive behaviors
It is best to focus on the positive and apply reinforcement so that children tend to repeat the appropriate behavior.
Demonstrate pride in well-performed behaviors through a brief and clear message. It is not convenient to give material gifts , you have to connect with the affective.
It is convenient not to take the positive for granted, but to give it value so that the child feels that he is being reinforced . Sometimes when children start to misbehave, the situation can get worse if parents become overly demanding and use punishment as their main technique. In these cases, a vicious circle usually occurs in which the worse the child behaves, the more he is punished, and the more he is punished, the worse he behaves.
It is the adults who have to be able to get out of that circle giving a turn that the little one can perceive as a real change of attitude. You should start by reinforcing any behavior that you are performing well, even if it is expected, and this will undoubtedly cause the child to change positive behavior that, at the same time, can continue to be reinforced.
It is very important not to compare a child with others, but always compare him with himself and the progress he is making.
These types of techniques usually work very well in children who have behavior problems between the ages of 2 and 3.
How to work behavior problems in children?
Disruptive behaviors can be worked through creativity and art, since through this activity children can project their emotions and can reduce their level of stress, improve their level of attention, channel their interests and cultivate social skills.
These are techniques that usually work very well for gifted children, who manifest behavioral problems and who, faced with the boredom caused by attending class, tend to behave badly to attract the attention of their teachers and other students.
It is very important not to pigeonhole the child as this is something that can lead to unwanted behavior. It is a way of making predictions come true.
We must be very careful how we transmit what we think of them to children. Through non-verbal behavior we also transmit what we believe about him.
Normally, children with behavioral problems are children with impulsive behavior, who do not regulate emotions well, reacting automatically and impulsively to a situation and which, in general, is not the most appropriate response, causing coexistence problems both at home and abroad. at school.
To learn to maintain self-control, there are different techniques to work with. Self-control gives us a sense of internal control, it is the ability to modulate and control one’s actions in an age-appropriate way.
Next, there is a series of activities to be able to work on self-control with children. These guidelines can be used by teachers who have children with behavior problems in the classroom.
To develop these activities we must consider a series of objectives that children must achieve :
- Learn to maintain self-control
- Reflect on situations that cause us discomfort and come to recognize the feelings that cause them in order to control them.
- To know the consequences of the alteration of the norm.
- Seek alternatives of adaptive behavior.
- Identify the different signals that the body gives us when they push us, take something from us, do not buy us what we want, deny us to go or stay somewhere…
- If children learn to identify these signs, they will know when they should implement the tricks they have learned to try to stay calm and be able to relax and think about the consequences that their behavior may have.
4 Activities for children with behavior problems
The traffic light technique to control anger and anger
Children must learn that when an emotion cannot be controlled, we feel very angry, we want to attack someone, we get very nervous, we explode and conflict appears.
We then have to stop as when a car stops at a traffic light in front of the red light of a traffic light.
After stopping it is time to reflect and realize the problem that is being raised and what is being felt, yellow light.
And if we give ourselves time to think, alternatives or solutions to the conflict may emerge. It is time to choose the best solution, green light.
The volcano technique
It is one of the most effective activities for children with behavior problems to improve self-control . Especially in those moments when the child seems to be about to explode. Basically, it is the technique of using images to make them aware of their behavior. In this way, the child will be able to detect when she is about to behave inappropriately and will be able to stop herself in time.
To put this technique into practice, you have to ask him to imagine his interior as if it were a volcano that represents all his strength and energy . You have to explain to him that, like many other volcanoes, his inner volcano also gets out of control and erupts, causing everything inside him to explode.
The idea is that the child learns to identify the signs of anger and anger , associating them with the hot lava and the eruption. In this way she will be able to stop before returning to the bursting point in which there is no turning back.
Once the child is able to distinguish anger, anger, irritability or frustration, we must teach him strategies to learn to relax and thus help him reduce impulsivity. These types of strategies are apparently simple, but for them, as for many adults, they are quite a challenge.
- Among these strategies are learning to breathe deeply, using the abdomen instead of holding the air in the chest. While these breaths are being carried out, you can say some reassuring words to the child, such as: “calm down, breathe”.
- He can also be taught to count to 10 or more.
- Another alternative is to get away from the situation that caused the anger, for example, retiring to your room until you calm down.
These techniques are applicable to children from 4 to 6 years of age and even to those who show behavior problems in Primary School, and it would not hurt for adults to apply an adapted version to ourselves in order to manage anger and anger in a way more suitable.
The tales
It is one of the most useful activities for children with behavior problems from 3 to 5 years old. Children are generally very attentive to the stories that adults tell them and this circumstance can be used to tell them stories that teach them to control their behavior, to be more obedient and to anticipate the negative consequences of a bad performance.
The stories can be told at different times of the day, the ideal time seems to be before bedtime , but it can also be after lunch or at snack time. The schedules are especially if we want them to be very attentive and we want to complement it with an additional activity that helps reinforce the message of the story, such as a drawing or the representation of the story through puppets.
Making a table of points
The use of a point table helps to keep track of the child’s behavior and thus assess to what extent he obeys his parents, and even if he deserves some kind of reward for his behavior or not. This activity for children with behavioral problems is recommended from 6 to 12 years old.
The table will be placed in a visible place so that the child can see it whenever he wants and it would be convenient for it to have a sense and a playful appearance in the case of the little ones so that it would be motivating and encourage them to obey. While in the case of the elderly, the points they earn can be exchanged, according to a prior agreement, for something that really interests them, such as a trip to the amusement park, the cinema, tickets for a your liking…etc.
