If you're new here you might want to check out our top recommendation for parents. You can get a copy of The Total Transformation Program for free for a limited time, and it truly is a fantastic resource.

When your child exhibits oppositional behaviour, it’s not always for the simple reasons that immediately spring to mind: trying to avoid responsibility, simple contrariness, actively wanting to make your life miserable. The real causes are simple, and can easily be dealt with using a system such as James Lehman’s Total Transformation Program, once the root of the problem is understood.

When you try to deal with the oppositional behaviour on its own, you’re treating the symptom and not the problem. Oppositional behaviour may be the problem for you, but for the child, it’s an entirely different problem that is causing it.

The first and most important element of this is the child’s ability to read social situations and interpret other people’s feelings and emotions. When a child doesn’t understand the way other people are feeling, it’s easy to say or do the wrong thing; without the ability to understand the social framework of the situation, the right thing is difficult to understand or identify.

A secondary element – which dovetails with the first – is the child’s own ability to identify and manage emotions. When a child cannot see any way to deal with anger except by lashing out, it seems pointless to respond appropriately when someone else is angry – because what else would someone do except lash out? If they’re going to lash out anyway, it doesn’t matter… and when you combine oppositional behaviour with this, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The third and most important aspect is an understanding of problem solving. When a child is faced with a situation where choices must be made, it can be hard to know what the right choices are – and without some basic problem-solving skills, the child simply has no way to make a good choice. All the choices seem to be equally good (or bad), and the child just picks one.

With these three skills, a child can rapidly understand that there are choices in his behaviour when dealing with a social situation. Understanding how to handle one’s own emotions can help avoid the frustration and confusion of dealing with someone else’s emotions, and then the problem solving skills can come into play.

By understanding these three skills yourself, the situation can become markedly better. Many parents find that they spend much of their time looking angry or upset, and the child feels like the cause of this emotion. By simply expressing the target of your emotions, you can relieve this stress and anxiety for your child, and oppositional behaviour is likely to decrease or stop altogether.

And armed with these skills, your own life will improve, as well as your child’s.

To learn more about the root causes of oppositional behaviour, I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.

Tagged with: •

Filed under: articles

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!