How to help>Behaviour

Behaviour

Behaviour is a form of non-verbal Communication

disturbing - disturbing/ disturbed inner state of mind

challenging - feeling challenged/ can’t cope

aggressive - feeling attacked/ got at

frantic - fear of falling apart/ of ‘losing it’

frightening - feeling frightened/ terrified

hitting/ lashing out - feeling overwhelmed/ uncontained

contained - feeling safe and contained

The child’s behaviour shows us what is going on

inside their mind and what the child feels like inside.

Early pre-mental states of mind

e.g. babies, young children, children with developmental delay/ autism

  • do not conform to the logic of common sense
  • are sensory-dominated
  • driven by confusions, panic and fears, which require containment, not extinction which will fill child (and the adult too) with terror, panic and a sense of persecution

As fundamental to their mental growth

every child needs

a parent’s/ adult’s ‘containing mind’ to be receptive

to the child’s unbearable feelings/ state of mind.

Disturbing Behaviour is a behavioural communication

such as mindless and seemingly meaningless aggression and destructiveness, because child/ person is

  • non-verbal or pre-verbal, i.e. in primitive pre-mental state
  • affected by inner fears/ anxieties, - not just external factors
  • overwhelmed by a sense of ‘too-much-ness’: PANIC!
    i.e. child can’t manage their mind/ feelings, especially their anxieties.

Everyday methods of discipline assume that the child has some degree of self-control. But a child who is just about managing to hold themselves together, may disintegrate under the additional strain.

The most disruptive behaviours come from those who

cannot control themselves,

are controlled by their own unconscious impulses and

are themselves terrified of an (inner sense of) explosion -

and this is what creates fear in others/ adult too.

The Autistic Child

  • is immersed in a sensory, not a psychic world
  • has attached himself desperately to skin/ body sensations
  • all biologically given means of communication are turned to self-stimulation
  • the extent of dread and terror is literally unimaginable vicious circle when panic and terror threaten to overwhelm and cannot be contained if trying to control this by demanding self-control - leads to frustration and failure
  • daraus folgt: explosive rage as a final defence
  • where development has been compromised before the achievement of language with its emotionally containing function
    - failure to achieve narrative, not being able to learn from experience how to encourage child to learn from experience

(e.g. T. Grandin, D. Williams)

References: Spensley 1995