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nightengalesknd“If she doesn’t get enough sleep, we get behaviors,” says a mother.
[I sure hope so] I think. But outwardly I nod, because we need to stay on track to address the sleep problems.
An hour later, I am reading a report from a speech therapist.
“No behaviors today,” she writes, perkily.
[Wow, I hope that’s not true.] I think. [Was he comatose?]
So, “behavior” is literally in my job title. As a result, I spent a lot of time talking to people, largely adults, about the behavior of people, largely children.
And so I hear and read a lot of things where people use the word “behavior” as a shortcut for. . . “disruptive behavior” or “inappropriate behavior” or maybe just “behavior I don’t like.”
There’s a lot of baggage of course in what behavior is considered disruptive or inappropriate or challenging. And I’ll get to that.
But first I want to unpack the very idea of “behavior” itself. What is behavior?
Behavior, friends, is something an awake and conscious person does using voluntary muscles.
This is not what Merriam-Webster would tell you, or perhaps your nearest psychologist, but it’s the best I’ve got.
Awake and conscious, to remind us that things like sleepwalking aren’t actually behaviors. I was in some internet conversations recently about monitoring behavior, and how not every behavior should be monitored, and I made what I thought was a pretty good argument that also some things that are not behavior should be monitored. Like sleepwalking.
Also, voluntary muscles. This does not mean that all “behaviors” are done purposefully and consciously. They aren’t. But OK
If I tap your knee (actually your patellar ligament) with a reflex hammer and you kick me, that’s not a behavior. That’s a spinal reflex.
If I grab your toy and you immediately kick me, that’s a behavior, although it may have been so fast that it was basically an instinctive reaction.
If I grab your toy, and ten minutes later you walk over and kick me, that’s also a behavior, and a different one from above.
Breathing is generally under brainstem control and is not a behavior. But holding your breath is, whether it’s a breath holding spell in frustration, or a response to my directions to “take a deep breath.”
Context is everything.
You know what else is a behavior?
Sitting in a chair at school and raising your hand
Following your speech therapist’s directions
Answering when asked what you want for a snack
So we really need to stop using “behavior” as a shorthand for “behaviors causing problems.”
As a child, I always loved dandelions. As an adult, preparing to teach a class on plants, I was mesmerized reading that a rose would be a weed in a cornfield.
Sitting still and quietly is an expected behavior in math class when the teacher is talking
Sitting still and quietly would be an extremely disruptive behavior in marching band.
So an important step is modifying “behavior” with some context. Adjectives help. Aggressive behavior? Disruptive behavior? Challenging behavior?
That at least gives another person some idea of what is going on. “No behaviors today” doesn’t tell me how speech therapy is going. “Behavior was appropriate” tells me something useful. “Jacob sat for 20 minutes and followed directions” would be better still.
This still leaves the larger problem as to how terms such as “appropriate” or “disruptive” are even defined. Sometimes there are clearly stated rules and expectations. Some of these are for legitimate reasons (no food in science lab) and some for more arbitrary reasons (no water bottles in class at all. Many classroom rules are designed to maintain a setting where most students can learn.
One popular social interaction training program carefully uses the terms “expected” and “unexpected” behavior, instead of “good” or “bad.” In the materials I have reviewed from this curriculum, there is very clear negative judgment placed on “unexpected” behavior. Another term I’ve heard a lot is “choice,” as in “make good choices” or “he has been making bad choices in school.”
Behavioral expectations, whether called good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate, or tomorrow’s next set of antonyms, are generally set by the adults for the children, and by the neurotypical majority for its own convenience. This is sometimes done more explicitly than other times.
If the child is playing noisily in my exam room and it bothers his mother but not me, is that a behavior problem?
Can I correct a father who is requiring a child to “use your words” before having a snack he requested by pointing?
And where do I even start with a child who seems to be doing no academics in school, but who gets a list sent home daily of “behaviors.” His family was hoping for more reading instruction.
“What kind of behavior challenges are they having in school?” I ask.
“Oh, if he cries when they ask him to do something, or if he flaps his hands.”
I monitored my own behavior very carefully. I did not raise my voice. I did not cry. I did not even flap my hands in front of my face. And I refrained from visiting the classroom and dismantling it bit by bit. Instead, I printed out copies of “There’s a flap for that” and “Quiet hands” and typed out recommendations for increased attention to reading.
Preparing written reports is a behavior, too.
(I began writing this before I read this and the one is not in direct response to the other. But you should probably read that one too, if you haven’t yet.)
[I sure hope so] I think. But outwardly I nod, because we need to stay on track to address the sleep problems.
An hour later, I am reading a report from a speech therapist.
“No behaviors today,” she writes, perkily.
[Wow, I hope that’s not true.] I think. [Was he comatose?]
So, “behavior” is literally in my job title. As a result, I spent a lot of time talking to people, largely adults, about the behavior of people, largely children.
And so I hear and read a lot of things where people use the word “behavior” as a shortcut for. . . “disruptive behavior” or “inappropriate behavior” or maybe just “behavior I don’t like.”
There’s a lot of baggage of course in what behavior is considered disruptive or inappropriate or challenging. And I’ll get to that.
But first I want to unpack the very idea of “behavior” itself. What is behavior?
Behavior, friends, is something an awake and conscious person does using voluntary muscles.
This is not what Merriam-Webster would tell you, or perhaps your nearest psychologist, but it’s the best I’ve got.
Awake and conscious, to remind us that things like sleepwalking aren’t actually behaviors. I was in some internet conversations recently about monitoring behavior, and how not every behavior should be monitored, and I made what I thought was a pretty good argument that also some things that are not behavior should be monitored. Like sleepwalking.
Also, voluntary muscles. This does not mean that all “behaviors” are done purposefully and consciously. They aren’t. But OK
If I tap your knee (actually your patellar ligament) with a reflex hammer and you kick me, that’s not a behavior. That’s a spinal reflex.
If I grab your toy and you immediately kick me, that’s a behavior, although it may have been so fast that it was basically an instinctive reaction.
If I grab your toy, and ten minutes later you walk over and kick me, that’s also a behavior, and a different one from above.
Breathing is generally under brainstem control and is not a behavior. But holding your breath is, whether it’s a breath holding spell in frustration, or a response to my directions to “take a deep breath.”
Context is everything.
You know what else is a behavior?
Sitting in a chair at school and raising your hand
Following your speech therapist’s directions
Answering when asked what you want for a snack
So we really need to stop using “behavior” as a shorthand for “behaviors causing problems.”
As a child, I always loved dandelions. As an adult, preparing to teach a class on plants, I was mesmerized reading that a rose would be a weed in a cornfield.
Sitting still and quietly is an expected behavior in math class when the teacher is talking
Sitting still and quietly would be an extremely disruptive behavior in marching band.
So an important step is modifying “behavior” with some context. Adjectives help. Aggressive behavior? Disruptive behavior? Challenging behavior?
That at least gives another person some idea of what is going on. “No behaviors today” doesn’t tell me how speech therapy is going. “Behavior was appropriate” tells me something useful. “Jacob sat for 20 minutes and followed directions” would be better still.
This still leaves the larger problem as to how terms such as “appropriate” or “disruptive” are even defined. Sometimes there are clearly stated rules and expectations. Some of these are for legitimate reasons (no food in science lab) and some for more arbitrary reasons (no water bottles in class at all. Many classroom rules are designed to maintain a setting where most students can learn.
One popular social interaction training program carefully uses the terms “expected” and “unexpected” behavior, instead of “good” or “bad.” In the materials I have reviewed from this curriculum, there is very clear negative judgment placed on “unexpected” behavior. Another term I’ve heard a lot is “choice,” as in “make good choices” or “he has been making bad choices in school.”
Behavioral expectations, whether called good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate, or tomorrow’s next set of antonyms, are generally set by the adults for the children, and by the neurotypical majority for its own convenience. This is sometimes done more explicitly than other times.
If the child is playing noisily in my exam room and it bothers his mother but not me, is that a behavior problem?
Can I correct a father who is requiring a child to “use your words” before having a snack he requested by pointing?
And where do I even start with a child who seems to be doing no academics in school, but who gets a list sent home daily of “behaviors.” His family was hoping for more reading instruction.
“What kind of behavior challenges are they having in school?” I ask.
“Oh, if he cries when they ask him to do something, or if he flaps his hands.”
I monitored my own behavior very carefully. I did not raise my voice. I did not cry. I did not even flap my hands in front of my face. And I refrained from visiting the classroom and dismantling it bit by bit. Instead, I printed out copies of “There’s a flap for that” and “Quiet hands” and typed out recommendations for increased attention to reading.
Preparing written reports is a behavior, too.
(I began writing this before I read this and the one is not in direct response to the other. But you should probably read that one too, if you haven’t yet.)