The behavior won't improve when...

I have another blog about behavior for you. I decided to do ANOTHER post on behavior because I know that’s what you all want. My messages on Instagram are 9 times out of 10 regarding a challenging behavior. Behavior podcasts are always the most listened to by listeners. So I took that as a major hint and decided to dive into behavior again! And to top it all off, I'm going to be addressing your child's challenging behavior in my next free autism parent training. Will I see you there?!!

Let's chat about your child's behavior that you might be struggling with at home...

One thing I want to remind you is that the environment has EVERYTHING to do with your child’s behavior. Good and bad. But that’s the case for everyone...the environment is going to impact EVERYONE'S behavior including mine. The environment, what’s present in our environment, is either going to make a behavior more or less likely to occur. 

So, with that said, what your day and your home has present is going to make a difference in how your child behaves. 

I titled today's blog "The behavior won't improve when..." because there are 6 key elements involved in setting your child's environment up to help them succeed. There are 6 key parts every parent needs to consider when wanting to improve behaviors at home. 

 You NEED these 6 things in order to promote and increase positive and appropriate behavior. 

#1, the behavior is not going to improve when there is no way to communicate. BEHAVIOR IS COMMUNICATION. Your child is using their behavior, good or bad, to communicate. When they have absolutely no way to communicate their wants and needs with you, you’re most likely going to see a lot more challenging behaviors because that is your child’s only way of communicating with you. So let’s think about what you can do to teach them to communicate. You have options. Verbal speech, PECS, a comm device, sign language. Gestures are also a way to communicate and your child is probably using gestures but that’s not going to be enough to rely on for them to communicate all of their wants and needs throughout life. They need some way to communicate. 

This is something I like to help parents set up in the Autism Parent Inner Circle. Being an autism teacher, I set up a PECS system for more kids than I can count. And once your child has an effective communication system in place that fits their needs, I could see challenging behaviors decrease because they had a more appropriate way to communicate.

#2, the behavior is not going to improve when there is no structure. And I’m going to mix this in with #3, too. Your child’s behavior is not going to improve when there is no predictability.

Your child thrives in a structured and more predictable environment. Do you have a visual schedule in place to help with this? This is something I also help my Inner Circle members implement. It’s actually the first thing I make for them and teach them to implement. And they almost immediately see an improvement in their child’s behaviors throughout the day. Showing on a visual schedule what their day will look like and what their expectations are is going to take away the guessing game for your child. Your child most likely has heightened anxiety. And a big part of that is because there is not enough structure and predictability in their life. A visual schedule is easy, simple, and can also help them with changes in the future. This schedule will prepare for changes, even as simple as stopping at the grocery store on the way home from school instead of going straight home. 

Do you have a son or daughter that insists on you driving home a certain way every single day? Or have a youtube clip that they watch on repeat 200 times a day? Or have to do something a particular way every time and gets upset if it’s not done that particular way? That’s because your child loves the predictability to those things. They know, 100%, it’s going to be the same every time and it lowers their anxiety. They love the familiarity. This is something that I will touch more on in my next free autism parent training so make sure you are signed up to reserve your spot. 

The next reason, #4, why your child’s behavior is not improving is because they aren’t experiencing enough success. 

We need to intentionally build in opportunities for your child to be successful at more behaviors. If they are always trying to meet your standards and it’s always taking a lot of effort and not enough success, they aren’t going to be that motivated to keep working at those good behaviors you want to see more of. 

Is there something you KNOW  your child is really good at already when it comes to behavior? Are they gentle with their little sister, are they good at sharing, or waiting? Start rewarding them for those things that they are already doing a really good job at. We don’t want these good behaviors to go unnoticed. We want to show them and communicate to them that they are successful at this and we are recognizing them for it. 

 #5 is something we can have some fun with! The behavior is not going to improve when you don’t have a reinforcer OR when the reinforcer is not motivating enough. 

When you want your child to work on a skill or engage in a positive behavior more, we have to think “what’s in it for them?” Your child is probably just fine engaging in the challenging behavior. To them, they don’t need to change. It’s serving them, it’s working for them. We need to make it worth your child to engage in those positive behaviors. I’ve actually already created a reward system you can download and use for free on my website to help with this. You can download and use my token board. It’s probably something that your child is using in their classroom at school or ABA sessions. It’s super easy, visual and reinforcing for your child. When you download it from my website, I do have a quick little video to explain exactly how to use it. This is something that your child, if used correctly, will catch onto really quickly and you can use this to increase and see more of the positive behaviors that you want to see around the house.  

And our final one, reason #6 why the behavior is not improving is that your child might not feel regulated. 

Your child most likely has sensory processing needs that need to be addressed. A lot of times these needs aren’t addressed. When we, and I mean you and I too, when we don’t feel regulated, we don’t feel good. When we don’t feel good, it’s hard to have good behavior. Everyone wants to feel good and regulated and for your child it might be more extreme because of their sensory processing needs. 

What I would recommend is understanding what sensory activities your child needs to feel good. What do they like? Deep pressure, quick movement, tactile play like playing with water? This would be a great topic to talk to your physical therapist about! What’s going to help regulate them and help them feel more at ease and calm? It’s hard to behave in a good or appropriate way when you don’t feel good or calm on the inside. Whatever activities that you discover work best for your child, you can use these to build into their visual schedule throughout the day. Create more opportunities to engage in these sensory activities so we can improve how they feel all day long. These activities aren’t something that we want to just wait and let your child chose when to engage in them. We are the adults, we have to intentionally have your child engage in these activities multiple times throughout the day to help them feel good. 

**Don’t forget that these are key points that I’ll be diving deeper into on my training that I am hosting. It’s on zoom so that you have the opportunity to unmute and ask questions at the end.