As an office bearer and student representative, when we returned to school after two Covid years, I realized that academic learning gaps weren’t the only challenge that schools faced. More critically, a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) post pandemic world has left behind a legacy of children with little emotional resilience and self-regulation. This inability to transact with the post modern world manifests in commonly observed behavioral problems among children of all ages, including mine, such as impulse control, anxiety, defiance, procrastination, conduct disorder, lying and stealing, aggression, and lack of focus, and, in extreme cases, self-harm.
It is also noteworthy that patterns of behavior emerge in consonance with certain times of the day (such as bedtime or school time), during certain tasks (such as doing school assignments or household chores), in certain environments (such as structured classes), or with certain people (such as empowered authority figures or disempowered domestic staff). While precise identification of behavioral issues and the selection of targeted therapies for the same are influenced by factors such as the child’s age, developmental stage, severity of symptoms, etc, and most behavior modification requires multi-pronged strategies that are resonated by all agencies that comprise a child’s immediate environment, the following are established strategies for understanding problematic behavior, avoiding potential triggers, and reinforcing acceptable behavior.
Strategies to solving behavioral issues are premised on the identification of the issue, establishing the context in which it is demonstrated, addressing its root cause, and subsequently, providing the child a holistic perspective and coping mechanism. This process begins with helping the child reflect the wrong behavior, and empowering the respondents to rationalize the action, and chart out clear consequences. While professionals can provide Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to address chronic, long-standing or severe cases, the basic steps involved in CBT can be effectively leveraged even for self-counseling.
These include: step one – making a list of problematic behaviors; step two – recording unproductive thoughts; step three – creating replacement thoughts; step four – reading your list often; and step five – noticing and replacing problematic behavior patterns through mindfulness. Adults entrusted with the care of impressionable children are also advised to focus on and reward positive behavior as a reinforcement strategy, since a lot of behavioral issues stem from undue focus on negative actions. It has been found that in holistic terms, human beings, regardless of age, benefit tremendously from maintaining a routine, which allows them to consciously and conscientiously work towards self actualization, advocated by Abraham Maslow as among the highest orders of achievement.
