Abstract
It was Jean Piaget who first suggested that children learn by schema, or “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning' (Piaget.org, 2014). All human learning, according to Piaget, can be defined by these intellectual building blocks, or schema. Tantrums are behaviors that are learned by children, and as a result have to be governed by schema if Piaget’s theory on learning can be considered correct. The development of intentional or goal-setting behavior is correlated with the development of tantrum behavior in toddlers.
- Purpose
All children have “phases” that they go through-- parents recognize these phases as normal parts of child development, and see children who are going through phases as children who must be parented, but also must be treated with patience. There is a distinction between problematic behavior and problem behavior; children who are going through phases will experience problematic behavior, whereas children who are having behavioral problems will often exhibit problem behavior.
There are a number of different types of behaviors that can be problematic for families, and the severity of the behaviors in these children is, of course, going to be varied based on the personality of the children and the manner in which the child in question is raised. However, despite these variances, there are ways to track the behavior of children, particularly in terms of their developmental markers.
Intentional (Goal-Oriented) Behavior
In this research, the researcher will be focused on finding any links between the development of intentional behavior in toddlers and the development of problem behaviors. Before discussing the link between intentional behavior and problem behaviors in children, it is first important to discuss the concepts of intentional behavior and problem behavior. Intentional behavior is behavior that is performed with a future outcome in mind for the individual practicing the behavior (Bard, 1992). Children who are younger than toddler age and who have not surpassed the behavioral markings necessary cannot perform intentional behavior; it is only children who have surpassed certain developmental markers who are capable of participating in the behavior (Bard 1992).
If intentional behavior is behavior that is performed with a specific goal in mind, then it stands to question when problem behavior and problematic behavior also becomes intentional behavior in children. By examining the development of goal-oriented, intentional behaviors in human beings, the researchers will be able to determine when problem behaviors start becoming issues that are intentional and goal-oriented, rather than reactionary, as they can be in infants and children who have not yet developed intentional behavior.
Goal-oriented behavior may be expressed in a number of different ways in young children and toddlers; toddlers are often crude with their behavior, unable to understand the nuances of human behavior that older children often have a better grasp of. This study will focus on a Piaget-centered view of how children learn and what they learn, and how this learning process affects a child’s likelihood to utilize problematic or oppositional behavior to get his or her way.
Problematic behavior in toddlers
Children who are exhibiting problematic behavior-- behavior like tantrums, hitting, screaming, or biting-- may be exhibiting problem behavior, or behaviors that indicate that there is a deeper, more important mental problem that needs to be addressed with the toddler in question. However, there is no doubt that toddlers can be emotional and defiant; these children are often experiencing the world in a new way for the very first time (Heermann, Colette, and Hatcher, 1996).
Tantrums, or temper tantrums, are one of the more notable toddler behaviors. It seems as though every mother has a story or an experience regarding temper tantrums and her child; almost all children have these kinds of issues as they deal with during this developmental stage. This research will examine the use of oppositional behaviors like crying, screaming, and generally throwing tantrums, and how this type of oppositional, problematic behavior can be dealt with in the context of goal-oriented behavior in children.
As children develop higher levels of goal-oriented behavior, it will be much easier for them to develop a sense of right and wrong based on these oppositional behaviors that are so often developed in toddlerhood. If these behaviors are not addressed, they can quickly become problem behaviors rather than merely normal toddler behaviors for the child. Screaming, crying, hitting, rolling on the floor, and general dramatics, often in public, are hallmarks of tantrums; it is this type of behavior that the study will look at and focus on, especially in toddlers.
As toddlers grow and develop, they may continue to utilize these childish behaviors; the use of tantrums after the pre operational phase of development is not what the researchers are interested in investigating, as this type of behavior is often abnormal and indicative of the existence of some other type of trying event in a child’s life in which tantrums are still behaviors that are allowing the child to reach his or her goal, whatever that goal may be (Leadbeater, Bishop and Raver, 1996).
Audience
The audience for this particular investigation will be child psychologists who are interested in the cognition of early development. As a child develops, things change; the minutiae of those changes have been studied extensively throughout the years. The mysteries of human development have long been important insofar as the development of an understanding of adult cognition. Because there are so many discrete steps in development, focusing research on a very specific area of development will lead to a much greater understanding of the relationship between the development of two seemingly-independent traits.
Apart from child psychologists, individuals who work with children who exhibit problem behaviors from a young age will also be the focus of this study. These individuals could be anyone who works with children who are at-risk-- social workers, for instance, or any number of other professions that commonly interface with young children who are at risk for problem behaviors. Finally, parents are another group that will benefit from this research. Tantrums are an often-reviled reality of toddlerhood; if these tantrums are better understood, then it will be easier for parents to address the issues that lead to tantrums more easily, thus avoiding tantrum behavior, hopefully in its entirety.
Statement of Interest
Children-- particularly the stages of development from infant to toddler-- have long been fascinating. The brain undergoes so many important changes during this time-- it is elastic and constantly developing. Despite differences between people, cultures, and environments, there are general realities that exist regarding developmental milestones that nearly all children go through; one of these milestones is the development of goal-oriented, intentional behavior. Another of these milestones is the development of the temper tantrum as a bargaining tool-- and the two types of behaviors emerge at approximately the same stages of development.
- Opening Statement and Hypothesis
Hypothesis
The development of intentional or goal-setting behavior is correlated with the development of tantrum behavior in toddlers.
Opening Statement
It was Jean Piaget who first suggested that children learn by schema, or “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning' (Piaget.org, 2014). All human learning, according to Piaget, can be defined by these intellectual building blocks, or schema. Tantrums are behaviors that are learned by children, and as a result have to be governed by schema if Piaget’s theory on learning can be considered correct. The development of intentional or goal-setting behavior is correlated with the development of tantrum behavior in toddlers.
- Literature Review
This discussion will center around the theory of learning and development that was first suggested by Piaget. Piaget (2014) suggests that for children, the first step to learning is acquiring schemata, which are the building blocks for learning anything. This type of learning, Piaget (2014) suggests, is only applicable to children; adults learn in an entirely different fashion, and cannot be compared to the ways in which children meet their developmental milestones.
Piaget (2014) introduced this new, biology-based description of human interaction and development; this was an important change from the nurture-based description of development. Spelke (1996) suggests: “Jean Piaget viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation(adjustment) to the world. This happens through: Assimilation Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation. AccommodationThis happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation. Equilibration This is the force which moves development along. Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds” (Spelke, 1996). In short, these three things-- assimilation. accommodation, and equilibrium-- are what move the child’s learning and developmental process forward once the child begins to learn in his or her environment (Spelke, 1996).
Just because a child begins to have awareness of outside perspectives in the early stages of toddlerhood-- the stage that Piaget calls the “pre operational stage”-- does not mean that the child has completely divorced him or herself from the egocentric view that is so common before the child truly develops a sense that other people have personalities as well (Spelke, 1996). The development of goal-oriented behavior is also an important milestone in this part of the developmental process for children and toddlers in the pre operational stages of development (Spelke, 1996).
Piaget caused a revolution in the way that researchers began to think about cognitive development as a whole. Researchers began to consider the infant and toddler developmental years as very important for the overall development of the child; the infant and toddler were, according to Piaget, actively learning, not passively receiving information as had long been suggested (Spelke, 1996). However, after the first stage of development, the children Piaget studied showed remarkable adaptability to their environment, and were able to use the building blocks that Piaget would later call schemata, in creative ways that were definitely akin to thinking (Spelke, 1996).
There have been many studies done on the existence of a developmental milestone insofar as as goal-oriented or intentional behavior is concerned. The Bard (1992) study, which focuses on the relationship between food and intentional behavior in orangutans, suggests: “Systematic coding of the videotapes revealed that even young orangutans, 1-6 months old, used intentional behaviors. When young orangutans directed behavior toward the mother in addition to the goal object then maternal responses were positive, resulting in the infant obtaining the food. Intentional communication, evident in gestures and consisting of an abbreviated action directed toward the mother, was found in the 3 oldest orangutans Cognitive competence and behavioral performance are considered from the developmental perspectives of Piaget and prelinguistic communication. The ability to use a communicative gesture as an intermediate means in the coordination of actions on a social agent with actions on an object is evident in young orangutans” (Bard, 1992). Primate behavior is often studied as a way to examine human behavior; in this case, the primates all began to exhibit goal-oriented behavior in early stages of development, and began to develop strategies that could then be used to gain rewards and desired outcomes (Bard, 1992).
Leadbeater, Bishop and Raver (1996) note that the behavior of the parent and parent interaction with children likely influences child behavior insofar as problematic behaviors and oppositional behaviors are concerned (Leadbeater, Bishop and Raver, 1996). These behaviors may be caused by a number of factors, but perhaps the most important thing to consider is that tantrums and other similar behaviors have tactical outcomes for children who participate in them (Leadbeater, Bishop and Raver, 1996). These tantrums can easily be used as coping mechanisms for living circumstances that are not ideal for children (Leadbeater, Bishop and Raver, 1996).
Tantrums usually occur in children who have just reached toddler age. These tantrums are often signs of emotional distress in children; they are used by the child to get their way in an argument or discussion, often with a caregiver. Because children use tantrums to get their way, there is ostensibly a link to the idea of goal-oriented learning that exists.
- Expected Outcomes
Researchers can expect a correlation between the development of a child’s goal-oriented or intentional learning and the presence of tantrums and similar behavior for the purpose of eliciting a specific reaction from the adults in that child’s life. There may be a secondary correlation between parent involvement and participation in a child’s life and the development of tantrum behaviors as well.
The main purpose of this study, however, will be to examine the relationship between goal-oriented behavior and tantrum behavior; tantrum behavior in children is expected to increase as the child gains a crude understanding of goal-oriented behavior, but is likely to decrease as that goal-oriented behavior becomes more refined and children develop better skills for dealing with adverse circumstances.
- Discussion and Conclusions
The link between tantrum behavior and goal-oriented learning may not be a conclusive link, but it is likely that there is a correlative relationship between the use of tantrum behavior and the development of goal-oriented behavior. This correlation is likely to be because children are beginning to understand that behaving in a certain way elicits a response; the response to tantrums is often to give the child what he or she wants, and as a result, the schema that encompasses tantrum behavior is reinforced and seen to be a valuable tool in the child’s arsenal.
Most parenting experts suggest that ignoring tantrums is the best way to deal with the tantrum; to acknowledge the tantrum is to give the child power, and the only way to avoid giving the child power is to refuse to give in to what the child wants when he or she is throwing a tantrum. Removing the power from the child in this situation is the only way to avoid the recurrence of these tantrums; slowly, as the child begins to realize that their tantrums to not result in the desired goal being met, the tantrum schema will be abandoned in favor of other negotiating tactics.
Piaget’s theories on child development are very important for this discussion because they describe the ways in which children can use tantrums to elicit behavior out of adults; they also examine the reasons why children use tantrums in the first place. Tantrums are a natural part of learning, and this natural part of learning will either be rewarded by caretakers or ignored; when the tantrums are ignored, they are often abandoned by the child as an ineffective way of seeking a goal. However, when they are rewarded by the caretaker, then the child is more likely to continue the behavior for continued results and further goal-seeking behavior.
References
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