Psychology:
We have heard the saying that Children are our future; young children are the future of any nation. While this is true it is equally true that what we are as children affects our adulthood. What we experience, feel and give vent to as children go a long way into defining our behaviour as adults. When we move and evaluate this point from a more psychological point of view and as a study in behavioural psychology, we see that the same experiences can manifest as disruptive behaviour. In the study of psychology, disorders in children are studied from the standpoint of neurological or relating to the brain and behavioural disorders. However the line between these kinds of disorders sometimes can be quite thin.
In this article we will focus on the behavioural disorders in childhood especially as seen in children who are born in the middle or second in a family of three children. We will be evaluating it from the standpoint of early intervention whenever there is a recognizable issue of such behaviour. It is researched that such kind of behaviour usually does not carry on to adulthood if it is recognized early and preventive methods are employed. It is also important to note that behaviour that is not checked in time can escalate to cases of substance abuse and other kinds of disruptive behaviour in adulthood.
We will examine the particular case of a family with 3 children. The eldest is Maddi, a girl aged 14, Tom, age 12 and Daniel who is 8 years of age. Therefore as stated above we will examine the behavioural patterns of Tom based on my interview with his parents and Tom’s behaviour as observed by me. We will then proceed to suggest methods to handle such behaviour as well as suggest preventive methods for future instances.
Let us first examine what constitutes Disruptive child behaviour. Naughtiness and children are part an parcel of growing up. But disruptive behaviour as the name itself suggests goes beyond the aspect of a child just being naughty. A child with behavioural disorders can get angry, irrational, dominating and disturb the peace in a classroom or at home making it difficult for other children to develop as well. The reverse of this behaviour also proves to be true. A child can also be unusually withdrawn, have low self esteem, and attention seeking in a different sense which can also constitute to disruptive child behaviour.
In the case of Tom, we notice a case of “Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)” (Betterhealth, 2012, para.3). His parents say that Tom displays inferiority complex although he is a bright child. This could be attributed to the fact that they had to move out of familiar surroundings because of his father’s job. The family moved from Melbourne to Perth when Tom was 8 years old and he has had trouble adjusting to his new school and environment. He shows a desire to belong and be accepted as one of them. Tom’s identifying with the popular group in school and his compulsion to be part of that group shows an influence of his family setting. Vygotsky (1986) has explained this aspect in his socio cultural theory. He explains that a child’s behaviour must be examined from the standpoint of his social settings that he is exposed to,” the external social world” that they belong to (p. 6-7). Tom may show an inclination towards the popular group due to an unsaid pressure in his home circumstances as created by his parent’s social settings. These are probably also exhibited by Maddi. We know Maddi, being the first born was exposed more to the company of adults than the other children in the family and possibly even interacted more with adults than children of her own age. Maggi, therefore exhibits a bit more maturity and a possibly domineering stance.
Psychologists believe that middle child syndrome is caused quite unwittingly by parents who somehow tend to cherish the first and last born in a family. The last born being the baby in the family gets a lot more attention while the oldest child gets more undivided attention by the first time parents. We also notice in this specific case that both parent’s are working and therefore unable to pay too much attention to the children and seem to take the easy way out by accepting the children’s demands for fear of hurting their feelings otherwise. This manifests in the aspect of Tom’s expensive and unusual demands as a child’s way of making up for what he is lacking emotionally. Tom suffers from low self-esteem and chooses to blame his lack of friends as an excuse for his faults. This behavioural pattern shows him to have a definitive case of ODD along with his spurts of temper tantrums, frustrations due to his situation and want to be acknowledged. Tom shows a desire to be identified with. This gives him the sense of importance that he lacks in his other activities. We notice that Daniel looks up to him while Maddi being the older and more independent of the three does not. This could be the reason for the clashes whenever Maddi is in Charge. Children with ODD do exhibit issues with authority and choose to exhibit it to the people they are closest to.
Suggestions in handling Tom’s behaviour:
Tom’s behaviour as far I have deduced from the interview with the parents and my observation did not warrant professional psychological intervention yet. A few changes in the home and school environment could help in making him feel more self assured and self- confident. Richard M Ryan and Edward L Deci, have explained such behavioural patterns in their work on Self Development Theory (SDT). Within that we find their explanation of Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) most relevant to Tom’s case. (Ryan and Deci, 2000, p.70), published in the journal of American Psychologists. The stress is on intrinsic motivation as an essential aspect of growing up. According to them, children from birth have an innate sense of self- motivation, therefore the fact that Tom is de-motivated and exhibits signs of frustration at his early developmental stages of childhood can only hint the lack of some motivation at some point in Tom’s life. “Studies of mothers and infants have, indeed, shown that both security and maternal autonomy support predict more exploratory behavior in the infants.” (Ryan & Deci, 2000. p.71) Tom’s parents revealed that the boys were clingier. Maddi being older and the first child in the family shows, more maturity due to her early association with adults and adult behaviour. It is possible that she may have been under more nurturing circumstances being the first born in the family. By the time Tom was born the parents were both working and they needed to prioritize. This could therefore attribute to their inability to pay attention to Tom’s individual needs. They made up for it by accepting his demands for fancy things. The parents need to show him more affection and acknowledgement and encourage him. Psychologists Carly B Slutzky, Sandra D Simpkins (2009) in their research on the link between the self esteem of children and sports participation also recommend, group sport activities or team sport activities which can help in motivation as against individual sport activities. The reason being that individual sport activities have a higher expectation on a young child who may not be otherwise too inclined towards sports. Middle children often feel the need to acknowledged and feel like they have to live up more to their parent’s expectations and often blame themselves more for their inadequacy (Danish, 2012, para.4). Although Tom has developed a habit of blaming his problems on other issues we can see that the root cause of it is his own low self-esteem. Therefore it would help Tom if his parents were to enrol all three children in separate sport activities so that there is no unsaid competition between the siblings.
Conclusion:
A combined effort by both parents and his teacher’s can bring about a marked improvement in Tom’s life, as it is a case of early intervention. In handling Tom’s middle child syndrome issues however it is very important for the parents to pay attention to themselves also. It is vital for parents to remember that they cannot blame themselves and remember that a child’s disruptive behaviour is not a personal attack on his or her parents but rather a combination of various events. Tom has the advantage of being in a nurturing environment with parents who are concerned about his well being while also struggling to find solutions to alter his disruptive behaviour. That, in itself is a step in the right direction towards a positive future for Tom and his family.
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