Motives Behind Behavior: Parents’ Analytical Approach

When your Aspergers child begins to “act-out,” it often looks like misbehavior …sounds like misbehavior …and certainly feels like misbehavior. But for many Aspies, “mis-behavior” (e.g., lying, acting-out, tantrums, disrespectfulness, and other signs of apparent disobedience) may have more to do with typical Aspergers-related traits (e.g., lack of communication skills, motor clumsiness, sensory sensitivities, cause-and-effect thinking, etc.) than with deliberate malicious intent.

This DOES NOT mean you have to allow “out-of-control behavior” as just another fact of your parenting an Aspergers child. Your youngster still needs to learn acceptable behavior to be safe and successful. It DOES mean, though, that you're going to have to look at things from a different angle.

In order to (a) differentiate between “misbehavior and “Aspergers-related behavior” and (b) successfully address both, consider the following suggestions:

1. To start with, you'll want to narrow your focus to one particular behavior to analyze and change. Although it's tempting, don't just choose the thing that most annoys you. A better choice will be something that particularly puzzles you. For example:

• Why can your youngster do math just fine some days, and balks on other days?
• Why does he insist on punishment even when it upsets him?
• Why does he get so wound up and wild?
• Why is your youngster sweet and compliant sometimes, then resists to the point of tantrum over something inconsequential?

As long as you're going to be a detective, you might as well give yourself a good mystery. While you're stalking one behavior, you may need to let others slide, unless it's a matter of safety. Don't try to change everything all at once.

2. Next, keep a journal (or if it is a frequently occurring behavior, keep a chart) for noting every incidence of the targeted behavior. Include the time of day the behavior occurred, and what happened before, during, and after. Think of what might have happened directly before the behavior, and also earlier in the day. Think, too, of what happened directly after the behavior, and whether it offered the youngster any reward (even negative attention can be rewarding if the alternative is no attention at all). Ask yourself the following questions. Does the behavior tend to:

• be more frequent during a certain time of day?
• occur after a certain event?
• occur during transitions?
• occur in anticipation of something happening?
• occur when routine is disrupted?
• occur when something happens - or doesn't happen?
• occur when things are very noisy or very busy?

Keep track over the course of a few weeks and look for patterns.

3. It may seem as though your youngster saves his worst behavior for public places, where it causes you the most embarrassment. But there may be a reason for that. Ask yourself the following question:

• Does he have a hard time resisting touching and banging things like buttons or doors?
• Does he have trouble in places where he needs to stay still and quiet (e.g., church)?
• Does he resist places where children may be cruel (e.g., the bus, playground)?
• Does he panic in places that are busy and noisy (e.g., the mall)?
• Does he shy away from places with strong smells or bright lights?
• Is there something about any particular place that might be distressing?

Notice reactions to different environments and add these insights to your journal or chart.

4. You can stubbornly insist that your youngster is responsible for his own behavior, but you're liable to be waiting a long time for the behavior changes you want to see. While you may find some behaviors annoying, disruptive, or inappropriate, it may be filling a need for your youngster. And even if your youngster is genuinely unhappy about the negative consequences of his behavior, he may not understand it enough to control it.

In the end, it is far easier for YOU to change (e.g., your expectations, actions, reactions, responses, etc.) than for your youngster to change. You will need to do some detective work to determine the support your youngster needs to improve his behavior, and provide it. Ultimately, you can teach your youngster to do this for himself. But you have to lead the way.

5. Take the data from your journal or chart (e.g., patterns you've discovered, observations on environments, etc.) and see if you can figure out what's behind the behavior. For example:

• Maybe he balks at math when he sees too many problems on the page.
• Maybe he begs for punishment because going to his room feels safer than dealing with a challenging situation.
• Maybe he explodes over something inconsequential because he's used up all his patience weathering frustrations earlier in the day.
• Maybe he gets wound up because “being good” gets him no attention.

Once you have a working theory, make some changes in your youngster's environment to make it easier for him to behave. For example:

• Give your Aspie lots of attention when he's being good - and none at all for bad behavior (other than just a quick and emotionless timeout).
• If your child’s worksheet has too many problems, fold it to expose only a row at a time, or cut a hole in a piece of paper and use it as a window to show only one or two problems at once.
• Instead of being happy that your Aspergers child seems to be handling frustrating situations, provide support earlier in the day so that his patience will hold out longer.
• Recognize situations your child feels challenged by - and offer an alternative between compliance and disobedience.

You may not always guess right the first time, and not every change you try will work. Effective moms and dads will have a big bag of tricks they can keep digging into until they find the one that works that day, that hour, that minute. But analyzing behavior and strategizing solutions will help you feel more in control of your family, and your youngster will feel safer and more secure. This alone often cuts down on a lot of “mis-behavior.”

My Aspergers Child: Preventing Meltdowns and Tantrums