Hands up who has heard the following phrases (or felt them yourselves – we won’t tell) about children’s behaviour:
- He does it for no reason.
- She is just trying to get at us.
- The behaviour is completely random and unprovoked.
- It’s just attention-seeking.
- He just wants to get his own way.
- She can’t engage with others positively.
When a child is lashing out at adults or other children for seemingly no reason it can be incredibly confronting and difficult to manage. When you are sitting with a child, chatting as they eat their lunch and suddenly they stand up, throw their food off the table, scream and run away – it can be tempting to just see the fast behaviour and assume it is for no reason and completely ‘unprovoked'. While technically true in that no one is intentionally ‘provoking’ the child into the behaviour there is some fundamental information missing here.
Consider this point: Every behaviour is us attempting to meet one of our five basic human life needs. Every behaviour from the moment we are born throughout our lives serves this purpose. So when a child suddenly lashes out after a seemingly calm moment – we need to ask ourselves. ‘What need is this child trying to meet?” or in Phoenix Cups language “Which Cup is this child trying to fill?”
Consider not only what happened in the immediate moment preceding the behaviour but more widely than that. Is this child coming into your service with one or more empty cups? Are elements of your routines, practice or pedagogy emptying their cups throughout the day and this one moment had a tiny straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back?
Children will find the most efficient and effective way to fill their cups that they know how. This is the Skill to Fill. Children have thousands of moments of life experience to draw on and many skills they have developed to get their needs met. Some of these skills, we as adults embrace as ‘positive’ – such as when a child sweetly smiles at you, bats their eyelashes and asks for a cuddle when they are seeking some Connection Cup Filling. Others of these skills however adult will often perceive as ‘negative’ – such as a child that that throws wooden blocks at the wall to seek Connection Cup Filling with that same adult. However in both cases, these children are using the skills they best know how in order to get their needs met.
As parents, educators and trusted adults to these children, what we need to do in these instances then is this:
- Identify the child’s needs. What Cup do we feel may need filling – or in other words, where is the “Will to Fill” and acknowledge the behaviour is simply the child attempting to meet their own needs.
- Create environments that are proactively Cup Filling. This may be in our interactions, our words, our actions, our programs, routines or environments. Support Cup Filling proactively in children.
- Teach children new and effective Skill to Fill. Create opportunities for children to practice these skills. We can model these, provide supports or resources and overall provide understanding as they are growing and learning new skills.
As humans, we are driven to meet our needs. This is a biological imperative that we carry around with us each and every day. As any one of our cups begins to empty, our brain sends us a little alarm, a warning signal telling us to fix it. Time to get this need met. It does this in the form of a negative emotion. As studies tell us, emotions are our prescription to action. When we experience a negative emotion it prompts us to change something. You start feeling bored in a class and you may focus on filling your Fun Cup by throwing spit balls or distracting everyone around you (We never did this. Promise!) You start feeling lonely when hanging at home and suddenly you are getting dressed for a night of Connection Cup filling, going out with your friends.
Children have those same drives. When one of their needs starts becoming unmet, or their cup begins to empty, their brain sends them a flurry of negative emotions telling them to meet their needs. As adults we have developed a pile of skills that we use to fill our cups that children simply do not have access to or the life experiences to drawn upon. Children cannot just decide to go out with their friends for an evening to fill their Connection Cup. They can’t disappear on a round-the-world holiday to meet their need for Freedom Cup filling. They need to rely on the skills and tools they have available. Sometimes, these may be tools that we as adults find confronting or challenging.
So the question comes into being – what about this behaviour do you find so challenging? Is this child harming others around them? Or are they simply not complying with what you are wanting them to do in that moment? The next idea is – do they really have to? Is it necessary for the child to come to that mandatory group time to hear the same song or story they have heard before? Or would their learning be more deep if they continued climbing that tree outdoors? Sometimes, children exerting their autonomy and sense of self-competence, while essential for children, can inadvertently empty our own need for control or Mastery Cups in the adults caring for them. Sometimes, the biggest magic, the deepest learning and the most effective Cup Filling happens when we as adults can let go of the control we feel we must hold over children, and just let them be children. The learning can happen through play. That lunch routine can happen when the child is hungry. And that formalised group time can wait until they are developmentally ready and interested (typically that is not until school age strikes).