by Thomas Hobson
Child Life Director

We’ve all been in situations when the stress involved almost (or in some cases, did) make us flip out.  Who hasn’t had a moment where the pressure, anxiety, and/or fear built up to the point when you could pull your hair out and scream at the moon?  As an adult, you probably have learned to control your reactions to stress.  However, I would be willing to wager that you know someone that hasn’t, and there are numerous stories of them acting “crazy” in stressful situations.

In the case of children, most have not mastered controlling the behaviors that arise out of stressful moments. In the hospital, we see it more than you might imagine.  When you take the level of stress that children can experience from the unknown and general fears it’s not surprise. 

Young children may not have the “right” words to describe feeling stress.  They might call it scared, angry, or any other number of feelings.  However, in my experience, they may not try to explain their feelings, but instead make a change in their behavior. One of the easiest ways to tell is from “acting out” behavior in the child.

In a stressful situation a child might respond by refusing to take medicines, participate in treatments, follow rules, and even “purposely” break rules.  At home, this may include refusing simple requests (i.e. brush your teeth, put that toy away).  As you can imagine, this is frustrating to families, who can be left scratching their heads.  Since it’s not the typical behavior, some families will respond by being more firm with the child.  Typically, you can see the child respond by further strengthening their resolve for the behavior.

You can see the cycle of behaviors beginning as each side escalates into a lose-lose situation.  As child life specialist, the most important question we explore is what is causing these behaviors because chances are it may not be on the surface.  Families can use the same question at home to understand the behaviors.  When we understand what the cause is it becomes easier to deal with the root issue.

Now, why would a typically sweet, compliant child do this?  Simply put, it is something that they can control especially when they are in a situation that gives them no control.  The child is trying to regain control over their life.  Remember the classic child development mantra, even negative interaction is better than no interaction.  Or to put it another way, even control with negative consequences is better than no control.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll talk about some strategies that Child Life Services uses to break the cycle of stress behaviors that you can use at home.  Also, if you have some examples of this behavior with your own children leave a comment below.  We’d love to hear from you.