Children's Behaviours are Bringing us a Message

Children’s Behaviors are Bringing us a Message

Learning and Behaviour

Posted on March 16, 2025

Children’s behaviours are bringing us a message, and it is up to us to learn how to read them.

Recently, parents in my practice have expressed concern that their children are getting into trouble at school for hitting out at other children. This is usually followed by punishment of some sort, a phone call to the parents to arrange a meeting, and possibly suspension.

These are not bad children. Their parents generally describe them as gentle, sensitive, and sweet natured. They are not bullies!

What is the message that their behaviour is bringing us?

Behaviour as a Nervous System Reaction

We know that hitting someone is a strong defensive reaction to feeling threatened. A nervous system on high alert will be easily triggered into a fight/flight reaction, often hitting out at a perceived threat. Brain research tells us that this action is not coming from their “thinking” brain. It is coming from lower down, happening below conscious awareness.

Our nervous systems are constantly being bombarded with sensations of threat. This is hard for all of us, but is especially difficult for young children to deal with. They are like little sponges, soaking in everything that happens around them. However, their “thinking” brains have not yet developed enough for them to be able to process what is happening. Their reaction is automatic, happening without conscious awareness.

Many of the children I see in my practice are living with a heightened nervous system. They find it difficult to allow themselves to relax, or down-regulate. They need help from adults and their carers to help them to feel safe in an often confusing world.

For many of them, they are absorbing the stress from simply from being born into the twenty first century. Their nervous systems are constantly being bombarded, through the news, the environment, their community, their social world… the list goes on.

Processing our Stress

We live in a time of extreme change . So much is happening around the world – Covid, climate change, international wars, finances, cost of living, political upheaval…(add whatever is happening in your life here, too). Stress can accumulate without us realising it.

As adults, we have more capacity to process much of this information, but we can still find the world stressful. Imagine how much harder it is for our young children! Looking through the lens of this bigger picture, we can say that your child is not the problem… the problem is the problem!

Classrooms as a Stressful Environment

Many children find classrooms stressful. Even though we may think that schools are a safe place, children do not necessarily feel safe here. They are letting us know this through their behaviour.

Often labelled as having ADHD or dyslexia, research has shown that many of these children are actually struggling with anxiety. High anxiety in children impacting on all forms of learning – social, emotional, physical, behavioural and academic

Rather than labelling their behaviour as “naughty” let’s look at this as a survival response from an already heightened nervous system. It is bringing us a message, and we just need to learn to “tune in” to what we are seeing.

Some will say they need punishment, saying “they need to learn that this is not acceptable behaviour“. However what does punishment, or “consequences” achieve, other than shaming a child for what was an automatic defensive reaction to feeling threatened? Seen through this lens, we can see that strategies of punishment and time out are unlikely to work. Children respond best to compassion and understanding. We all do!

The Role of Early Development

Our brains develop in a certain sequence, with subsequent stages building on the foundations of earlier stages. It is both sequential and also hierarchical. Stress or shock during infancy or early childhood can impact your child’s early development. The result is what we are seeing in learning and behavioural challenges.

Since 2005 I have been using a neuro-development movement program to address these developmental immaturities with children in my practice. However, individualised 1:1 support is not available to all families for many reasons. These include financial constraints, being time poor, and geographical limitations.

As a result I would love to see a movement-based neurodevelopment program in schools, so all children can benefit. Such programs have been run successfully both overseas and in Australia, and are backed up by evidence-based research.

Until this happens, here are some suggestions for ways you can help your child at home.

Feeling Safe Starts in Infancy

When we can be with our children and support them when they’re hurting we are going a long way to raising children who feel secure. Enhancing their sense of feeling safe increases their capacity to process information from their environment. This information is received by their senses (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, touch), and travels to the brain for processing via the nervous system.

This early sense of feeling safe starts in infancy in safe relationship with a parent. This usually takes the form of bonding between mother and child, and supports early development of emotional regulation. When feeding, baby is watching mum’s face, building those very early pathways of connection. Baby is learning that mum is their safe place.

This is also the beginning of learning about emotional regulation, too. Baby learns to read social signals by watching and tuning in to mum’s facial expressions. They notice how the tiny muscles around your eyes and mouth move, and they are linking this to your emotions.

This sense of safety through connection continues to develop playfully, through early games like peek-a-boo. Switching between safety and slight fight/flight activation, then back to safety again in mum’s embrace, usually ending with laughter! They were building pathways of emotional regulation.

While play is good for our children, it is also good for us! Apparently our brains are built to benefit from play, no matter how old we are!

The struggle is that we are parenting our young children in an imperfect world! There are so many worldwide stresses happening around us that we can’t control. When we are absorbing stress so are our children!

Building Closer Family Connections

When we become parents it’s easy to continue to parent the way we were parented, but this is not always relevant to the world our children are growing up in. Research shows that building close family connections early on will pay dividends long term.

When you are able to respond to your children’s needs, they feel safe, seen, heard and understood. Dan Siegel in his book The Power of Showing Up, noted that “Children who form strong bonds – secure attachment – with their parents at a very young age lead much happier and more fulfilling lives”.

The benefits of this early secure attachment include:

Children do better at school
Reduced family conflict
Closer connections
Children socialise better
Peaceful home
Easier teenage years
Emotional balance (regulation)

Yes, you really are that important, and it’s never too late!

Behaviour is Bringing us a Message

Your child is not naughty. Their behaviour is letting you know that although they are safe, their nervous system is bringing a different message. There are a number of ways that you can help to build that sense of safety in your child at home.

When they are acting out or withdrawing, this is your cue to offer safety and compassion rather than punishment. Behaviours change when children feel safe, seen, heard and understood.

Keeping their world predictable, both home and at school, can help children feel safe. You can also help them by maintaining regular routines, and giving plenty of warning if there is change coming. Daily and weekly rhythms can also help, like having Friday as movie night, or Sunday as the day to visit grandparents.

You may also find a parenting program such as Circle of Security Parenting helpful. This is an internationally recognised program helping parents learn how to attune to your child’s needs. Feedback has always been positive from parents when I have done this program with them.

Calming Techniques

There are several techniques that might help with calming your child’s heightened nervous system. Here are a couple you might like to consider:

In my clinic I have a big tub filled with rice. I drop in marbles, polished stones, small plastic dinosaurs for the children to find with their feet. Some find this so relaxing, they ask for it each week. The little ones will often try to immerse their entire bodies, clothes and all!
Another calming technique is the Burrito wrap. Spread a sheet on the floor, and invite your child to roll themselves up in it, ending face down. Then use a big gym ball to massage their back and legs. You might be surprised how much their bodies appreciate this safe touch!
Regulate your own emotional respone first, then you can help your child to co-regulate. Relate to them with understanding and compassion. Then you can respond to the behaviour, and talk about what is disturbing them.

Connecting Through Play

When children play they are happy! When we’re happy it’s much easier to connect and openly engage with others. Through play children are learning social connections , emotional regulation and relational “road rules”.

We are all born with an innate ability to play. Play happens in a safe and supportive space, allowing us to temporarily let go of reality, and enter into a world where are able to see things in a new way.

Play as an Emotional Regulator

Free play can help children become aware of different emotional states. Our nervous system learns how to shift to different states of regulation and discomfort, when we are in close contact with our carers.

You might be surprised at what emerges when children are given the freedom of self expression. Play is children’s work. Our role is not to judge, but to observe, and make sure they are safe, and no-one is being hurt.

Gaming is not play – there is no co-regulating presence. Tension often builds up, and needs somewhere to go, often erupting in angry outbursts.

Children Love Family Time

Family time is a special time for your children. They will love sharing this with you, uninterrupted by phones and other digital devices. Your connected presence really is enough!

You can play games, create with paper folding, paint and draw. Children in my practice are fascinates by the spinning tops. They also love doing jig-saw puzzles, especially when they have someone to do them with.

Board games are not always about winning and losing, but more about sharing a fun experience. Subtly letting them “win” is always a celebration for us both in a world where so much is difficult for them. As their skill levels develop, of course, they have to work harder for their win!

Through all of these activities not only are we connecting and having fun, but the children are developing sensorimotor skills as well. They are exercising their nervous system, as together we move gently between states of nervous system activation, to a state of calm in a non-judgemental place of safety.

Suggested Family Activities

Play is best when there is no right/wrong, no winners or losers and the focus is on connecting and having fun. It’s also good to have a balance between loud, outdoor games, and quieter, more peaceful indoor activities. Each of these activities will exercise their nervous systems in a different way.

Suggestions for family play include:

Games – board games, card games
Puzzles – jigsaw puzzles
Craft – get creative, origami, clay, playdoh, painting, drawing
LEGO and other building blocks – constructing things together
Weekly movie night
Singing rhymes
Moving to music, dancing
Kick a football, throw and catch a ball
Building sand castles at the beach
Walking together – out in nature, around the block
Mealtimes together, everyone helps with preparation and cleaning up
Riding bikes
Playing in the park, at the playground
Bringing awareness to the 5 senses – name five things you can see, hear, touch, smell, taste

Don’t Know how to Play? Don’t Worry

If you’re struggling to play with and make those closer connections with your children, you’re not alone. As adults, many of us have forgotten how to play, or maybe we never really knew how to allow ourselves to immerse into that world of dreaming.

Reflecting on your own childhood experiences, and making sense of your own childhood story and attachment history will have lasting benefits. You are not only helping yourself, but benefits will flow on to your children and grandchildren.

It really is never too late to start to process the trauma from your own past.

Conclusion

While it’s tempting to blame a child for hitting out, understanding that “the child is not the problem, the problem is the problem” we can address the behaviour. Research shows that that punishment doesn’t help, but compassion and understanding will.

When these behaviours are coming from below conscious awareness, the children are showing us the stressful world that they are growing up in. They are also highlighting a need for change in how we address these behaviours.

Strategies to help include individual support, whole-class neurodevelopment programs, and bringing more connection and playfulness into everyday life.

The children of today are the leaders of the future. Let’s help them to make it a good one!

Share this post

About Rosalind

Since 2005 Rosalind has been helping children with learning and behavioural challenges such as autism, dyslexia, ADHD and other sensory processing difficulties. She brings an holistic, or whole child approach, to counselling, and is passionate about helping children to realise their individual potential. She has a private counselling practise and sees clients in person at Moruya South Head.