Before We Correct the Behavior, Ask What It Is Telling Us

A few weeks into the school year, patterns often begin to emerge. A child who seemed to be adjusting well may suddenly begin resisting school in the morning. Homework may become a nightly struggle. A teacher may reach out because a student is leaving their seat, refusing assignments, shutting down, becoming frustrated, or having difficulty with peers. For parents, receiving that message can bring an immediate wave of concern. We want our children to be successful at school, and it can be difficult to hear that something is not going well.

When behavior becomes difficult, our natural response is often to focus on stopping it. We want the child to complete the assignment, follow the direction, stay in the classroom, speak respectfully, or manage the frustration differently. Those expectations may be completely appropriate, but if we focus only on changing what we can see, we may miss the information the behavior is giving us about what the child needs.

Behavior can be communication. Sometimes children tell us with words that something is too difficult, too loud, too confusing, or too overwhelming. At other times, they may not have the language, self awareness, or regulation skills to explain what is happening. Their behavior becomes part of the message, and our responsibility as adults is not simply to respond to what happened but to become curious about why it happened.

Look Beneath What You Can See

Imagine a child who regularly puts their head down when independent writing begins. From the outside, it may look like refusal. Perhaps the child has been reminded repeatedly to begin working and still does not start. It would be easy to conclude that the child is choosing not to participate.

A closer look might reveal something very different. Perhaps organizing thoughts for writing is extremely difficult. Maybe the child does not understand the assignment but is embarrassed to ask for help. The room may feel overwhelming at that point in the day, or the child may have learned through previous experiences that writing is an area where failure feels almost certain. The behavior has not changed, but our understanding of it has.

Understanding what may be contributing to a behavior does not mean removing every expectation or excusing behavior that is unsafe or harmful. It means recognizing that effective support begins with understanding. When adults know what makes a situation difficult for a child, they are in a much better position to teach skills, change supports, adjust the environment, and help the child respond differently the next time.

Parents Hold an Important Piece of the Story

Families often have information that can help a school team understand behavior more completely. A parent may know that their child becomes quiet rather than visibly upset when overwhelmed, needs extra time to process verbal directions, becomes anxious when routines change unexpectedly, or has difficulty communicating when something feels too hard. Parents may also recognize patterns from earlier years that are not yet familiar to a new teacher.

This is one reason communication between home and school is so important when behavioral concerns begin to emerge. Rather than having separate conversations about what is happening at home and what is happening at school, families and educators can compare what they are seeing. They may discover that a behavior happens during similar types of tasks, at particular times of day, following certain transitions, or when specific demands are placed on the child.

Parents do not need to arrive at those conversations with an explanation for everything that is happening. Sharing observations is enough to begin. A parent might explain what they have noticed at home and ask whether the teacher is seeing something similar at school. Likewise, a teacher can describe what happens before, during, and after a difficult moment rather than simply reporting that the child had a behavior problem. Those details help everyone begin to see patterns.

Move From Judgment to Curiosity

The words adults use to describe children matter. Words such as lazy, manipulative, disrespectful, attention seeking, or unmotivated can quickly become conclusions about who a child is rather than descriptions of what happened. Once a label takes hold, it can influence how adults interpret future behavior and how a child begins to understand themselves.

A more useful approach is to describe what we can actually observe and then ask questions about it. Instead of saying that a student is unmotivated, we might notice that the student begins work during small group instruction but rarely begins the same type of assignment independently. Instead of describing a child as defiant, we might observe that refusal most often happens after a multistep verbal direction. Specific observations give us something we can explore and, eventually, something we may be able to support.

Curiosity changes the questions we ask. We begin wondering what happens immediately before the behavior, whether there are particular settings where it occurs more often, what the child may be trying to gain or avoid, what skills the situation requires, and what happens when the child is successful. Those questions move us closer to understanding the child rather than simply reacting to the behavior.

Support Should Teach, Not Simply Stop

When we understand more about why a behavior is happening, we can begin thinking about what the child needs to learn. A child who tears up difficult assignments may need a more appropriate way to communicate that they need help. A student who leaves an overwhelming environment may need to learn how to request a break before reaching that point. A child who struggles during transitions may benefit from clearer preparation and predictability. Another student may need explicit instruction in how to enter a group, manage frustration, organize materials, or communicate disagreement.

This is where behavior support becomes educational. The goal is not simply to make an unwanted behavior disappear. We want to help children develop skills that allow them to participate more successfully, communicate more effectively, and become increasingly independent. When we approach behavior this way, we begin asking not only what we want the child to stop doing, but what we want the child to be able to do instead.

For children with IEPs, behavioral needs that interfere with learning may also deserve attention from the educational team. Parents who are seeing persistent concerns can ask what the school is observing, what information is being collected, what supports are currently in place, and whether the team needs to look more closely at why the behavior is occurring. The purpose of that conversation should be to understand and support the child, not simply to document that the child is struggling.

From the Research

The Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports offers resources focused on family and school collaboration within PBIS. Its guidance emphasizes that families should be meaningfully involved in decisions about behavioral supports and that communication between schools and families should occur throughout the year. The Center also encourages schools and families to share both positive experiences and concerns, which helps create a fuller understanding of how a child is doing.

This approach is an important reminder that understanding behavior is rarely the work of one person. Parents know their children across years and environments, while educators see children in academic, social, and classroom situations that families may never observe. When those perspectives come together, adults have a better opportunity to understand what a child may be communicating and identify support that is responsive to the child's needs.

Parent Reflection Question

If there is a behavior your child is struggling with right now, consider what you know about when it happens and when it does not. Think about what usually occurs before the behavior, what seems particularly difficult in those moments, and whether your child may be communicating something they do not yet know how to express in another way. Those observations may give you useful information to bring into your next conversation with the school team.

Conclusion

Children will have difficult moments at school and at home. They will become frustrated, avoid things that are hard, make mistakes, communicate imperfectly, and sometimes respond in ways that adults need to address. Supporting children does not mean pretending those behaviors do not matter. It means recognizing that correction alone may not teach us what the child needs in order to be more successful the next time.

At Empowering Parents Network, we believe children are best supported when parents and professionals look beyond the behavior they can see and work together to understand the child experiencing it. When we replace quick judgments with thoughtful questions, we create space for compassion, instruction, and meaningful support. We also give children something far more valuable than simply being told what not to do. We help them develop the skills they need to communicate, participate, and grow.

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