Practical and psychological support for parents and children

Week 3: Looking Beyond the Behaviour

What if the behaviour is not the problem, but the clue?

As parents, we naturally respond to what we can see. We see the anger, the refusal, the tears, the withdrawal, the repetitive behaviour or the child who suddenly appears unable to cope with something that seemed manageable only moments before.

When these experiences happen regularly, they can be exhausting. Parents may find themselves wondering why everyday activities become so difficult, why their child reacts so intensely, or why approaches that appear to work for other families simply do not work for theirs.

For parents of autistic children, children with ADHD, learning disabilities, communication differences or other additional needs, these questions can carry another layer of complexity. Some children may have limited spoken language or communicate non-verbally. Others may be able to speak fluently but find it much harder to communicate when distressed. A child may understand far more than they can express, or may experience sensations and emotions that they cannot easily identify or explain.

This is why I believe we need to be careful when we interpret behaviour.

What we see is important, but it is rarely the whole story.

Behaviour can reflect the interaction between a child’s emotional state, communication abilities, sensory experiences, developmental level, executive functioning and the demands being placed upon them. When we begin to view behaviour within this wider context, we move away from asking only “How do I stop this?” and towards a more useful question:

“What might be making this so difficult for my child?”

When Behaviour Becomes Communication

Children gradually develop the ability to recognise emotions, regulate physiological arousal and communicate their needs through repeated experiences of co-regulation with supportive adults. Self-regulation is therefore developmental rather than something children simply acquire because they have reached a particular age (Paley and Hajal, 2022; Silkenbeumer et al., 2016).

For some children with additional needs, this developmental journey may look quite different.

An autistic child, for example, may experience differences in sensory processing and interoception — the perception of sensations from within the body — which can influence how internal states are recognised and understood (DuBois et al., 2016). A child with ADHD may experience difficulties involving attention, inhibition and emotional regulation, making it harder to pause and organise a response when emotions become intense (Bunford, Evans and Wymbs, 2015).

For a child with a learning disability or significant communication difficulty, there may be the additional challenge of having an experience without having an accessible way to tell another person what that experience means.

Imagine feeling frightened but being unable to say “I am frightened.”

Imagine being overwhelmed by noise but not being able to explain that the sound is hurting or distressing you.

Imagine not understanding why a familiar routine has suddenly changed, while everyone around you expects you simply to move on to the next activity.

In those situations, distress has to go somewhere.

It may appear through crying, shouting, running away, becoming physically agitated, withdrawing, refusing, repetitive movement, self-stimulatory behaviour or other changes in the child’s usual presentation. Importantly, we should not assume that every behaviour has one simple emotional explanation. But behaviour may provide valuable information about a child’s level of distress, regulation and capacity to cope with what is happening around them.

This becomes particularly important for children who communicate without speech. If spoken language is not the child’s primary means of communication, then expecting them to explain distress verbally places the responsibility on the child to communicate in a form that may not be accessible to them. Our task as adults becomes broader: noticing changes in behaviour, facial expression, movement, vocalisation, sensory seeking or avoidance, and understanding the child’s individual ways of communicating.

In other words, we need to learn to listen to communication that does not always arrive in words.

Looking Beyond Won’t to Consider Can’t Yet

One of the easiest mistakes to make when behaviour is difficult is to confuse inability with unwillingness.

A child refuses to move from one activity to another and we see defiance. A child does not follow an instruction and we assume they are ignoring us. A child repeatedly does something they have been told not to do and we wonder why they have not learned from previous consequences.

Sometimes children do make choices that require clear boundaries and guidance. Understanding behaviour does not mean removing expectations.

But we also need to consider whether the child possesses the skills required to meet the expectation in that particular moment.

Executive functions support abilities such as inhibition, working memory, flexible thinking and shifting attention. These processes are important when a child is expected to stop one activity, remember an instruction, manage disappointment and move towards something else. Difficulties in executive functioning are particularly relevant for many children with ADHD and can contribute to difficulties with emotional regulation and behavioural control (Bunford, Evans and Wymbs, 2015).

For autistic children, transitions, uncertainty and sensory demands can add further layers of difficulty. Research has demonstrated associations between sensory processing differences and emotional and behavioural outcomes in autistic children, reminding us that behaviour cannot always be separated from the environment in which it occurs (Ashburner, Ziviani and Rodger, 2008).

This is why “They know they shouldn’t do that” does not always tell us whether the child was capable of responding differently at that moment.

Knowing and doing are not always the same thing.

And for parents, recognising that distinction can reduce some of the conflict that develops when a child is repeatedly expected to demonstrate skills that are still developing or become inaccessible under stress.

Understanding the Load a Child May Be Carrying

Many parents of neurodivergent children describe a familiar experience: their child appears to manage reasonably well for much of the day and then seems to fall apart at home.

This can be confusing and, at times, painful. Parents may wonder why their child can apparently cope for teachers or other adults but struggles so much with them.

Yet outward appearance does not always tell us how much effort coping requires.

A child may have spent hours managing noise, movement, social interaction, communication demands, transitions and expectations. They may have worked hard to understand instructions, tolerate sensory discomfort or adapt to situations that felt unpredictable.

For some autistic people, masking or camouflaging aspects of their natural behaviour can create an additional emotional and cognitive burden (Hull et al., 2017). We should not assume that every child masks, but the concept reminds us that appearing to cope and feeling able to cope are not necessarily the same thing.

By the time a child reaches home, the event that appears to cause the emotional response may simply be the final demand on an already overloaded system.

When we understand this, the question changes again.

Rather than asking “Why are they making such a fuss about something so small?”, we may begin to wonder:

“How much has my child already had to manage today?”

That does not magically make difficult behaviour easier. But it gives us a more compassionate and developmentally informed starting point from which to respond.

Understanding Before Teaching

Looking beyond behaviour does not mean allowing children to hurt others, abandoning boundaries or avoiding expectations. Children need safe limits, predictability and opportunities to develop new skills.

What changes is the way we reach those goals.

When a child is highly distressed, increasing demands, adding lengthy explanations or insisting upon immediate reflection may simply place more pressure on an already overloaded system. Co-regulation involves adults providing responsive support while children gradually develop their own regulatory capacities (Paley and Hajal, 2022). For one child this might involve reassurance and reduced language; for another it might mean space, movement, visual information, access to an AAC system or simply the presence of a familiar adult who understands how they communicate.

The response needs to fit the child.

That point is particularly important when supporting children with additional needs. There is no single strategy that will work for every autistic child, every child with ADHD or every child with a learning disability. A child’s developmental level, communication profile, sensory needs, environment and individual preferences all matter.

Our aim is therefore not simply to make behaviour disappear.

It is to help children develop ways of communicating, regulating and participating that are accessible to them.

Sometimes that means changing something within the child’s environment rather than expecting the child to do all the changing.

And sometimes it means recognising that the behaviour we are struggling with may be telling us something we have not yet understood.

A Gentle Reflection

Parenting a child with additional needs can require us to become detectives of sorts — noticing patterns, recognising subtle forms of communication and learning what our individual child is telling us, sometimes without words.

We will not always get it right.

There will still be days when behaviour feels difficult, when we are tired ourselves, or when we simply cannot work out what our child needs.

But perhaps we do not always need an immediate answer.

Sometimes the most helpful starting point is simply to remain curious.

What happened before this?

What might my child be experiencing?

Is this something they won’t do — or something they cannot manage right now?

And perhaps most importantly:

What does my child need in order to feel safe enough, understood enough and supported enough to move forward?

Looking beyond behaviour is not about finding excuses.

It is about recognising the whole child behind what we can see — their communication, development, sensory world, emotions, strengths and difficulties.

Because when we understand the child more fully, we are in a much stronger position to help them understand themselves.

And that, ultimately, is where regulation begins.

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References

Ashburner, J., Ziviani, J. and Rodger, S. (2008) ‘Sensory processing and classroom emotional, behavioural, and educational outcomes in children with autism spectrum disorder’, American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 62(5), pp. 564–573.

Bunford, N., Evans, S.W. and Wymbs, F. (2015) ‘ADHD and emotion dysregulation among children and adolescents’, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 18(3), pp. 185–217.

DuBois, D., Ameis, S.H., Lai, M.-C., Casanova, M.F. and Desarkar, P. (2016) ‘Interoception in autism spectrum disorder: A review’, International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience, 52, pp. 104–111.

Hull, L., Petrides, K.V., Allison, C., Smith, P., Baron-Cohen, S., Lai, M.-C. and Mandy, W. (2017) ‘“Putting on My Best Normal”: Social camouflaging in adults with autism spectrum conditions’, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47, pp. 2519–2534.

Paley, B. and Hajal, N.J. (2022) ‘Conceptualizing emotion regulation and coregulation as family-level phenomena’, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 25, pp. 19–43.

Silkenbeumer, J., Schiller, E.-M., Holodynski, M. and Kärtner, J. (2016) ‘The role of co-regulation for the development of social-emotional competence’, Journal of Self-Regulation and Regulation, 2, pp. 17–32.