Understanding Children's Behaviour. Why Connection Works Better Than Control
There are two fundamentally different ways of responding to a child's challenging behaviour. On the surface, they can look similar. Both involve a parent stepping in. Both involve some kind of response to what is happening. But underneath, they come from entirely different places and they lead to entirely different outcomes.
The first is behaviour control. The second is understanding behaviour. Id like to spend some time with this distinction, because I believe it is one of the most important shifts a parent can make and one I wish I had known as a teacher for 17 years.
What behaviour control looks like
Behaviour control is the default setting of most parenting and educational approaches in our culture not because its feels right but its what most of us experienced and we tend to pass down our hurts or we don’t know what else to do. It operates from the assumption that behaviour is something to be shaped through rewards, punishments, consequences, and praise until the child is doing what we want them to do.
In practice, it looks like this:
• A child has a tantrum and is sent to their room until they calm down.
• A child refuses to cooperate and loses screen time as a consequence.
• A child behaves well and earns a sticker, a privilege, a special treat.
• A child is told they are being naughty, difficult, or badly behaved.
None of these responses are born from cruelty. Most parents and teachers using them are doing their very best, with the tools they were given. And in the short term, behaviour control often works the behaviour stops, the parent feels relief, and perhaps the house returns to calm.
But here is what behaviour control cannot do: it cannot address the reason the behaviour happened in the first place. And when we do not address the root, the behaviour returns. Often louder. Often more urgently or secretively. Because the message it was carrying has still not been received.
“ When we focus only on stopping the behaviour, we risk missing the most important thing: what our child is trying to tell us.”
What understanding behaviour looks like
Understanding behaviour begins from a different premise entirely. It says: this behaviour is communication. It is telling me something. My job is not to stop it as quickly as possible my job is to understand it.
This does not mean we allow everything. Understanding behaviour is NOT permissiveness. We can hold loving limits and seek understanding at the same time. But the limit is not the starting point. The curiosity is.
In practical terms, understanding behaviour looks like this:
• A child has a tantrum and a parent moves closer, offers presence, and allows the feelings to move through rather than suppressing them.
• A child refuses to cooperate and a parent pauses to ask: what need is underneath this? What is missing here? What has happened in their lives recently?
• A child is struggling and instead of a consequence, a parent tries connection a moment of closeness, a bit of rough play, an acknowledgement of what feels hard.
• A child's behaviour is met not with a label but with a question: what is going on for you right now?
This approach is more demanding in the moment. It asks us to be aware of our own nervous system when our child's behaviour is activating us. It asks us to slow down when everything in us wants to react quickly. Easily said that done, which is why I have created the Inner Relationship Parenting Process for parents, a gathering of beautiful forward moving processes to support you the parent.
What the research tells us
Alfie Kohn's extensive body of work on the impacts of rewards and punishments is illuminating here. He demonstrates, drawing on decades of research, that external motivators, rewards and punishments alike undermine the very behaviours we are trying to build. Children who are rewarded for reading, read less when the rewards stop. Children who are praised for sharing become less generous over time. The tools we believe are shaping positive behaviour are, in many cases, actively eroding the internal compass we want children to develop.
Gordon Neufeld's work on attachment adds another crucial dimension. Children are wired for connection. Their primary psychological need is to maintain closeness and relationship with the adults who care for them. When we use our relationship as leverage withdrawing approval through punishment or dangling it as reward we wound the very attachment that allows children to develop healthily.
A child who is sent away when they are struggling does not learn self-regulation. They learn how to suppress their feelings and that their inner world is too much, too inconvenient, too difficult. I know how hard this is to read and how hard to do when we have had no template ourselves. That why reaching out for support is so important on this journey.
The connection that makes everything possible
Here is what I know from years of working with families: connection is not a nice addition to parenting. It is the foundation on which everything else rests.
When children feel genuinely connected to us, they want to cooperate. Not because they are chasing a reward or avoiding a punishment but because cooperation is what connected humans naturally do. Neufeld puts it beautifully: ‘children follow those to whom they are attached.’ When we prioritise relationship over reaction, we create the conditions for the kind of cooperation that actually lasts.
This is what shifts when we move from behaviour control to understanding behaviour. We stop being adversaries in a power struggle. The child stops needing to fight to be understood because they already feel understood. And from that place of safety and connection, the behaviour changes. Not because we forced it to. Because the conditions for change have been created
“The opposite of control is not chaos. It is connection. And from connection, everything becomes possible.”
A word about our own behaviour
One of the most humbling things about this work and one of the most liberating is the recognition that the same principles apply to us as parents.
When we are struggling. When we are snapping, shutting down, reacting in ways we later regret. When our own behaviour feels out of our control. In those moments, behaviour control applied to ourselves the internal voice that says pull yourself together, you should know better, what is wrong with you, does not help.
What helps is exactly what we are learning to offer our children. Curiosity. Compassion. The question not of "why can't I just behave better?" but of "what is going on for me right now? What need is unmet? What feelings need to be expressed/released? What am I carrying?"
The shift from control to understanding is not just a parenting approach. It is a way of being in relationship with our children, and with ourselves. The Aware Parenting approach offers the path.
Where to begin
If behaviour control has been your default and for most of us, it has, because it was what we were taught, I want you to know that this shift does not happen overnight. It is a practice. And like all practices, it begins imperfectly and grows gradually.
Start with one moment. The next time your child's behaviour is hard, see if you can pause, take a step bak literally or figuratively, notice your breath before responding. In that pause, ask: what is this behaviour communicating? What might be underneath it?
You do not need to have the answer. The pause itself is the beginning of a different relationship to behaviour. And from that different relationship, everything can change.
I have found there are 2 paths in my parenting both lead to the same place. One path is how I parent and for me the Aware Parenting approach provides the most sound road map and the other my internal parenting journey which I have created the Inner Relationship Parenting Process to support. Id love to support you on both these paths.
Ready to go deeper?
Join my free live webinar:
Empowering You as a Parent: Moving from Overwhelm to Inner Trust
We will explore the why behind behaviour, how to move from reaction to understanding, and what it means to trust yourself as a parent even when things feel hard. It is free, it is live, and I would love to see you there.
Hi, I’m Rebecca.
I’m a parent coach, Aware Parenting Instructor, Soul Collage facilitator, and therapeutic play practitioner. I support parents, caregivers and child care professionals in healing from stress and trauma so they can nurture compassionate connections with themselves and the children in their care. If you’d like to explore ways to support your child’s emotional well-being, I invite you to: Join my Substack for insights on parenting, book a free discovery call, and explore my offerings to help you and children in your care flourish.