CHAPTER 6 - Some Bad Behaviour

Abstract

This chapter focuses on some problems of bad behavior in children such as bad temper and rudeness, aggressiveness and bullying, lying, stealing, juvenile delinquency, smoking, alcohol, and glue sniffing. When faced with any annoying behavior problem in a child, the important thing is not to despair and follow the child's example of losing control of the feelings but to look for the cause and do one's best to remove it. When a child is consistently rude toward one parent but not toward the other, it is obvious that there is something wrong with the relationship between the child and that parent. The most important and most difficult thing of all when dealing with an actual outburst of temper is to control one's own temper. A temper tantrum may raise impossible difficulties at the time, and the best way to deal with it is to avoid it; tantrums can be avoided with thought and patience. Children are commonly found stealing from their mother only and not from anyone else. This suggests a disturbance of mother–child relationships and that the children are uncertain of their respective mother's love—or even convinced that she does not love them. Punishment in such a case could do nothing but harm in that it would merely serve to convince the child of the correctness of his suspicions. Children need love and not punishment. They need the removal of insecurity and not its aggravation.