Sometimes when we see behavioral changes we embark on a search for the reasons for such changes. Many times these changes happen in certain seasons of the year, and then in order to explain them to us and to others we say things like: “it is the Spring that drives him crazy, everyone at home is allergic and this is how his body reacts”. Sometimes we rationalize the reason for developmental regression in a leap of development in another field, or we ask ourselves whether the upcoming summer camp is putting him under stress, and a thousand other “research-backed” reasons that provide us and others answers to almost everything.
A few days have passed in which I received consistent report about various behavioral incidents: yanking a friend’s shirt, trying to mess with another kid, inappropriate game with a curtain in the class room including loud background laughter, throwing paints in the air and other incidents. And when his Grandfather came over for a visit and asked how things are, I gave him, apparently with great frustration, a lengthy reply with descriptions of all latest events. When I finished the long speech he looked at me and said: “without ignoring the problem he has, remember he is only a child. A child looking for simulation and action, a rascal checking boundaries as any other child“.
I fell silent and felt a bit silly. How did not I not think of this simple element? At every change he goes through, I think hard and work at collecting all data from similar incidents in the past to look for answers there. I turn him and his behavior into an academic study and sometimes tend to forget that before everything else, he is a kid, with “behavior issues” like any other kid his age. Underneath the unbalanced layer of his senses, there is a child who feels like everybody else, who is looking for attention like everybody else, who tests and explores himself and his environment and boundaries like everybody else, so that he can learn and develop. We must allow him to experience this, with guidance and boundaries, just like with all of us.
