What Causes Disruptive Behavior in Children?

Managing your child’s challenging behavior may feel more stressful than a frustrating full-time job. Perhaps you’re trying to figure out the root causes of your child’s behavior problems to break the cycle. Parents often erroneously identify “attention seeking” as the main reason their child exhibits disruptive behavior. Even though this may be accurate in some cases, behavior issues usually stem from factors unrelated to obtaining adult attention.

There are many causes of disruptive behavior and four major factors are discussed below.

Your Child’s Temperament

Temperament, which refers to a child’s attention span, sociability, emotionality, activity level, habit regularity, and response to stimulation, are inborn characteristics of a child and often noticeable within the first 6 months of life. Some children are born with a predisposition toward negative temperament, which is often associated with disruptive behaviors, irritability, hot temper, easily angered, low frustration tolerance, hyperactivity, attention problems, impulsivity, etc. Children with difficult temperaments are more likely to experience conflict with their parents/caregivers and others very early in their development.

The Parents’ Temperament

Like your children, you also inherited predispositions to a certain temperament. Your own characteristics influence the effectiveness of your behavior management and ability to be consistent when confronted with your child's misbehavior. Similar challenges that contribute to a child’s behavior problems can be observed in some parents. Parents’ temperament and emotional responses play a role in the development and maintenance of behavior problems in children. It can be helpful to be aware of your temperament and that of your children to determine “fit,” and understand how both child and parent temperament may contribute to conflict. This understanding also highlights the fact that children and parents often both play a part in contributing to and maintaining conflict.

Stressful Family Events

Family stress is a significant contributor to child misbehavior. Children and families experience stressors related to financial problems, community safety, marital relationship, health, personal problems, employment, siblings, friends, and extended relatives. When children and parents are stressed, they are more vulnerable to irritability, depression, and anxiety. Children may be more likely to exhibit disruptive or noncompliant behaviors when they are struggling emotionally.

Also, parents may be preoccupied when managing a stressful event, which affects how effectively and consistently they deal with disruptive behavior. Parents may be more likely to give harsher consequences when they are stressed or implementation of consequences becomes more inconsistent, which exacerbates oppositional defiant behaviors. In addition, distressed, depressed, and anxious parents tend to magnify their child’s behavior problems and perceive them as more severe because it is more distressing for them. This contributes to a self-fulfilling prophecy where the parents’ overreaction leads to more defiant behavior and confirms the parents’ initial perception.

Situational Consequences

A child’s behavior is influenced by their response predisposition tied to their temperament as well as consequences that result from their behavior. Consequences can be divided into two types: positive reinforcement (praise, reward) and negative reinforcement (escape, avoidance). Children may misbehave to gain attention or rewards (positive reinforcement).

Think about the types of rewards and attention your child may receive for yelling, screaming, or demanding, much like holding their parents hostage. Children also misbehave in order to escape an unpleasant or non-preferred activity (negative reinforcement). Think about the times your child played with toys instead of working or threw a tantrum when asked to turn off their video game.

A child’s disruptive behavior tends to strain the parent-child relationship and contribute to family stress. If your child’s behavior challenges are causing continuous stress, contact me for parent support and child therapy.