Understanding challenging behaviour - Control
When the need for control is the root cause of some challenging behaviours
Just imagine… your Christmas plans are sorted for you. You’re told where you will go on Christmas day, at what time, who you will be with and what you will eat. These plans have been made without speaking to you about any of it, so they don’t take into account your preferences. Does that sound OK? It’s unlikely that any of us would find this acceptable, so what’s the problem here? Would you willingly go along with anything over which you have no control? And what would happen if you couldn’t express what you thought about this? To be fair, I have ‘stomping’ moments as sometimes that’s the best I can do but as adults we’re expected to be in control. Sometimes that’s not such a good thing though?
In our last blog, Andrea wrote about the depression and recovery stages of the rage cycle, key elements of the whole process. When you are able to do the de-brief and try to work out what happened and why, it’s really useful to think about control. Did the challenging behaviour start because the young person felt they had no control or were losing control? This is more common than we might choose to think. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a former professor at Chicago University, spent his career studying what makes people happy. One of his key findings? “The need to feel in control of events that shape our lives” (p54, Team Teach workbook v2018.2.1). Both stress and depression have links to control; depression can be a helplessness and loss of control, stress can be caused by not having control, whether you should have it or not. By creating choices, we can offer the reassurance of control and this can significantly impact on behaviours which challenge.
On my Team Teach tutor training, we talk about case studies from our experience and one particular case comes to mind here. A colleague shared how a young man would come in to school every morning and ‘kick off’. He created a situation whereby staff had to physically intervene. It took some time to work it out, but the reason? He wanted a hug. He had no other way of requesting a hug but knew he would be held if he became physically aggressive. After the lightbulb moment, the staff went about giving him back some control. He was offered a choice when he got in after that - fluffy blanket (which he liked to pull tightly around himself like a hug) or straight to work. They gave him some control through choices. He took the blanket every time but it certainly made for a much calmer, less distressing start to the day for all involved.
So what about choices? This is a really important way we can help a young person to feel as though they have control. If we replayed the Christmas scenario from the opening of this blog with choices: you could choose where to be for Christmas, your home or someone else’s; you could choose whether to spend time with a known person or not; you could choose whether you wanted sprouts on your plate or not. Suddenly it starts to sound softer and less threatening. The same can be achieved with choices we offer to a young person.
I deliberately re-wrote the Christmas scenario with a choice of two things each time. Although this may seem limiting, it can actually offer control and at the same time, you can keep control of the situation. For those who have seen Clockwork Mice, a 1995 film set in a school, there’s a great scene where the young person, on entering the classroom, is asked what he wants to do. He says basketball. Basketball was not anywhere on the teacher’s radar; the space and equipment aren’t available to play basketball and this leads to conflict, with the young person protesting that he was asked what he wanted to do (he ends up throwing furniture out of the window and running off). Open choices can be problematic - if something that the young person asks for isn’t available, their anxiety may rise and this could lead to conflict. The person who offers the choice loses control as it wasn’t something they had available to offer and potentially the young person may trust the adult a little less because of it.
Keeping choices limited to two things (which are actually available) can become a useful habit to get into. Practise doing this so it becomes natural - do you want milk or juice? Jumper or cardigan? Even by offering what could be seen to be relatively small choices, you are empowering the young person and increasing participation in this way can have really positive outcomes. The perception of choice can increase endorphins in the brain which are associated with pleasure. For some, do you want sprouts with your Christmas dinner or not can be the most valuable choice given in a year!
In creating opportunities for choice, not everything is open to negotiation and nobody has unlimited choice. There has to be a real-world perspective too and not everything we may want is readily available. I remember dragging my mom around shops looking for something specific many times. She gave me a reality check one day - does it actually exist? That was a turning point! Safety is also really important here - wanting to play on the beach may not be a plan if the tide is rapidly approaching!
In some cases, the choices you offer will never feel like the right ones as they won’t be accepted. Conditions such as Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) can impact of the effectiveness of offering choices. One of the main characteristics of individuals with PDA is the extreme avoidance of expectations and demands; therefore any choice could be wrong. More information on PDA can be found here.
Although PDA is most commonly associated with the autism spectrum, there is also Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD) which is perhaps less linked with the spectrum. With ODD, a young person will exhibit defiant behaviours but there have to be other characteristics too. If your young person appears to be defiant, it does not mean that either condition is present. Emily Wilding has written about both PDA and ODD and presents an interesting overview (with characteristics) and comparisons on her website.
Although this blog has focused on adults mitigating control issues with young people, it’s especially important that you keep a focus on you too. There are lots of things we can’t control, accepting this can pay dividends in terms of our own wellbeing. With a simple internet search you can find thousands of ‘motivational’ quotes about control but at the end of the day, you can only control what you can control. If we can support you in any way to build confidence in getting on top of control, please drop us an email or message. You’re not alone and we’d love to help, if we can.