How Can I Respond to My 7 Year Old’s Defiance and Outbursts?
This post is part of a series where our team of child mental health professionals answer real questions submitted by readers like you. This post deals with topics related to anger and aggression. Please take care when reading.
We recently received a question from a parent asking about their child’s aggressive behavior. Below is the question, and a response from our child mental health experts:
“I’m wondering why my 7 year old son, who seems so mature and caring at times, has lots of outbursts of defiance, aggression, and crying fits?
He’s an only child and we give him lots of family time. But lately, when we ask him to not do something, he does it. He constantly says mean, hurtful things to people. When we ask him why he acts that way he says that ‘everyone else bullies him, so why shouldn’t he do it?’
Should we be worried? And how should we respond?”
- R., New York
Thank you contacting Little Otter! It can be confusing when your child sometimes behaves in a mature and caring way while, at other times, has aggressive outbursts.
Outbursts can be the result of a child feeling overwhelmed and being unable to express themselves appropriately. Furthermore, children may not possess the coping skills needed to regulate big emotions.
When outbursts do occur, it is essential to understand what your child is attempting to communicate. In general, behaviors can serve four possible functions: attention from others, access to desired items or activities, escape from non-preferred situations, or sensory stimulation. For example, if you are seeing outbursts during a particular transition (e.g., telling your child to end screen time), it may be for the purpose of continuing a prior activity, and/or avoiding the following activity.
Once we identify what our children are attempting to communicate, we can teach them appropriate ways of getting this need met.
This is done in a three-step fashion:
When your child has an outburst because he wants something, do not give him what he wants while the outburst is occurring. For example, if he tantrums when you tell him to "turn off the TV," follow through with your instruction. This will teach him that outbursts are not an effective method to get his needs met.
Once he has calmed down, prompt him to appropriately request what he wants or needs (only if this makes sense in the situation). In the example above, you could prompt him to request "more TV time." Proactively, you can remind him to use his words, ahead of difficult transitions.
Upon using appropriate communication, reinforce your child specifically for what he's done. Using the example above, reinforce by turning the TV back on (when appropriate) and stating, “I like how you asked for TV time politely.”
Regarding hurtful language, it's important to both reinforce prosocial (kind) language use and implement consequences for inappropriate language use. For prosocial language use, you could start a token system so that when you notice your son using prosocial language, he receives a star or token. After a certain number of tokens, he can earn a prize. Simultaneously, it is essential to establish clear expectations at home around inappropriate or hurtful language use. When calm, tell your son that when he uses inappropriate language, there will be a consequence or loss of a privilege (e.g., loss of evening screen time). When you son uses words that are not consistent with house rules, he immediately loses this privilege.
If outbursts are occurring more than is age-appropriate, it is important to rule out any underlying conditions, like ADHD, anxiety, or learning differences, through a mental health evaluation.
Moreover, if your child is experiencing significant bullying at school, he may need additional support to process these experiences.
As a reminder, families that reside in NY, NC, FL, CO, TX, VA, or CA, can access Little Otter for provide consultation, mental health evaluation, and/or treatment services.
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