Children’s Behavior as Natural Alarm Signals

Instead of Medicating and Punishing: Healing the causes of our children’s acting-out behavior by parenting and educating the way nature intended

Q: I just don’t understand why kids are so out of control today- It seems to get worse every generation. What do you think is going on?

A: Our culture has moved far away from nature’s intended way for us to parent and care for our children. Unfortunately, over many centuries, as the world has become increasingly more industrialized, people have lost touch with their natural parenting instincts which include vital mammal practices such as baby wearing, cosleeping, breastfeeding for at least 2 ½ years, high levels of physical and emotional nurturance, allowing children the freedom to develop and learn in their own way, natural play-based education, nonviolent parental guidance and strong community modeling. Each generation has been parented in a way that causes distress, pain, depression and anger as we’ve lost touch with our natural parenting instincts. This in turn causes each new generation to pass down harmful ways of parenting that reflect their hurt, distress and resentment.

Nature has built alarm signals into every animal to alert parents, companions and predators that the animal is experiencing or sensing a need, a threat or a danger. In nature, animal parents instinctively respond immediately to the alarms of their young. A human infant’s alarm signal is crying, which is intended to alert parents to a need. As children grow older, their alarm signals become more sophisticated when their needs aren’t met and often include behaviors that parents find disturbing.

Some of the alarms of children:

  • Directly telling us they have a need
  • Asking us to help them meet a need
  • Asking nicely
  • Asking rudely
  • Crying
  • Whining
  • Yelling
  • Screaming
  • Outbursting
  • Pouting
  • Tantruming
  • Swearing
  • Withdrawing
  • Clinging
  • Defensiveness
  • Sarcasm
  • Hyperactivity
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Raging
  • Distractibility
  • Fidgeting
  • Squirming
  • Oppositionality
  • Harassing
  • Defiance
  • Refusing
  • Disrespect
  • Threatening
  • Aggression and violence towards people and animals (verbal, physical, sexual)
  • Destructiveness (vandalism, breaking things, stealing, etc.)
  • Self destructiveness (self mutilation, substance use, sexual promiscuity, bad relationships, suicidal gestures, etc.)
  • Challenging
  • Passive compliance

 

The distress cries and acting-out behaviors of youth, like the cries of an infant and the behavioral cues of animals, are nature-based alarm signals. Their alarm signals warn us that something in the child’s body, immediate circumstance, life or environment is distressing to them physically or emotionally and is threatening harm to their optimal development.

When we fully understand that concerning behaviors are the natural alarm signals of children, we will be less likely to, in good conscience, punish, medicate or force children into compliance with distressing, unnatural circumstances such as lack of parental nurturance or traditional school. We will begin to realize more and more as we look around our society, that from the hyperactive toddler to the rageful 17 year old, punishment, force, bribes, manipulation and medication do not make distressed children happy, cooperative or compassionate; nor do those reactions fill the voids and satiate the needs children are trying to alert us to with their alarm signals.

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