Behavior is Communication

Hello and welcome to the first post in The Garden! I'm very excited to share this one with you as it directly relates to my philosophy and is a topic I've studied extensively.

When I say communication, you probably think of spoken language because that is how most of us interact with each other. But communication comes in all different forms, sign language, gestures, pictures. This about this: you go into McDonalds to get lunch and realize the cashier only speaks Spanish and you only know how to speak English, you can adapt your way of communicating to get them to understand your question (let's assume you have no way to translate between languages). You may point to items on the menu, the actual food or drink items you want, or make a gesture to indicate eating a hamburger. You haven't used spoken language but you've still communicated what you wanted.

By viewing all behavior as a form of communication, we can better grasp that the behavior is happening for a reason and the person is telling us something even if we don't immediately understand it. Challenging behavior often occurs because it is serving a purpose to the person who is engaging in it. When we're thinking specifically about childhood behavior, challenging behavior happens as a way to communicate something they want or need because they are lacking a more functional way to communicate it. Whether it's yelling as a way to let you know they want you to come play with them or crying as a way to let you know that they feel overwhelmed or overstimulated, there is a reason behind the behavior we can see.

Young children are just beginning to develop a functional way of communicating with us and that takes time and practice so it's very common to see forms of behavior that we as caregivers find concerning. As we grow, learn, and develop, our behavior becomes more complicated. There are a lot more influences on our behavior that need to be considered when looking at why a behavior is happening (like thoughts, feelings, patterns, and fears). Regardless, the philosophy remains the same: behavior is communicating something about our internal state.

Why is that behavior happening?

Most (not all) of our behavior is learned and serves a purpose to us, that's why we continue to do it. Our behavior is not random, even if it may look like it happens for "no reason". I find that behavior that seems random can be the hardest behavior to cope with as the caregiver because it's hard to immediately understand what's happening and how to help your child. Most of our behavior is a learned way to communicate something to others, this will become more clear as you read on.

How We Learn To Communicate

Humans are social creatures and are dependent on others, we need other people and so we need to communicate with them. As you know, babies are fully dependent on their caregivers. So it's essential that babies communicate to their caregivers when they need something.

Babies of course cannot use spoken language to communicate their wants and needs, the get their wants and needs met by crying for their caregiver, using body positioning and facial expressions. As parents or a close caregiver, we learn to speak their language pretty quickly. Understanding their behavior patterns or specific cries and what they mean.

Next, babies begin to specify their wants and needs through pointing or gestures. They can point to, guide your hand, or lead you to something they want. They can also indicate they don't want something by pushing it away, making a face, or turning their head away. They often learn to nod their head "yes" and shake their head "no" around this time. They are getting a grasp for what they like and don't like more quickly than they are able to vocally communicate it so they use non-vocal ways of helping us understand what they want.

Then, children begin to babble with vocal sounds. When babbling, children are testing out what happens. As mentioned before, communicative language is dependent on another person understanding it. Children also enter a developmental stage around this time where they start to understand cause and effect and that their behavior impacts the world. So when babbling, children are testing what communicative behavior works.

They go from testing out single syllables like "maaa" to combining multiple syllables like "mama". Their mother recognizes the word they made and provides them with a big reaction like "oh you said 'mama'! Yes! I am mama". Through this repeated interaction, the child learns the word "mama" means my mom. This will continue so they learn more and more words and can start to put multiple words together.

"Do You Understand Me?"

The way we learn to communicate is fully dependent on who is listening to us. This is because how we communicate with other people is requires another person to engage with us or "serve the purpose". This is how we as humans can learn to communicate using different languages.

Let's use an example: As toddlers are learning to communicate, they don't start by pronouncing words in a way that is comprehendible to everyone. They may even use made up words that means something to them. My son somewhere along the way learned to make a sniffing sound to ask for a smoothie. If my son makes the sound even out of context, I know he's telling me he wants a smoothie. I, as his listener, understand his communication attempt and can respond to it. Anyone else that interacts with him would not know what he is trying to communicate or might not understand that he is communicating at all if he made that sound to them. Therefore, anyone else as his listener would not respond appropriately to his communication response and he would learn very quickly that it was not effective in getting access to a smoothie.

Experimenting with Behavior: A Tiny Scientist

Babies and children experiment with different forms of behavior and what happens around them when they use specific behavior. There are a few developmental stages that support our child's understanding of the world and how they interact with it. First, children are innately curious. This is because they learn through repeated interactions of doing and experiencing. Unlike adults, they don't yet understand what will happen without seeing it for themselves. Basically, they experiment with the way they move through the world and find out what is useful to them and what is not. As they experiment with the world around them, children are developing their schema (meaning their understanding of what things are or are not).

This is also when children begin to learn that they have their own autonomy and choice of what happens around them. Does it ever seem like your child is doing something to push your buttons? That's probably because they are but not consciously. Children are experimenting with the way their behavior affects other people, not because they know it bothers you but because it's incredibly fascinating to realize you can bring about a change around you.

This is typically when behavior that once did not have a purpose can begin to serve a purpose and become a way to communicate. When testing out different forms of behavior, children may realize something that they like or that is useful to them happens. If that is the case, the behavior will continue to happen. Children may try out certain behaviors for a while and then find the consequence of their actions is no longer interesting or there is a more efficient way to communicate and move on. It can however become problematic if a challenging behavior remains and that may be when we need to teach the child a more functional way to communicate.

Understanding the World

Let's use a real life example: One of the most straight-forward and common experimenting behaviors you may see a baby do is throw objects off a table. When a baby begins to eat solids in a high chair, it's a new opportunity to learn. They have no understanding yet of: what a spoon is, "what does it do?", "what is it for?", "how do I use it?". Remember children learn by doing, so a great way to understand these new objects and this new meal time situation is to experiment with their behavior. They may hold the spoon in different ways, tap it on the table, or throw it on the floor. Not only are they curious what happens to the spoon but also how others respond to what they do with it.

When they throw their spoon over the table and onto the floor they may observe: 1) the spoon makes a loud sound when it hits the floor, 2) the dog comes over to lick the spoon when it hits the floor, 3) mama says "oh no, you dropped your spoon" when it hits the floor and picks it up. They will continue to do this over and over to see if the same thing happens or if something different happens. Think of it as a tiny scientist, collecting data.

They begin to build knowledge of what goes together:

• Spoon goes over the table --> it falls down to the ground

  • They're understanding the concept of objects moving through space

• Yogurt hits the floor --> it spreads around vs. cracker hits the floor --> it breaks apart

  • They're learing that there are different textures and substances

• Spoon is on the floor --> someone comes to pick it up

  • They're understanding their behavior causes other people to respond

The possibilities of what they can learn are endless especially when our schema begins to expand.