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Revenge – When a Child Feels the Need to Get Even!

This is the third in a series of 4 articles about the Four Goals of Misbehaviour according to Dr. Dreikurs: (Dreikurs, R. (1947). The four goals of the maladjusted child. Nervous Child, 6, 321-328.)

In this third stage, children believe in hurting others as they feel that they’ve been hurt.  If everyone thinks they’re “bad”, “unlikeable” and/or “unloveable” then they will prove this to be true, because at least they can’t lose at that.  The hidden message behind their thoughts and actions is:  “Help me, I’m hurting, listen and validate my feelings, I want to feel that I count”.  For the parent who’s just been spoken to in words akin to snake’s venom or attacked by their child who acts like a wild animal, it’s very difficult to take the high-road and come to a place of compassion.  Therefore, to restrain from  “flipping your lid” (going into irrational thought, and emergency fight/flight/freeze responses), take some deep breaths (it really does work to turn off the emergency response system in your brain), change your thoughts to reminding yourself that your child is hurting and is feeling very wounded, and do your best not to take it personally.  If you too act wounded and hurt, then you can’t be in charge and when children are experiencing hurt and angry feelings, (and “flipping their lid”) they need to feel secure knowing that their parents can handle their out-of-control, big scary feelings.

Don’t…

• try to get even with hurtful words Eg. “I’m sick of you”, “What’s wrong with you?” “You always ruin things”  (This reinforces and therefore strengthens the child’s behaviour because you’ve just confirmed his/her belief :”You think I’m bad and you’re right I am bad so I’ll just show you how bad I can be.”)
• send non-verbal hurtful messages that imply through body language that “I’ve had enough of you” “You disgust me” “You are ruining our family”
• use hurtful actions – any kind of physical aggression which includes the more subtle actions of squeezing wrists, pinching etc. (besides being emotionally damaging and abusive, in Canada there are very strict laws about using physical punishment with children)
• use punishment such as forcing a child into isolation, withholding love (stonewalling, rejection, silent treatment), taking away possessions/privileges, humiliation,shame, sarcasm

You may feel so hurt and angry yourself but if you continue on the punishment path, you are preventing your hurting child from healing, and the hardening of his/her heart will continue.  If you give your child a time-out, you have confirmed his/her belief “I am bad and you’ve just proven it again”.  It makes sense that this is what a child would think, but what is a parent to do?

Do…

• find a way to soften your child’s heart – say something like:  “This isn’t working for us, I don’t want to keep doing this, how about we have some quiet time and have a hug, read a story, bounce a basketball” etc.
• find a way to mutually problem-solve (drop the rope) to encourage cooperation
• ask your child what is going on with him/her right now – perhaps something bad happened at school or at a play-date or perhaps this is sibling jealousy taking over?  Try to get to the underlying reasons of the behaviour
• ask if you have done something that hurt him/her (he/she may have a completely different perception of something that you just did than you do)
• talk about his/her feelings and acknowledge them without going straight into problem-solving or judgment
• find a way to calm down together before debriefing

If there’s no punishment, doesn’t that show my children that they are “getting away” with this behaviour and that I’m a permissive parent?

No, a permissive parent (jelly-fish parent), would not address the problem.  A permissive parent would do whatever it takes to stop the child from crying perhaps by bringing out some candy or a new toy.  An authoritarian parent (brick-wall parent/ Tiger parent) would use punishment but this would be actually be strengthening the revenge behaviour.  Punishment works in the short-term and you’ve probably had many occasions where you you’ve used it successfully.  However, it also builds “walls” around a child and negatively impacts relationships.

Think of yourself in a work situation.  If you’ve been reprimanded does it open you up or shut you down?  Do you think positive thoughts or negative thoughts of the person who just reprimanded you?  Do you feel as if you just want to get even or perhaps continue doing what you were doing, but you just won’t get caught next time?

Punishment is successful at achieving short-term external compliance but for a child who is on the revenge path, you can count on greater revenge and resentment.  The authoritative parent (back-bone parent- what we do want to be) would have the goal of addressing the conflict and teaching internal discipline.  The authoritative parent would find ways to re-connect, for both parent and child to calm down, and at a later time or the following day (it takes some children and adults that long for their defences to come down) talk about what wasn’t working and how they could both do things differently.

A child who is acting out of revenge is acting this way because he/she feels that the parent did something to him/her first.  The authoritative parent gets to the bottom of the problem without having the child’s defences go up, and then works at re-building the relationship.  It’s the adult’s job to re-build the relationship not the child’s.  You may feel hurt/mad at what was said to you or done to you, but you are still the grown adult and your child is still a growing child who needs you take charge.  For ideas on re-building the relationship read Filling Your Child’s Attention Cup

The Revenge Dance is a painful one for both parent and child.  Imagine your child is wearing a sign across his/her t-shirt saying “I’m hurting and I feel unlikeable and unlovable”. Try to take small steps to helping your child feel he/she counts for doing positive things.

Enjoy spending quality time with your child(ren),

Warmly,