126 social skills
Try to prevent problems from starting
When your child behaves badly, ask yourself, ‘What is my child trying
to tell me?’, ‘What does she need?’. Remember that your child’s behavior
is one of the ways she communicates with you. Because she cannot
communicate in words or signs, she is often telling you something with
her behavior.
You may be able to avoid certain behavior problems if you
understand what causes them. Your child may:
• need attention. She may have learned that she
gets more attention if she behaves badly.
• feel tired, hungry, or afraid of something.
• not understand what you want. Or she may want something but be
unable to communicate it so you understand.
• have been teased or treated badly by another child or adult.
• be copying another child’s behavior.
• not be able to meet your expectations. Or she may be resisting limits
that you have set, or showing you she does not want to do what you
want.
Even though you may understand why your child becomes upset, there
will be times when she gets upset no matter what you do. But if you can
see a child’s behavior as her way of communicating with you, you may
be able to take care of the child’s need before it becomes a problem.
How to set limits
Even when your child behaves well, there are times when you have to
tell your child ‘no’, and set limits on the child’s behavior. This may be to
keep your child safe, or because he is misbehaving, or because he wants
to do something you cannot allow him to do. Children of different ages
need to have different limits. The limits you set will
change as your child gets older and learns more
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about the world.
Because your child cannot hear well, sometimes she
will not understand what you want. When you say
‘no’, or you tell your child what you want her to do,
you may not have enough communication skills to
make her understand. You may think your child is
ignoring you or misbehaving, when in fact she does
not understand what you want or do not want her to do.
Anita does not
understand
what her father
is telling her.
Helping Children Who Are Deaf (2004)