Identifying and Overcoming Behavioral Triggers in Kids
Understanding and managing behavioral triggers is a crucial aspect of raising emotionally healthy and well-adjusted children. Recognizing these triggers not only helps reduce challenging behaviors but also fosters better communication and trust between parents and children. By identifying what influences a child’s reactions, parents can take proactive steps to address underlying causes and create strategies that encourage growth and positive interactions.
This article explains the types of behavioral triggers, how they affect child behavior, and practical methods for overcoming them.
What is a behavioral trigger?
A trigger is something that almost instantly causes a behavioral response. Behavior analysts call these triggers antecedents because not only do they come right before the behavior, but they also cause it.
Once your child’s behavior is caused by something, it could be maintained by a variety of consequences. Those consequences could take the form of the child getting what they want, escaping from something they don’t want, or causing a particular reaction in the parent or others.
Understanding the types of behavioral triggers can help parents and caregivers manage and respond to their child’s reactions effectively.
As an example, if you mention to your child that it’s time to do their math homework, they may instantly have an emotional response and make faces and maybe say things like “Do I have to?” or “I hate math!” Another example is when you must tell your child “No” when they make a request. Some might say that the child doesn’t like it when they don’t get their way. A trigger for some children might be a particular environmental event like certain sounds or even something out of place like a chair that’s not where it should be, that is, triggers are not always social in nature.
Most people probably look at triggers as something bad because the word is associated with problem behavior, but a trigger is just something that causes particular emotions and behaviors. A joke that’s funny can be a trigger for laughing, which is also an emotional response. In most cases, when people are using the word trigger, they are implying that it is causing a negative emotion like fear or anger, but this doesn’t always have to be the case.
Common behavioral triggers
- Emotional Triggers: Feelings like frustration, fear, or disappointment can lead to specific behaviors. For example, a child might act out if they feel misunderstood or overwhelmed.
- Sensory Triggers: Children with sensory sensitivities may react strongly to loud noises, bright lights, or certain textures, causing distress or avoidance behaviors.
- Environmental Triggers: External factors like changes in routine, unfamiliar settings, or even crowded spaces can influence how a child responds to a situation.
How to cope with behavioral triggers
There are four primary ways to cope with behavioral triggers and include, 1) modifying or eliminating the trigger, 2) preparing your child for an upcoming unavoidable trigger, 3) teaching your child how to manage their emotions when the trigger happens, and 4) teaching the child what to say and do in response to the trigger.
By using these strategies, parents can focus on encouraging good behavior while helping their child navigate challenging situations. Addressing behavioral triggers effectively not only reduces problem behaviors but also fosters emotional resilience and self-regulation.
Modifying or eliminating the trigger
Eliminating a behavioral trigger completely can result in rapid behavior change, but this change typically lasts only as long as the trigger can be successfully avoided. A classic trigger elimination is avoiding the word “no.” after a request is made. You can always try replacing the word “no” with the phrase “yes, as soon as.” This is an example of a “soft no.”
Child: “Can I have a soda?”
Parent: “Yes, as soon as I get back from the store.”
The child still isn’t getting a soda, at least not right now, but instead of hearing a “no” they hear a “yes” followed by some information about when the soda will be available.
One problem with trigger elimination is that it can be difficult to avoid the trigger 100% of the time. This strategy also fails to teach the child how to behave when the trigger does happen or give them opportunities to learn how to stay calm.
Eliminating too many behavioral triggers as a strategy can cause a child’s world to become very restricted, as there are so many rules about which triggers to avoid. For example, you can’t say “french fries, math, no, homework, waterpark, school, doctor’s appointment…” The more conditions that have to be perfect, the harder it is to ensure that all the conditions are continually met in all environments.
Reducing the impact
Triggers can also be modified to reduce their impact. As an example, even if you use the “yes, as soon as” strategy, eventually, children are going to be told “no” by someone somewhere. To prepare your child for this, you can still use the word “no” but instead of frowning when you say no, you might show a small smile when you say it while staying calm. You can also give a small amount of information after you say “no.”
Child: “Can I have a soda?”
Parent: “No, not now, but you can tonight.”
If math homework is the trigger, then an example of modifying this trigger is by pairing it with a choice. So instead of “You need to do your math,” you might say, “Do you want to do your reading or math homework first?”
Priming: Preparing your child for an upcoming unavoidable trigger
This talk might include some details about what’s going to happen on the way to the doctor’s office, who’s going to take them, when it’s going to happen, and what the doctor is going to do. The talk could also include some expectations that you set for your child and what they can do during the visit. Finally, your discussion might include a fun activity that will happen after the doctor’s visit.
Eventually, your child should be able to tell you what’s going to happen. It’s important for you and your child to stay calm while doing the briefing. If your child gets very upset just during a briefing, the chances of them being upset during the trigger are very high. If your child can stay very calm during the briefing, the chances are better that they can stay calm when the trigger happens.
Teaching your child how to manage their emotions when the trigger happens
Whether the emotion is fear, anger, or even extreme happiness, it’s important for all of us to know what to do when our physiology becomes so heightened that it creates difficulties for us. We might refer to it as “getting a hold of ourselves,” which is really referring to self-calming.
It’s a given that your child won’t always be prepared for a trigger and may find themselves escalating, just like when we get “caught off guard.” Most of us just want to get back to feeling normal again, but the way we do it can create problems if we don’t do the right things.
One of the most common strategies to manage these emotions involves simply breathing. Have you ever been very upset and afraid to say the wrong thing in anger, so instead, you did a strong exhale? That’s because breathing helps to normalize your physiology.
To be able to stop and take a breath, however, takes practice. There must be a good reason to stop and take a breath. This is why it’s important to practice some deep breathing exercises with your child when they’re not upset and provide lots of praise for doing these exercises.
It’s also important to motivate your child to breathe when they first get upset as opposed to saying or doing something inappropriate. That is, it’s important for your child to feel like they have a good reason to use breathing when they get upset.
Finally, even if your child has practiced, they may forget to take a breath if you don’t prompt them as soon as you possibly can. Giving a prompt to take some breaths the moment someone becomes upset is far more effective than waiting until there have been numerous problem behaviors. One useful strategy to help prompt breathing is known as a “calm count,” which is designed to be used at the onset of stressors (triggers) that elicit behaviors and is often used to help reduce emotional responses.
Teaching your child what to say and do in response to the behavioral trigger
Your child already says and does things in response to a trigger, but sometimes these responses may be more harmful than helpful. We all have responses to our own behavioral triggers, but we try to modify them to be appropriate. If you stub your toe and there are children around, you’ll try your best not to drop the F-bomb, but you will very likely say something! Shouting profanity when we stub our toes helps us get rid of the excess physiological arousal that comes with pain.
Sometimes it’s too much to ask for a child to remain completely calm in all situations, and we need to teach them a newer, better way to get rid of this excess stimulation. “Man, this sucks!” is not a very nice response to a request to start homework, but it’s far better than cursing, threatening, or hitting another person.
It’s important to allow children to express themselves just as we feel the need to, but it’s also important to set limits on the form of that expression. As an example, you could come up with a custom curse word that your child can use when they’re upset about something.
You can also teach your child to ask for help or information when they encounter something that’s triggering. In the case of loud noises as a trigger, a child might be taught to ask for their headphones or to move to a different location. In the case of a demand or request as a trigger, a child can be taught to ask to delay the task, ask for a different task, or ask if they can just do part of the task.
How Carrotology can help you manage your child’s triggers
Carrotology can support your efforts by letting you create child-calming exercises as part of their daily routines or even practice routines for an upcoming activity like going to the dentist. Your child can earn Crowns (the Carrotology virtual currency) for practicing breathing, or even for using those calming skills in response to a live trigger.
Crowns can also be awarded for correctly repeating a briefing about expected behavior during a trigger, “If it gets too loud in the classroom, I can wear my headphones or ask the teacher for a break outside the classroom.”
Carrotology helps provide the motivation so your child will have good reasons to stay calm and use the coping strategies you’ve taught them. With the Carrotology app, they can become a trigger master in no time!
