Sometimes, even with our best intentions, we set out to fix our children. We see them and their behaviour as the problem. We label their behaviour and set out to change them, to teach them a better way, to teach them right from wrong.

What if I told you the fixing, the teaching, the changing has to start with us? The parents. The carers. The adults in their lives.

If we can reframe what we are seeing in our children as their brain and body's adaptive response, in other words not as an intentional, purposeful negative action to "hurt" or to "be mean" or "disrespectful", so many of the labels we often hear attached to children with behaviours that might be challenging...If we can do this, we can begin to see the human behind the behaviour, we begin to see what the behaviour is telling us about what that human is experiencing and what is happening for them and to them in their world.

We often talk about the iceberg and the tip of the iceberg being the behavior you may see. If we can upack what is going on beneath the surface, we can see that in that moment, for that child, that specific behaviour, whether it be hitting, pushing, and so on, is the only possible outcome for that child at that time.

 If we can support the needs of the child that lie under the surface, and work to really meet those needs, focusing on improving that child's quality of life, what we see as the tip of the iceberg will start to look different.