What works for Acting out Children Behavior?
Acting out children behavior or externalizing behaviors are negative behaviors which are conditioned toward other people or things, like physical or verbal bullying or physical aggression, disobedient behavior, hyperactivity or criminal behaviors such as theft and vandalism. Acting out behavior in children can start as early as age two or in adolescence with puberty and physiological changes accompanying it. Boys are usually engaged more in externalizing behavior than girls in middle of their childhood or adolescence.
There had been several programs conducted targeting at acting out children behavior in order to reduce it. Out of all the programs which were conducted, almost half of them found to be working that they had at least one positive impact on the externalizing behavior. Rests of the programs were either with mixed findings or did not work at all. Teaching children and youth how to manage and identify their emotions is one of the successful programs which help in reducing externalizing behavior. It is basically counseling which targets kids and adolescents and in which they are taught how to manage their emotions and anger. Conducting family therapy, teaching parents skills related to effective communication, discipline, monitoring and limit setting are also successful programs which had helped and are still helping in reducing the acting out behavior in children.
Then there are several mixed finding programs as well which are not always successful in reducing externalizing behavior. Incorporating a mentoring component is one of those mixed finding programs which have a 50% chance of success as mentoring is often used for other outcomes but not rather than reducing such behavior.
Teaching interpersonal and social problem solving skills to delinquent youth, character education programs which focuses only on promoting nonviolence and programs that family economic well-being didn’t prove to be successful at all.
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References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting_out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior_management