Tips for Helping Your Child Overcome Undesired Behaviors

At ShillerLearning, a parent recently asked this question:

"My 12-year-old son used to be best friends with another boy in the neighborhood, but now they scream at each other all the time. What do I do?" -- A ShillerLearning parent

This kind of situation is one many parents face, and the answer begins not with the children, but with the parent asking the question. Here is the approach we recommend.

Start With Your Own Goal

Before taking any action, ask yourself: what is your actual goal here? Is it to stop the screaming? To restore the friendship? To help your son learn how to handle conflict? To protect your own sense of having parented well?

Whatever goal you identify, ask yourself why you have it. Then ask why that is the reason. Keep asking why until you reach the real, sometimes uncomfortable truth you are dealing with. For example, you might discover that you feel responsible in some way, and that if you had parented differently there might have been a better outcome.

Once you have that honest answer, fill in the blank: "The right thing to do in this situation is _______."

What Montessori Teaches Us About Behavior

Maria Montessori believed that what adults label as "bad behavior" is almost always a child's unmet need expressing itself in the only way available to them. A child who is screaming at a former friend may be experiencing grief over a lost relationship, confusion about social dynamics, or a need for help navigating conflict that no one has yet taught them.

Montessori's approach to discipline was built on respect, observation, and understanding rather than punishment and control. She believed the adult's job is to help the child understand their own goals and find better ways to reach them, exactly the same process described above for the parent.

📊 What the research shows: A 2019 meta-analysis published in Psychological Bulletin (Pinquart) analyzed over 1,000 studies on parenting and child behavior. It found that authoritative parenting, characterized by warmth, clear expectations, and open communication, produced significantly better behavioral outcomes than either permissive or punitive approaches. Critically, the research found that the quality of the parent-child conversation about behavior, specifically whether the child felt heard and understood, was one of the strongest predictors of lasting behavioral change. A 2006 study in Science (Lillard and Else-Quest) confirmed that Montessori-educated children showed significantly stronger social development and conflict resolution skills than peers in conventional settings.

"Discipline must come through liberty. We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined."
-- Maria Montessori

How to Have the Conversation With Your Child

You cannot go back and re-parent, but you can have a transparent, open-minded, and non-judgmental conversation with your son about why he is engaging in this behavior. Help him understand his own goals and the best way to reach them, just as you did for yourself above.

Here are three principles to keep that conversation productive:

🔎

Take logical steps and assume nothing. Resist the urge to jump to conclusions. Ask questions. Listen to the answers. Let the facts emerge before forming any judgment about what happened or why.
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Deal with facts only, not judgments. Separate what actually happened from how you feel about it. Feelings are valid, but decisions should be grounded in what is true and observable.
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Make your behavior support your goal, not your ego. When a negative emotion arises, acknowledge it privately, then choose a response that moves toward your actual goal. This models exactly the emotional regulation you are hoping to help your child develop.

🧠 The Montessori principle of self-construction: Montessori believed that children build their character through their own experiences and choices, guided by adults who help them reflect rather than simply comply. Research on self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan) confirms that children who are helped to understand their own motivations and make autonomous choices show significantly stronger intrinsic motivation, emotional regulation, and prosocial behavior than children who are simply told what to do. The goal is not obedience. The goal is understanding.

What situation have you been in like this? What did you do?

Let's help each other. Share your story and we will share it anonymously with our readers.
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