Most "misbehaviour" is dysregulation
The single shift that changes how you respond.
The polyvagal view, popularised by Stephen Porges and applied to childhood by Mona Delahooke, is that what we call "misbehaviour" is almost always a nervous system in survival mode. The hitting, the screaming, the door-slamming are not strategies. They are signals.
When a child's autonomic state is fight, flight or freeze, they cannot access reasoning, empathy, or impulse control. Those skills live in the parts of the brain that go offline first under stress.
This does not mean there are no consequences. It means the order matters. Regulate first, relate second, reason last. Reverse that order and you are arguing with someone who cannot, by biology, hear you.
Try this week
- Before you correct, ask yourself: is this child currently regulated?
- If not, your job is to be a calmer nervous system in the room.
- The conversation about what happened comes later, when they can think.
Reference. Mona Delahooke, "Beyond Behaviours"; Stephen Porges, polyvagal theory