How to Stop Child From Random Screaming

Hey, this is Ming here, a speech therapist from agentsofspeech.com today we're discussing about how to stop your child from randomly screaming. So other than randomly screaming, there's a lot of different behaviors that you might find challenging right now or what we call disruptive behavior. Right? So there are usually only four reasons about disruptive behavior. Okay? No matter if your child is on the spectrum or they're not, or whatever, they're. There are usually only 4. There must be a reason behind each behavior or else. You know, us humans, we're. We're animals of intent. We do things for reasons, okay? And I'm not saying that other animals don't, but especially us. We have, we're very goal oriented. That that's why behaviors become thing. Okay? So four real reasons. Number one, they want something from you. There's something that they wish to attain and obtain from you, right? They want to get something, whether if it's a snack, the phone, whatever that they want. There's something that they're hunting for, okay? Second of all, the desire to escape. So they're inside of a situation they don't like. They're trying to get free and try to run away from you. That's a reason, okay? They're trying different ways to get out of a situation, okay. The third reason is to seek for attention. So this is super common. What happens is that when there's a difference between like positive attention and negative attention. So some children, they, they don't really care between the two. They don't care if you scream at them, shout at them, like scold them, whatever. They treat it as attention, right? They're attention seeking or they might be like asking for some positive attention as well. So sometimes these, they're kind of like manipulating you, right? The above three is trying to tell you, yo, I don't want you to do that or give me that or I want your attention. Hey, look at me like that. All these are reasons for screaming or whatever, rolling on the floor, yada, yada, right? The fourth reason is a little bit more neutral, which is a sensory related, which means the child might be having some problems or they want something. Like they want a certain sensory input. And that is not to do with you, okay? So a very good thing is like for instance, if you have a dog or a cat, they love getting like just rub, like head rubs or whatever. Those are sensory needs, right? And that they're wanting something with you. So sometimes it's like together they want something from you in a sensory need. But Usually for children, if they're screaming, they might like that within their. It really, I really cannot tell you because obviously children who do that cannot really speak very well. Okay. That's why we're just guessing most of the time. Oh, are they like, is it like how they. Some are very, very obvious. For instance, if they put their hand on the carpet and they go like up and down, left and right, they actually, they want that friction. Okay. And you know why? And some of them are actually, okay, like, I can allow them to do that. Or some of them are actually rather disruptive. Okay, so which one is it? Find out, you know exactly what not to do. Okay. Because if you give in and let them have what they wanted, then it becomes stronger. They know, oh, this works. I'm going to keep on doing it. Right. So this doesn't really apply to the fourth one, which is sensory related, because if you don't give it to them, then they will find something else. Right. Which brings to the replacement behavior for these reasons. So generally speaking, talking is the best replacement strategy for anything. So for instance, if they want something from you, the best way is just to teach them to say or like to use gestures to communicate with you. Right. The second thing, like desire to escape still say, let me go, let me go or whatever. And attention seeking is rather than screaming, they can say, mama, look over over here, or come over and show and tell like a toy as a way to like come up to you and show it to you instead of like pulling you or screaming to show you something. Right. Those are more appropriate socially. Right. So when they go to school, they will know what to do with other kids and teachers. Right. So whereas for century, seeking is not. That is not really that easy to find something that is replaceable. Okay. And sometimes you have to think about, is this something that needs to be actually addressed? Whereas screaming randomly. Yes, of course you have to address that because what if they're in the mall and they're suddenly screaming? People think that, oh, what a crap parent you are, and you feel really bad about yourself and people are looking and you feel very, very nervous and anxious. Right? That's not good. So you have to deal with that. Whereas sometimes if the child just likes to be at home and touch certain textures at home and just call it a day, then there isn't much of a reason why you should be changing that. Okay? There really isn't because they're not disturbing any anyone. It's not socially unacceptable to do so. Although it look, it might look strange, but at the end of the day, if you give them outlet to do so, it actually relieves their sensory needs. Right? So that aside, let's talk about how to get rid of bad ones that. That are disruptive, like screaming. Like, I had my very first student used to scream so loud in my face and kind of destroying some of my hearing, I believe to this day. And I'm not blaming him. I'm just telling you the story. Right? So what we did is the first thing rewarding. The opposite behavior that's very important is usually overlooked by parents and teachers and therapists sometimes that, oh, if a child is doing something correctly, it's. You take it for granted. And that's not totally correct. Because if they are doing well, that rewarding them for doing so actually helps a lot more than punishing when the bad thing happens. Right? So that means when your child isn't doing anything, isn't doing the screaming or doing the disruptive behavior you're talking about, then you should reward and praise and be very specific about what you say. So, for instance, back in the day, when he was like, the child was screaming like that. And then if he would be quiet for extended period of time. Extended period of time, okay, I would say, nice staying quiet. Here you go. Have a. Whatever. Just a reward or something. So that actually helped him a lot. Okay. And if you reward them right after the disruptive behavior stops, then they would think that, oh, I do this and then I stop, I get rewarded. So they keep on trying. So it happens very, very, very often that I see a lot of it happen is that they do something naughty, they look at you and they expect to be rewarded when they stop. Okay. And that's. That's not what you're trying to do. So it needs to be extended period of time. So they know, oh, so if I do nothing, then I will get rewarded. And it makes a lot of sense for that. All right? And then the other thing is to punish to screaming or to punish the disruptive behavior. And when we talk about, like, punishing, it doesn't mean we're hitting them or we're trying to scold them or whatever. When we mean punishment is what we call a negative punishment. What it means is to remove something that is desirable. So if they're playing a toy, they're watching something, they're eating something, eating is rather difficult. So remove that thing when the disruptive behavior happens. All right? And during that time when we were teaching the child, what we did actually was that we would eat a big piece of the Oreo that he really liked. So that was a punishment. If we enjoyed a biscuit right in front of him, which was kind of like a negative because, like, he did it. Negative punishment. That's what I mean. He wouldn't be able to get the biscuit, per se, but we eat it instead, so it removed from him. All right, that's the end of this video. If you found it helpful, please let me know in the comment section. And if you haven't, Please go to agentsofspeech.com checklist to get a free list of tools and toys that we recommend you get when you start home therapy. All right, so that's it. I'll see you in the next week. Bye. Bye.