Why Is My Child Acting Like This? Understanding Behaviour Through a Developmental Lens
Have you ever found yourself thinking:
“Why is my child acting like this?”
“They know better—why won’t they just stop?”
“Why can’t they calm down?”
As parents, caregivers, and professionals, we often find ourselves trying to understand challenging child behaviour. We want children to learn emotional regulation, manage their big emotions, and make positive choices. Yet many everyday moments still leave adults feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and unsure how to respond.
The reason is often not a lack of parenting skills, effort, or care. It is a difference in perspective. Children and adults experience the world very differently. Adults interpret behaviour through the lens of adult reasoning, emotional regulation skills, life experience, and communication abilities. Children, however, are still developing these abilities (and don’t have quite the same amount of life experience either!).
This difference in perspective is something called adulthood bias. Adulthood bias is the tendency to interpret children’s behaviour through an adult lens rather than a developmental one, expecting children to think, communicate, and regulate in ways that are similar to adults.
Understanding adulthood bias can help parents better understand why children have big emotions, why emotional regulation is difficult for children, and how to respond in ways that support connection, nervous system regulation, and healthy development.
Children’s Behaviour Is Communication
One of the most important shifts we can make when understanding child behaviour is recognizing that behaviour is communication. Children often communicate their needs, emotions, stress, and experiences through their actions before they have the words to explain them.
A child who is:
melting down over a small disappointment
refusing to cooperate
hitting, yelling, or throwing
struggling with transitions
becoming overwhelmed quickly
is not necessarily being defiant, manipulative, or intentionally difficult (though I get it - it can really feel this way!). Often, they are communicating something through the only tools currently available to them. This is especially important because children’s emotional regulation skills are still developing.
Big emotions and emotional dysregulation are not signs that a child is “bad” — they are often signs that a child is experiencing something they do not yet have the skills to manage. If you would like to explore this further, you may find my article on understanding emotional regulation in children helpful.
Why Children Struggle With Emotional Regulation
Adults have spent years developing skills such as:
impulse control
emotional regulation
problem-solving
perspective-taking
understanding consequences
Children are still building these skills. When adults become frustrated with a child’s behaviour, it is often because we unintentionally expect children to access abilities they are still developing.
A child may know the rule and still struggle to follow it.
A child may understand that hitting is not okay and still lose control of their body when overwhelmed.
A child may want to calm down and still not yet know how.
This is one of the biggest differences between an adult brain and a developing child’s brain. When children become emotionally overwhelmed, their ability to access reasoning, reflection, and problem-solving decreases. In these moments, they often need support before they are able to explain what is happening or make a different choice. This is why telling a dysregulated child to “just calm down” often does not work. And why after they’ve calmed down they can clearly recognize and acknowledge that they know they should not have hit their sibling.
They are not refusing to regulate. They are learning how.
The Hidden Impact of Adult Expectations
Adulthood bias is not intentional. In fact, it often comes from adults trying their very best to teach, guide, and support their children. It shows up in common phrases such as:
“Why did you do that?”
“What were you thinking?”
“You know better.”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Just calm down.”
These responses make sense from an adult perspective. Adults often assume that if someone understands something, they should be able to change their behaviour. But children do not always work that way. Understanding something and being able to do something are two very different skills.
A child can understand that yelling is not helpful and still yell when overwhelmed.
A child can know a transition is coming and still struggle when it happens.
A child can love their sibling and still hit when they are flooded with emotion.
The behaviour is not always a reflection of what a child knows. Often, it is a reflection of what they can access in that moment.
How A Developmental Perspective Changes the Way We Understand Behaviour
Imagine a child refusing to leave the playground. An adult may think:
“They know we have to leave. Why are they making this so difficult?”
Through a developmental lens, we might see something different:
“This child is struggling with a transition. Their nervous system is having a hard time moving from something exciting and enjoyable into something different. They need support through this moment.”
The behaviour has not changed. The understanding of what is beneath the behaviour has. And that perspective shift can really support a parent’s nervous system to be more grounded and ready to support their child through the challenging transition.
Transitions are one of the most common places where this developmental difference shows up. Leaving the playground, stopping a preferred activity, or adjusting to a change in routine can be incredibly difficult for children because they are not only changing activities — they are managing emotions, expectations, and the shift from one experience to another.
If leaving activities, changes in routine, or unexpected changes often lead to big emotions, you may find my article on understanding why transitions are difficult for children helpful.
Why Play Matters
When we recognize that children experience and communicate the world differently than adults, it changes not only how we respond to behaviour, but also how we support children through emotional experiences.
This shift in perspective is also at the heart of child-centred approaches like play therapy.
Adults often expect healing and emotional processing to look a certain way. We expect children to talk about their feelings, explain what happened, and reflect on their experiences.
But children communicate differently than adults.
Children often express their emotions, experiences, and needs through:
play
imagination
movement
behaviour
relationships
This is why play is such an important part of childhood development. Play is not “just fun” — it is one of the primary ways children explore their world, process experiences, and build emotional skills.
This understanding is one of the reasons child-centred play therapy can be such a powerful approach for supporting children’s emotional expression and development.
Moving From Correction to Connection
A common concern from parents is that the behaviour is now not being addressed. This is an important clarification - the goal is not to remove expectations, boundaries, or guidance.
Children need limits. They need support. They need adults who help them learn.
The shift here is in how we interpret behaviour.
Instead of asking: “Why are they acting this way?”
We can begin asking:
“What might be happening for this child right now?”
“What is this behaviour communicating?”
“What support does this child need in this moment?”
This moves us from:
Correction → Connection
Assumption → Curiosity
Frustration → Understanding
Control → Co-regulation
When children feel understood, they are more able to learn.
When we begin to see children through a developmental lens, we can respond with more patience, more curiosity, and more connection.
If you are struggling to understand your child’s behaviour, feeling stuck in repeated challenges, or unsure how to respond to big emotions, support is available. At Courageous Play Therapy, I work with children and parents to better understand behaviour, strengthen connection, and build emotional regulation skills.
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For more resources about child behaviour, emotional regulation, and play therapy, explore more articles from Courageous Play Therapy.