Children's Behaviour: It's More Than Just Managing

In this episode, we welcome Professor Cathrine Neilsen-Hewett, Chief Children’s Officer for Goodstart Early Learning, to discuss the neuroscience of behaviour. Cathrine challenges the traditional view of "challenging behaviour," shifting the focus to how a child’s environment and relationships impact their ability to self-regulate. By exploring the neuroscientific connection between the brain and emotional control, she illustrates the profound impact responsive adults have in shaping a child's developmental trajectory.

The conversation highlights practical tools like the 6R Framework and the 'Self-regulatory Ship', moving away from blaming the child and toward understanding their unique needs. Cathrine emphasises that "dosage matters"—consistent, high-quality interactions are the key to supporting children, especially those affected by stress or trauma. Tune in to learn how educators can use these evidence-based strategies to shift developmental pathways and set every child on a trajectory for success.

Find out more:
https://scholars.uow.edu.au/cathrine-neilsen-hewett

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Learn Play Thrive the podcast, the ultimate early learning podcast for educators and leaders in the sector. Let's learn, play, and thrive together.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

The Learn Play Thrive podcast was recorded on the land with the Dark and Jung people. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians, past, present, and emerging. Hands up, hands down, we're on Dark and Jung land.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Today on Learn Play Thrive the podcast, we welcome Professor Catherine Nielsen Hewitt, Chief Children's Officer for Good Start Early Learning, with more than three decades of experience as a researcher, academic, and advocate for children and families. Professor Nilsen Hewitt brings deep expertise in pedagogical leadership, child development, and inclusive practice. She has led major research and policy initiatives across Australia and internationally, with particular focus on supporting the learning and well-being of children in vulnerable circumstances. As a former academic director of the early years at University Wollongong, Professor Catherine Nilsen Hewitt has contributed to national policy conversations and supported thousands of educators through professional learning and capacity building programs. She is widely respected for her ability to translate complex research into meaningful practical change in early learning settings. Catherine, a warm welcome to Learn Place Rider podcast. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me tonight. Lovely to have you on. I'm keen to dive into your belief that we need to shift the lens on children's behaviour, arguing that the challenge isn't the behaviour itself, but the impact this behaviour has on the child, other children, adults, or the environment. Could you explain what you mean by that and how focusing on our responses, our effective relationships can positively shape children's well-being and behaviour?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, it's a bit of a mindset. So it's a bit of a cultural mindset. I think typically our call to action is the behaviour. These are big behaviours. So not only do they pose a threat to the child, but they also pose a threat to adults and other children in the space. So that is often our call to action. But when we're thinking about children's behaviour and knowing how to respond effectively, we really need to be thinking around what is a child telling you through that behaviour. So it's really helpful to position children's behaviour as a form of communication. So when they throw that toy across the room, when they kick over a block tower, when they up even all the puzzles on the shelf, we need to be saying, What are they telling me through this behaviour? And so it's shifting the lens around understanding what's happening. So the child might be saying, I'm really frustrated. They might be saying, I don't have the skills necessary in order to ask for support. They might be saying, I come from a party house and I haven't had any sleep, I'm hungry. And so shifting that lens of understanding what's happening from the behaviour shifts the way that we respond to children. So how we understand behavior not only shapes how we respond to children, but it also shapes what they do to us and how they respond to us.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

I love that you've highlighted the fact that it it behavior is also one of communication, but it's sometimes traumatic for that particular child as well as impacting the people around them. So as you said, it's a communication, it's a way of saying, hey, potentially I don't know what to do with my body or myself right now. And this is how I've learned to gain attention or to gain something from you that I don't know how otherwise to gain.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Yeah, absolutely. And so I've developed what they call the six R framework for understanding and supporting children's behavior. And what it's really designed to do is to help educators and teachers and adults to really stop and pause and think about what are the common roots, what are the common pathways. And so the six R's stand for a number of things. One is an A for relate, which speaks to the importance of relationships and how relational connections underpin children's behaviour, relationships with the child, relationships amongst children, relationships amongst staff. And it also speaks to the importance of developing strong reciprocal connections where children feel safe, secure, and where there's a sense of reciprocity. Another R is the Afro Roots, which really talks about common pathways to behaviours that challenge. And some of those sit within the child, but most sit outside the child. So these are things like familial relationships, whether there's violence at the home, whether children feel safe and secure, what is the characteristic of the neighbourhood context, what's happening within the early childhood education and care context. So do children have clear expectations of what's expected of them? Is there choice? Is there voice? Is there common language being used? Is there too much going on in in the relationship? So that's kind of the roots. And then there's the after respect. And that talks about respect for the child, respect for the family, and respect for the cultural context in which they're embedded, but also respect for big emotions. And I think the important thing when we talk about children's behavior is differentiate in between feeling and enacting. So it's okay to be really frustrated. It's okay to feel really angry, and we all feel like that. It's not okay to hurt someone. It's not okay to destroy someone else's artwork. So it's really reshaping that. And then the other two R's is the one for uh regulate, which is self-regulation. And that is one of the key underpinnings of children's behavior. So children's ability to regulate their emotions and their feelings and their thoughts and actions in relation to situational demands is one of the strong predictors of what we commonly see as good behavior. So being able to inhibit a response, being able to follow directions, being able to problem solve are critical. And then finally, from an educational perspective, the other thing that we really need to understand when we're thinking about behavior is our responses. Now, sometimes our responses, even though they're very well-intentioned, can actually result in increases in behaviors that challenge. So we really want to look at what are our pedagogies and practices, what are the kinds of activities we do in this space that actually support children to behave in a way. And all of this sits within a big framework of evidence. What is the evidence behind our practices? And as a pedagogue, educators and teachers, they need to understand the evidence.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Well, this is a great segue into my next question for you. If the brain is the control center for behavior, can you explain the neuroscientific connection between the child's developing brain and their ability to self-regulate? And crucially, how does the presence of a responsive adult influence the brain development itself?

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Yeah, that's such a great question because when we think about our bodies, the brain plays the most significant role in shaping our behaviors. And so when we think about brain development, our brain develops from the base stem up. So when we're born, our brain stem is fully developed, and that's where all those survival mechanisms sit and our breathing, our heartbeat. The next part of our brain that develops is the limbic system. So that's our emotional brain, and that develops after birth. The last part to develop in our brains is our prefrontal cortex or our cortex. And that's our thinking brain, and that's where our executive functions sit and our self-regulation. Now, because it is the last part of the brain to develop, it is literally a roadmap of our experiences. So when we think about relationships and we think about adults in our space, it's helpful to kind of position us as brain architects. So the relationships that we form, the serve and return, the closeness, the responsiveness. So children, if children are brought up into environments where they're sung to, they're cared about, they're loved, then we have these rich neural connections that develop in our prefrontal cortex that are designed for learning and support self-regulation. The flip side is if children are exposed to environments that there's a researcher called James Garbarino, and he talks about this notion of social toxicity, right? So where they're they're not cared for at the extreme, there's abuse and neglect, then the brain gets rewired in a way that it's designed for survival and not for learning. And that's where you see some of those big behaviors, because they're like survival of the fittest. They're fighting for toys, we're fighting for food, we're fighting for space. Or shutting down. And that's what's happening with the brain. So it's actually a reflection of the experiences that have happened up to that point and has rewired the brain in a way to make sure that child survives because that's our critical role. Be alive, stay alive.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

And the brain works as a muscle. So the more that you practice one element, whether it's positive or negative, the stronger that overcomes. So sometimes when we are working with behaviors, we are working with children where that strength of that survival mode is the first thing that it goes into. It goes straight into that survival mode rather than being able to take on feedback or take on information from, you know, if they're in a calm state, sometimes it does just shut down because the amygdala has thrown the hormones in and shut down from the front and backwards. So then the prefrontal contacts cortex is sort of switched off. That's right. So the communication skills that this little person has been able to have outside of survival mode, they no longer have access to. So yeah, and it's an interesting concept to come to come across and talk about the brain development and the way that it's been built forward. And the, I guess, the impact that our socialization and the impact of our positive connection and relationships with children can really change the way that a child responds to behavior. But it's not always going to be something that we can get into before the behavior occurs. So I guess when we think about the role of stress and trauma in a child's brain, how can the framework, I guess, of the self-regulatory ship help educators identify and support young children whose early development may have been impacted?

SPEAKER_02 9:58

So I developed the notion of the self-regulatory ship to help educators to understand how the brain works and how the brain works in the way that it translates to children's behavior. So if we think about the ship, the hull of the ship is like children's survival brain and their emotional brain. So where you just talked about the amygdala and the hippocampus and those parts of the brain that are designed to keep children safe and to keep them alive. And that's like the hull. And that's important part about our ship. The deck of the ship is our thinking brain, that's our prefrontal cortex. Now, for a ship to work effectively, you need a sturdy deck and a well-built hull. So with our brain, we want both to work effectively. But if we have a captain on that ship, we need the captain on the deck. Because when they're in the hull, they can't see what's ahead of them. And so this process is really thinking about when we're working with children, we need to think about am I engaging with their deck? So are they thinking? Are they playing? Are they problem solving? Are they ready to learn? Are they ready to connect? Or am I interacting with their hull, which is their survival brain? And what are my expectations when they're in the hull? So children who experience a backdrop of stress or trauma, who have bouts of hyper-arousal or hyper-arousal are in their hull. And that means that they're not thinking, they're surviving. And the part of the muscle, like you talked about, that's been practiced over time is their survival brain. Is their amygdala? And so they're kind of driving the ship from emotions rather than thinking. And so as an educator, you need to think about where children are sitting, and then that determines the pedagogies and practices you engage in. So if they're in the hole and they're in their survival brain or their emotional brain, we engage in those beautiful sensory experiences. The deep breathing, the oral sensory, the the five-finger breathing, the the um, some for some children, it's the heavy work, the stomping. So those sensory experiences that are repetitive, they're rhythmic, they're rewarding, they're aligned to children's sensory needs, but they're still pedagogies. It's not it's but we're interacting with a different part of the brain. When they're on the deck, we do those muscle building experiences. We solve problems, we engage in imaginative play, we're doing our puzzles, we're doing our games, musical statues, and we're breathing in our um small parts, we're uh sharing provocations, and we're building self-regulatory muscle. And like you said, dosage matters. So the more practice you get, the better and the stronger your self-regulatory abilities will be, and the more capable you'll be.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

And the more opportunities that you have success in those areas, the more likely you're going to be. Continue to want to practice them. So if it's someone that uh potentially is unable to take on a lot of information or process or may have a um, I guess, like a processing delay, we need to look at the way that we use our language when children are in a different state. So if they are in the hull, bring your language down, use a quiet voice, less is more, uh, directive language. And then when they're up on the ship, bring that more fruitful ability to have the highlighted up and down and more information you can expect to be able to ask a child to do more than one thing potentially. Absolutely. And they'll respond.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Yeah. And I think sometimes if when we don't know where children are sitting, and particularly some children will walk through that door and they're in their hull, they arrive in their hull. And then we put all these demands on them where we ask them to put the bag away, we ask them who they want to play with, do you want to be inside or outside? There's noise, there's and then children are going further and further into this um their survival brain. And then we try and share. Yeah. And so there's this perception that they're actively ignoring me. Um, they're not cooperating, they're just they're just pushing my buttons. And so I think when we understand how children's brains work, when we understand what influences that functionality, we approach with more understanding and compassion. And so shifting our lens around children's behavior is essential. Even the way that we talk about it, once upon a time it was managing challenging behaviors, right? You manage something or it's a challenging behavior. I even talk about behaviors as behaviors that challenge, not challenging behaviors, because the challenge then sits outside the behavior and it thinks about the impact. You can have the same behavior that is in challenging in one situation and not in another. It's not the same level of competition at home. So the challenge sits with the impact that behavior has on the child, on the environment, and on others.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for coming on. At the end of our podcast, we have three takeaway messages: one theory-based, one practical, and one inspiring. What would your theory-based takeaway be for us today?

SPEAKER_02 14:57

For me, it's really around that six-hour framework that I talked about. And it really helps educators to better understand the complexity behind children's behaviour and to be able to really intentionally build children's capacity to navigate their environment. And so the benefit of the framework, and certainly how I've used it, is the way it really encourages us as adults to consider the uniqueness and the complexity of children's behaviour and to move away from that common misconception, which typically positions the behaviour or the child as the problem, to a perspective that instead asks, you know, what happened to this child and what does that child need in order to reach their full potential?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

What are they trying to say?

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

And practical.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

I think when it comes to children's learning and behaviour, and you've already kind of touched on this, Simone, is dosage matters. Yeah. So children benefit when they have repeated exposure to rich environments, when there is high-quality interactions that are rich and responsive, and where there are pedagogical experiences that are aligned with children's needs and aligned with aspects of self-regulation that matter for children.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Absolutely. You just brought up a uh a memory that I once had uh with with a child that I was working with, and um it it very much felt like this child wanted to be heard and seen. And one of the aspects was um this child never engaged in fine motor skill, but we'd noticed that he was wearing a spider moot Spider-Man suit. So I sat down, I drew I drew a Spider-Man face, I started colouring it in just next to, and we ended up bringing up the pen and we sat at that experience for an extended amount of time more than what he ever had. We ended up getting scissors and cutting that out around and turning it into a bit of a face mask. And I remember the educators and their family members turning and saying, How did how did you get him to do that? Well, he's interested in it because this is his topic and this is what he loves, and that's what we need to draw in on. Relationships matter, understanding, hearing, noticing about these children is going to be the key to being able to get in there and and work alongside and bring out sides of them that you haven't seen before and aspire them to uh try new things and be successful in those areas as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Safe, yeah, responsive environments.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

And inspiring, inspire us.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

I mean, I always say early childhood educators with the right skills and the right knowledge have the potential to shift children's pathways. And so with those right skills and right knowledge, we can really set every single child who walks through our door on a trajectory of success.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

What an empowering message. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It has been a pleasure to have you on and to hear your insights and to share with other educators your knowledge and expertise on the area of behaviour. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Learn Play Thrive the podcast. We hope you found inspiration and valuable insights to fuel your journey in early childhood education. Remember the key to fostering learning, promoting play, and empowering young minds lies within your dedication and creativity. If you enjoyed today's episode, please like, subscribe, rate, or review our podcast on your favourite platform. Your feedback helps us to continue to deliver content that resonates with you. And don't forget to visit us at our website at learnplaythrive.com.au for additional resources, blog posts, and professional development opportunities. Until next time, keep learning, keep playing, and keep thriving. We'll see you in the next episode of Learn Playthrive the podcast.