When an Active Child Gets Labelled a “Problem”: What 34 Years of Teaching Kids Has Taught Me

I've been teaching martial arts for more than 40 years, and during that time I've worked with thousands of children.

Some arrive confident and eager to participate. Others are shy and reluctant to join in. Some listen carefully from the moment they walk through the door.

And some seem to be moving every second they're in the room.

Those children can be challenging to teach. They're easily distracted. They interrupt. They may have difficulty waiting their turn or following instructions. Sometimes they become frustrated when they can't do something.

It's easy to look at that behaviour and conclude that the child simply needs more discipline.

I've learned to be careful about making that assumption.

Sometimes what looks like a behaviour problem isn't really the problem at all.

What Is the Behaviour Trying to Tell Us?

A recent CBC News report about boys struggling in school discussed parents' concerns that active or restless boys can quickly acquire labels such as difficult, disruptive or problematic.

Teachers and coaches have difficult jobs. When you're responsible for a group of children, one child's behaviour can affect everyone else.

But there's an important question I've learned to ask as an instructor:

Why is this child behaving this way?

The behaviour we see is sometimes only the surface.

A child who isn't listening might be distracted. But he might also be confused.

A child who is fooling around might be looking for attention. But he might also be trying to hide the fact that he doesn't understand what he's supposed to do.

A child who refuses to attempt something might be defiant. But he might also be afraid of failing in front of everyone.

Those situations may look similar from across the room.

They require very different responses.

The Child Who Had Already Been Asked to Leave

I remember a mother bringing her son to us for karate lessons.

He was a very active child and had considerable difficulty maintaining focus. Before coming to Canada's Best Karate, he had participated in another activity where his behaviour had become difficult for the coaches to manage. Eventually, his mother was asked to remove him from the program because they couldn't accommodate him.

You can imagine what an experience like that can communicate to a child.

I'm the problem.

When he started karate with us, we certainly saw the behaviour his mother had described. He had lots of energy and struggled to maintain his attention.

But rather than focusing only on stopping the behaviour, we tried to understand what was causing it.

Over time, we noticed something important.

A lot of his behaviour appeared when he wasn't confident that he could perform the skill we were asking him to do correctly.

What looked like an inability to focus was, at least in part, anxiety about not being able to succeed.

That changed how we approached teaching him.

How Do You Teach an Active Child Who Struggles With Focus?

Our approach at Canada's Best Karate isn't to try to turn an energetic child into a quiet child.

Instead, we generally concentrate on three things:

Understand the cause of the behaviour. Channel the child's energy positively. Praise effort more than accomplishment.

With this particular student, simply demanding that he "pay attention" wouldn't have addressed what was actually happening.

If his behaviour was partly driven by anxiety about performing incorrectly, putting additional pressure on him to get things right could actually make the situation worse.

So we worked on giving his energy somewhere productive to go.

We broke skills into manageable pieces. We gave him opportunities to move. We redirected him when his attention wandered. And, most importantly, we made sure he understood that attempting something mattered even when he didn't perform it perfectly.

Instead of only praising:

"Great kick!"

we could recognize:

"I really liked how hard you tried that time."

Or:

"That was difficult, but you didn't give up."

Those may sound like small differences.

For a child who is worried about failing, they aren't.

Why Praise Effort Instead of Just Success?

Children naturally enjoy being told they're good at something.

But if praise only comes when they succeed, some children begin to associate their value with getting things right.

That's particularly difficult for a child who already lacks confidence.

If success earns approval and mistakes feel like failure, avoiding difficult things can become a form of self-protection.

Why attempt something you're not sure you can do?

This is why I think recognizing effort, improvement and persistence is so important.

We still want children to develop skills. Standards matter in martial arts. A student shouldn't receive a belt simply because he tried hard.

But the path toward achieving that standard is filled with mistakes.

Children need to become comfortable with that.

"I didn't get it" needs to gradually become "I didn't get it yet."

That's a very different way for a child to think about himself.

Does Martial Arts Help Build Self-Confidence?

Martial arts can help children develop confidence because it gives them repeated opportunities to attempt difficult things, make mistakes, receive feedback and see themselves improve.

The confidence we're trying to develop isn't simply telling a child:

"You're amazing."

Children eventually recognize empty praise.

A much stronger form of confidence comes from evidence.

I couldn't do that before. Now I can.

That was difficult, but I kept trying.

I made a mistake and nothing terrible happened.

My instructor helped me fix it.

I'm getting better.

Over months and years, a child accumulates those experiences.

That's earned confidence.

And once children begin believing they're capable of improving, they're often much more willing to attempt the next difficult thing.

High Energy Isn't Necessarily a Weakness

Another lesson I've learned is that we need to be careful about treating a child's natural characteristics as defects.

An energetic child certainly needs to learn self-control. But energy itself isn't bad. The goal is to teach a child when and how to use it.

In karate, there are times when I want a student to move quickly, hit a target with intensity, react immediately or push through fatigue.

There are also times when I need that same student to stand still, listen carefully, control his technique or wait for his turn.

That's an important distinction.

Self-control doesn't mean eliminating energy. It means learning to control the switch.

An energetic child who learns to direct that energy can become an enthusiastic student, a determined competitor or a leader who brings tremendous intensity to whatever he's doing.

Our job isn't necessarily to change the characteristic.

Sometimes our job is to help the child learn how to use it.

Children Can Become the Labels We Give Them

This is where I think adults have to be particularly careful.

When a child repeatedly hears:

"You're disruptive."

"You never listen."

"Why can't you sit still?"

"You're always causing problems."

eventually those descriptions can become part of how the child sees himself.

The CBC report raised a similar concern about boys who don't feel successful or that they belong at school. When children stop believing they can succeed in an environment, they may eventually stop investing effort in it.

That's a dangerous cycle.

Difficulty leads to frustration... Frustration leads to behaviour... Behaviour produces negative feedback... Negative feedback lowers confidence... Lower confidence makes the next challenge even more threatening... Then we see more behaviour.

Sometimes an adult has to interrupt that cycle.

Discipline and Understanding Aren't Opposites

None of this means children shouldn't have boundaries. Quite the opposite - children need structure.

They need clear expectations. They need to understand that their behaviour affects other people. And sometimes an instructor has to say, "No. That's not acceptable."

But discipline is most effective when we understand what we're trying to correct.

If a child deliberately ignores a rule, that's one situation.

If a child becomes disruptive because he's anxious that he can't perform the task, that's another.

The behaviour may still need to be addressed. The way we address it should reflect what's causing it. Understanding a child isn't the same thing as excusing everything he does.

It's what allows us to teach him more effectively.

Sometimes the “Difficult” Kid Just Needs Someone to See Him Differently

After more than 34 years of teaching children, I've seen enough transformations that I'm reluctant to decide too quickly what kind of student a child is going to become.

I've seen distracted kids become focused. I've seen timid kids become leaders. I've seen frustrated kids develop tremendous perseverance.

And I've seen highly energetic children learn remarkable self-control.

It doesn't happen overnight.

Sometimes progress is slow. Sometimes we take two steps forward and one step backward. And sometimes we have to change the way we're teaching because what works beautifully with one child doesn't work with another.

That's part of teaching.

The boy whose mother brought him to us after another program couldn't accommodate him didn't need someone to pretend his behaviour wasn't challenging.

He needed instructors willing to look beyond the behaviour and ask what was causing it. He needed somewhere positive to direct his energy. And he needed to discover that making a mistake didn't mean he had failed.

Sometimes changing the environment around a child gives that child an opportunity to change what he believes about himself.

That's one of the reasons I still find teaching children so rewarding after all these years. You never really know what the "difficult kid" standing in front of you might become.

Sometimes he just needs someone willing to find out.

Be Your Best!

Learn how we teach students to Be Their Best in karate and in life by visiting canadasbestkarate.ca