“On Purpose” Behavior {EP 216}

Robyn: What we're not going to do is do a lot of practical strategies of how to intervene with these on-purpose behaviors. Why are we not going to do that? Well, because what you're going to see at the end is that this is a great example. These kind of, quote-unquote, on-purpose behaviors are great example of why we can't have a strategy to, you know, follow a specific behavior. We've really got to get underneath that behavior, see what's driving the behavior, and we need to kind of tackle or go after that, so we're always going to be falling back to is this behavior about regulation, connection to felt safety, a lack of skills, and identifying that, and then identifying how to navigate that piece. And there's just too many nuances and those kinds of behaviors that we would call like on purpose behaviors, and there's way too many pieces of where those behaviors could be coming from for us to have a useful discussion about, okay, well now what? What do we do? So I just want to kind of give you that heads up now so you don't get to the end of this episode of feeling really disappointed that there isn't a bunch of strategies or techniques or how to address these kind of on-purpose behaviors. We're going to really deconstruct these different on-purpose behaviors. And then there's other places you can go to on the podcast or in Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors, or if you're a Club member, you can go to any of those places. And then we can help really strategize. Okay, but so for this one specific behavior, what's going on and how do we address it?    

Robyn: So how do we make sense of behavior that seems on purpose, like it's pushing people out of connection on purpose, right? There's this sense that it's like really deliberately defiant, and sometimes it's the kind of defiance that feels really personal. The behavior feels so thoughtful, so planned, so strategic, so deliberate. It feels so Owl brain, right? Like there's so many Owl brain skills that are being used in this behavior. And it doesn't feel like it's reactive. It doesn't feel like it's driven by high intensity or by like traditional fight or flight feelings, right? So how do we make sense of this? Because the Owl is supposed to have behaviors of connection, but these are really hurtful behaviors that are also quite thoughtful. How are we going to make sense of this? The behavior of manipulation, for example, can really fall in this category, right? Manipulation is often very thought out. It's very strategic, or kind of the behavior that I would call holding hostage behavior, you know, like behavior. It's kind of like I'll stop screaming when you give me what I want, or I'll get in the car and buckle my seat belt only if you promise to take me to Starbucks. Right? That kind of like holding hostage behavior. If you don't let me go to Susie's house, I'm going to hurt myself, right? It seems so thoughtful, and it does feel really confusing, I think, because so often when we're focusing on the nervous system and looking at behaviors through the lens of the nervous system, we are really emphasizing the activation, the arousal, the reactivity.    

Robyn: We're really talking about having that sensitized stress response system that leaves the Owl brain really offline, right? And we talk a lot about, oh, the Owl brain has flown away, and that means there's not, you know, a lot of thoughtful cortical functioning involved. And I think that concept does help a lot of us shift to be able to look at the behavior a little more compassionately, and that's really hard to do, right with behaviors like manipulation or hurting people on purpose or threatening, right? Because that level of activation, it doesn't feel like, Oh, they're just dysregulated, and their Owl brain flew away. But at the same time, just pause for a second and think about manipulation. Think about, you know, holding people hostage. I'll only get in the car and put my seat belt on if you promise to take me to Starbucks first. Right? If you think about those behaviors, those are clearly not Owl brain behaviors, right? So we have to maybe kind of go back into like the archives here of our mind or the archives of the podcast, and remember what the Owl brain or the Owl pathway is, right? The Owl brain, the Owl pathway is not just about the thinking brain. Right? The Owl emerges from a nervous system that is feeling safe and connected. Behaviors of connection emerge from the Owl pathway.   

Robyn: If we break the metaphor and we think about the science for a second, the Owl is a metaphor that represents the ventral vagal pathway from polyvagal theory. It also represents that kind of highest cortical functioning that would be available given that individuals age and development and all that kind of good stuff, right? So the owl isn't just about thinking. The owl isn't just about being thoughtful. The owl is about being safe and connected. Okay, so yes, of course, thinking, planning, being strategic, all the kinds of things that go into being manipulative, for example, those can be owl brain characteristics, right? But when thinking, planning and being strategic is accompanied by hurting other people, or being, you know, driven by being a behavior of protection, you know, is the Owl involved? How does this fit in to our Owl, Watchdog, Possum metaphor, right? There's actually a decent amount of complexity here around examining these different parts of self, and in many ways, really kind of diving into the these nuances kind of goes past what we do here on this podcast.    

Robyn: So if the science of these pieces, like the core, core science, right, and the way we're really conceptualizing all of these behaviors, if that's super important to you know that even though we are tackling the science here, I am oversimplifying things a little bit. But again, you know, for our purposes here on the podcast, this, this really is sufficient. So when I think about on-purpose behavior, behavior that is definitely not coming from connection mode, I usually think about that as being like the first level of activation on the protection mode pathway, so on the Watchdog pathway. And I do think these behaviors that are typically, you know, labeled like on-purpose behaviors, they tend to come from the Watchdog pathway. And that first level of activation there, that's that, 'What's Up' level Watchdog right? And so think about this through the lens of low activation and arousal, low enough that, yeah, there's still a lot of Owl brain around but definitely these are behaviors of protection and with this specific kind of sub. Set of behaviors. Kind of, the specific way this level of Watchdog gets portrayed, right? This, you know, it's low level. 'What's Up' level Watchdog, we usually think of that as like, well, the Owl brain is close. You know, we can get the owl to return if we offer some safety.    

Robyn: That's not always true here for these on-purpose, kind of deliberate, manipulative behaviors. I would think about it through the lens of, like, the What's Up' Watchdog is quite chronic here. What's Up' Watchdog isn't just doing it's, hey, is something going on, kind of like it's checking out. Are things safe or not safe? Right? That's the job of the What's Up' Watchdog. But sometimes when we live in protection mode for a really, really, really, really long time, we just kind of get stuck in one of those levels of protection. And so I think that that that could be a helpful way to kind of look at this. If you're seeing. You know, some of these on-purpose behaviors, that it feels like the Owl is around, and at the same time it feels like regulation is far away. That could kind of explain this, right? There's this What's Up' level, there's an Owl around, and the Owl is helping the child being really thoughtful and strategic and deliberate about their behavior, yet shifting from protection mode into connection mode is possibly not going to be as easy as we would typically think would come from that what's up level. I hope that makes sense y'all.   

Robyn: So, it's really clear that this behavior, I think, is not connection-based behavior, but it is just so deliberate. And so okay, it's coming from protection mode. It's so deliberate. Should we do something different, should we approach this differently? Let's go back to regulated, connected kids- humans, who feel safe and know what to do. Sometimes they need skills. Do well, okay, regularly. Connected kids who feel safe do well. Without question, when we look at on-purpose, deliberate behavior, it might look like it's coming from a very regulated nervous system, right? There isn't a dysregulated energy to it. There's that thoughtfulness to it, okay? So it can kind of seem regulated. But what about connection? What about felt safety? Right? Those two pieces of the regulated, connected kids who feel safe, you know, question, those are the two pieces we probably want to hone in on connection and felt safety, right? Because, yeah, on-purpose behavior isn't typically fueled by extra arousal, right? And so the ideas we think about when we have a really dysregulated kid, those things might not be real applicable here.    

Robyn: Underneath on-purpose behavior is protection mode and a lack of connection, or a lack of connection, feeling safe, sorry. That was worded kind of oddly. So usually it's protection mode, a lack of feeling connected, or feeling connected doesn't feel safe. Okay. When people feel safe, when their nervous system is resting in connection mode, as opposed to protection mode, their behaviors usually invite, or at least open to connection. They're at least not protective, push away behaviors, and these behaviors that we call on purpose are deliberately defiant, right? These aren't inviting or open to connection, right? So for example, let's think about a kid who purposefully eats their siblings favorite snack, or a kid who knows that the rule is to be home by 10 pm but they break that rule and just come home at midnight. Right? Now, these behaviors don't feel very dysregulated, right? It doesn't feel like this is about high arousal, or that an Owl brain has flown away, and so they couldn't use their Owl brain to help them, you know, make the right choice. It doesn't really feel like that applies. And so it's hard to imagine how we'd offer a regulation to this behavior, because it doesn't feel like it's dysregulated, but at the same time, yes, it's definitely a behavior of protection.    

Robyn: So there's a difference between doing something mean on purpose and just prioritizing what you want instead. And in both of my examples, we could look at in through those two different lenses, right? Like the example of a child who purposely eats their siblings favorite snack. Well, did they do that? Because they knew it would make their sibling mad or sad or upset, like that was the sole purpose in doing it was like to get at their sibling. Or did they just not really care that much about hurting their sibling? They were like, I want a snack. I like that snack. I'm gonna eat the snack. I don't really care that it's my sister's favorite, and I know that she's waiting for it, right? I mean, there's two different things happening there, right? Doing something mean on purpose, versus prioritizing what you want. Instead, there's different flavors, and even the same with like breaking the 10 o'clock cerfew rule, right? Is, is that about? You know, I'm not listening to my parents. I'm doing whatever I want, or is that about I just really don't feel like going home, and I don't really care what the impact that is on someone else. I just don't feel like going home. So I'm prioritizing what I want versus I'm breaking this rule on purpose to kind of get at my parents, right? There's, there's different flavors there, right?    

Robyn: And even in both of those two examples I gave, we could still there could still be this other piece involved, which is maybe it's not exactly on purpose, and maybe it's not just don't really care the impact that it's going to have. Maybe it's actually just really more about your child not having enough impulse control to do the thing that they know they're supposed to do. So it's not actually about the sister at all. It's just about I really want that stack, and I don't have enough impulse control not to eat it, right? It's not personal at all, right? That, even that, you know, there's a different way to even look at that behavior. So really, what you're hearing me say is we've got to get underneath and look at what's really going on here, because, like, one, one of those behaviors is intended to, like, very deliberately hurt the connection, right? That's kind of the point of the behavior, whereas another one is just not really prioritizing the connection, right? It's just like, don't really care. I want what I want. And so whatever happens, the relationship happens, whatever. And the other explanation is not really about connection at all. It's just really more about impulse control.    

Robyn: Hurting connection on purpose, of course, of course, of course, comes from protection mode, right? And in many cases, not prioritizing. Connection comes from protection mode, although not always. We won't get into the nuances here, but for the sake of kind of looking at what we're usually thinking about when we talk about on-purpose behavior, we'll just assume that not prioritizing the connection doing something, eating your sister's snack, not really to piss her off, but because you wanted a snack, you don't really care how it impacts your sister, right? That also is emerging from a lack of connection, right? There's a lack of connection to the sister, right, not really caring about that relationship or how she feels and there's a lack of connection to the feelings that accompany knowing that something you did is going to hurt someone else. Right? When we feel connected to that truth, like, Oh, if I do this, if I eat my sister's snack, I really want it, but if I eat it, she's gonna feel really upset, right? Being connected to that truth is an aspect for me of thinking about connection, right? Because it's being connected to that truth of how our behavior is going to impact someone else, and caring about someone else, right? That is going to help us kind of modulate our behavior and set boundaries around our own behavior if we don't care, even if we're not doing it on purpose or at someone else, but we just don't care, right? We're not going to be working hard to like boundary our own behavior, right?   

Robyn: Now, for sure, this kind of behavior doesn't look dysregulated, but y'all, I do tend to put it in the category of dysregulation. Again, from an activation, arousal standpoint, you're absolutely right. This doesn't look activated. This doesn't look like the Owl brain has flown away. But for me, I I still wouldn't call it regulated. For me, regulated involves like connection to ourselves and to others. Being regulated involves like presence and resonance. It involves seeing each other's humanity. And making someone feel bad on purpose is really about objectifying that person. That person just becomes kind of like a pawn or a chess piece, or it becomes kind of more like a means to an end, something to manipulate to achieve a goal, right? And for me, that's dysregulated. So I would use the word dysregulated here, but I want to be clear that, even though I would use that word, you're not imagining the fact that this behavior doesn't feel dysregulated, right? You're not imagining the fact that there's intentionality, that there's what we would you know, there's some Owl brain thoughtfulness behind it. I want to be really clear. Yes, that's true, right? You're not wrong about it. Feeling like this behavior is on purpose also, though it's not good behavior, but yeah, it's intentional, right?    

Robyn: So these truths, though, the fact that this doesn't look like overtly activated, dysregulated behavior doesn't really change my approach. I mean, yes, we're probably not going to lean into, you know, strategies of co-regulation, into, you know, in the immediate aftermath of a behavior like this. But the overall strategy still really doesn't change. So like number one, our most important thing here, right? Is that changing how we see people is important, right? And so changing how we see on-purpose behavior is super, super important, right? Yes, the behavior is intentional or defiant or manipulative or mean, but that behavior is not because that kid is a bad kid. This isn't a defiant kid or a manipulative kid or a mean kid. It's still a kid who's struggling something is wrong. If the nervous system is in protection mode and for all intents and purposes, the child is safe. Well, something is wrong, then right? There is still a why to chase. Here, a why to go after. Why is this child in protection mode? Why do they want to hurt their sister on purpose by eating a snack? Why does hurting her not feel bad? Or why does it actually even feel good. There's still a lot of wise to chase here, right? And again, I know you really want to know what to do about this behavior, but the answer to that question is that we have to see the behavior for what it really is, a lack of health safety, a lack of regulation, a lack of connection to self or others, a lack of skills. And we need to really, like, brainstorm all of that and then make a plan about what to do next based on that information, right?    

Robyn: If we just had a behavior intervention in response to kind of on purpose, mean, manipulative behavior, well, that puts us just right back in behavior, whack-a-mole right right back in like, taking a behavioral approach, which, if it was working right, we wouldn't you, and I wouldn't even be here today if I was working so we're going to keep reminding ourselves. We're going to keep looking at regulation, keep looking at health safety, keep looking at connection, keep looking at skills. So for example, manipulation or verbal aggression. And verbal aggression specifically, that's not coming from a place of significant dysregulation, right? That indicates a need for felt safety, that behavior indicates maybe a belief that their words matter, that they can get what they need by using words and not behaviors, right? Like when I see kids being manipulative, verbally aggressive, holding hostage behavior, right? What I'm seeing is this is a kid who believes that this thing that they want is a need, and they believe this is the only way to get it.    

Robyn: It could also indicate that they have a big need for some increased frustration tolerance, right? That they need to be able to be okay, when they want something and they can't have it regardless of what that is, right. So ability to use words, belief that words matter, increase frustration tolerance. It indicates a need for a stronger sense of connection to one, the impact that their behavior has on someone else and that mattering, right? And two, it indicates a need for a stronger sense of connection to the truth that people are to be experienced as resonant, relational people, not as chess pieces or as simply a means like get what they want, or an obstacle to get rid of when they weren't getting what they want, right? So all of these potential explanations for what's underneath the behavior probably require different strategies or different things to focus on that we really need to build or strengthen for that child, right? Y'all, we know that we cannot control other people's behaviors, and we know this because we have tried, and I know that we want a response to these behaviors that feel so mean and so on purpose. And there is a way, I think, to find you know, figure out how to respond to this behavior in your child, but I think that there's just too many nuances for us to really say what that response should be. Aside from looking at why is this child having this behavior? And then we look at the why, and then we look at okay, so what's needed? How do we, you know, grow that? How do we scaffold that, while also keeping people safe?    

Robyn: I know that these behaviors and our kids leave us feeling very, very, very out of control. I think in some ways, these kinds of behaviors can leave us feeling even more out of control than like overtly dysregulated behaviors, because the behavior is so clearly about dysregulation, we often, at least have kind of the sense that we might not be able to do something, but there is technically something we could do, like, we could offer co-regulation, and, you know, there's this sense that like, this behavior is about dysregulation. The answer is to bring about regulation, and that is hard to grasp. It's hard to it's hard to hold on to something like that when we're talking about these behaviors that don't feel like they're coming from this regulation, right? And so when it feels like we're totally out of control, there's nothing I could do to like, change or control what this other person is doing. What we typically want to do is move towards punishment. And I really get that. I really, really, really, really get that because we feel so out of control, so we move to something like wanting to punish.    

Robyn: So I just want you to ponder this is punishment is making your child feel bad while also exerting power and control over them. Is that likely to help the real problem? If we think about what on purpose behavior is right, sometimes it's about power and control. Sometimes it's about objectifying other people. Sometimes it's about not caring how our behavior impacts other people, just doing what we want no matter what, right. Sometimes it's about, you know, having so little connection to the good felt sense of relationship that we don't it's not even something we're aiming for, right? We're just that that leaves all that we really are aiming for in life is just to get what we want, right? So we think about those things as like, that's what the real problem is. Is punishment going to help? Punishment going to solve any of those things? And the answer is no, not really. Does that mean you're never going to punish? Of course not, or you're still going to punish sometimes, right? Because you're going to get activated. Your own Watchdog is going to get activated by these behaviors, and your Watchdog wants to punish, and I get that, and then what I want you to do is just take a breath, invite your Owl brain back and remember regulated, connected kids who feel safe and know what to do, do well. How can you keep your child safe, the other people in your house safe, right? While still supporting your child's development of regulation, felt safety, connection and skills, because I get that these behaviors are having, you know, some really negative consequences on other kids in your house, on yourself, you know, maybe peers, things like that.   

Robyn: So how do we do both? How do we think about growing our child's capacity of regulation, connection, felt safety, help them develop these skills they need, while also putting some boundaries or rules or structure into place that help keep you safe, help keep other folks in your home safe. And then how do the rest of us, those of us with a little bit more regulatory capacity, how do we really put our energy into strengthening our own psychological boundaries so that we can see these behaviors in our kids even more clearly as behaviors that indicate how much they're struggling, right? And when they're struggling, they need regulation, connection, felt safety, maybe some skills, but yes, of course, definitely some boundaries, too.    

Robyn: So if you're listening and you're a Club member and you're ending this episode going, okay, but now what? What do I do about these on-purpose behaviors? Of course, we can help you in the forum. We might suggest some videos for you to watch. As a reminder, there's videos online manipulation, verbal aggression, um, the Find Your Voice video has been really helpful for some folks figuring out, like the on these kind of on-purpose behaviors. But still, even just watching a video is tricky to know how to apply it. So that's the whole purpose of the club, right? Y'all. So, you know, come to the forum. Let us help you. Let us, you know, workshop this with you. Let's work this out over in the forum or maybe in an Ask Anything session. Okay, we'll help you over in the club. We'll help you weave it all together.    

Robyn: Then if you're not a member of the club, then what you can do is you can go to my podcast page and use the search bar at RobynGobbel.com/podcast and you can think about what kinds of words would you put into that search bar. So again, lying, manipulation, verbal aggression, lots of free resources for you by going to the podcast page if you haven't grabbed a copy of Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behavior. That's another relatively low-cost place where you can turn to get some support, some help. And then, of course, over on my free resources page, RobynGobbel.com/freeresources. I've got bunches of free resources over there as well.    

Robyn: Alright, y'all, if you are not following me over on Facebook or Instagram, go and check out both of my pages on those platforms. I post a lot and then try to offer a lot of help and support for you in that free area. And if you are not getting emails from me, head to my website. Sign up for something. Get something for free over on my website, and then you will get added to my email list. And then you will be getting support from so many places, from the podcast, from social media in your inbox. We worked really hard. My team and I worked really hard to find ways to kind of wrap you up and support from all these different places. So if you're not accessing all of them, highly, highly, highly encourage you to go and access all these resources on all of these different platforms. All right, y'all. I will be back with you again next week here on The Baffling Behavior Show, bye!