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What are behaviors and what do we do with them?

In the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities field we talk about behaviors a lot. I mean a lot. So much so that it’s easy to forget that out in the real world, grown-ups aren’t often described as having “behaviors.”

Literally, everything we do is a behavior. Every time we act or react, it is a behavior. All of our mannerisms and interactions are behavior. We don’t notice behaviors just like fish don’t notice water.

When we do notice a behavior, it is generally because it is “bad.” It is something we want to change (flipping off other drivers) or something someone else wants us to change (leaving the toilet seat up). But smiling and waving and closing the toilet seat are behaviors as well. Those just don’t get our attention.

What causes a behavior? Life. If every action or reaction is a behavior, then every situation, object or person in our environment causes behavior.

We don’t notice a behavior when the cause is obvious. If someone walks into a dark room and feels along the wall for a light switch, we don’t think about that as a behavior (hint: it is). If that same person came into a dark room and started kicking the wall, we’d probably think it was odd, ineffective and likely to crack the dry wall. Then we’d call it a behavior.

But every behavior has a cause. We just might not understand what it is.

Let’s think about behaviors in a few categories. First, there are the “invisible” behaviors. These are the “good” or normalized behaviors that are so common or acceptable that we often don’t recognize them as behaviors.

Then there are the “odd” behaviors – popping knuckles, flapping hands, talking to oneself in public. These behaviors may get our attention enough to call them behaviors, but they aren’t really harming anyone and could easily just be ignored.

“Inappropriate” behaviors cause problems. They are socially inappropriate enough to cause barriers to being accepted in most social settings. Hugging strangers – not such a great idea in the U.S. Being stubborn or argumentative may harm your relationships with others or cost you your job.

“Harmful” behaviors cause imminent harm to self or others – hitting, kicking, biting, slapping, shoving, picking at sores, head banging, throwing or breaking things. In most cases, inappropriate or harmful behaviors are the ones we need to worry about and work hard to change.

Changing behavior is hard, probably one of the hardest things to do. Which is why wasting time on the “odd” behaviors doesn’t make sense.

Cut yourself some slack. Is there something you’ve been beating yourself about changing that really has no negative impact on yourself or anyone else? Forget it. If we all let ourselves go around being odd and different, then different would be normal. And once it’s normal, we don’t see the behavior anymore. We see people as just like us, but different, too. Just as it should be.

Tara Kiene is the director of case management with Community Connections Inc.



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