What to Do When Your Kid Does Something "Naughty": Understanding Child Misbehavior and the Power of Curious Parenting
What to Do When Your Kid Does Something "Naughty": Understanding Child Misbehavior and the Power of Curious Parenting
What do you do when your child does something that just feels… “naughty”?
Not mildly inconvenient.
Not slightly frustrating.
But peanut-butter-in-the-hair-five-minutes-before-you-leave-the-house level of chaos.
We’ve all been there.
In those moments, child misbehavior can feel personal. It can feel intentional. It can feel like sabotage. And the natural reaction is anger.
But what if most naughty behavior is not defiance at all?
What if understanding why kids misbehave changes everything about how we respond?
Let’s talk about it.
When “Naughty Behavior” Feels Personal
Picture this: You are almost out the door. Everyone is dressed. Breakfast is nearly finished. You’re locating your phone for the fifth time.
And then you hear:
“Mommy, look at me.”
Your stomach drops.
You turn around, and your three-year-old has rubbed peanut butter into her hair like shampoo.
In that moment, it feels like intentional naughty behavior. It feels like she ruined your morning on purpose.
But when I asked my daughter why she did it, she said:
“I thought it would be funny.”
That’s the moment everything shifted.
Why Kids Misbehave (From a Developmental Perspective)
When we slow down, we start to understand why kids misbehave.
Young children:
Have very limited impulse control
Cannot accurately predict consequences
Are constantly experimenting
Do not understand long-term inconvenience
Often lack the skills to communicate what they want
What looks like child misbehavior is often:
Curiosity
Experimentation
Poor impulse control
A communication gap
A skills deficit
It rarely begins with malicious intent.
That does not mean the behavior is okay.
It means the meaning behind it is different.
Why Our Reaction Matters So Much
Here is where things escalate.
Your child does something that feels like naughty behavior.
You yell.
They feel shocked and misunderstood.
They escalate.
Now you are both dysregulated.
The original child misbehavior becomes a power struggle.
When we assume intent, we react with fury.
When we assume curiosity, we respond differently.
That is the core of curious parenting.
Step 1: Regulate Yourself First
Before addressing child misbehavior, regulate yourself.
This is the hardest step.
Walk away if needed.
Take a breath.
Remind yourself:
“They’re three.”
“This is developmentally appropriate.”
“They are not trying to ruin my life.”
Understanding why kids misbehave helps you stay grounded.
If you react from adrenaline, you teach nothing.
If you respond calmly, you teach everything.
Step 3: Approach with Curiosity, Not Accusation
Later, when everyone is calm, explore.
Not:
“Why would you do that?!”
But:
“Tell me what you were thinking.”
This is where curious parenting changes the tone.
When we approach child misbehavior with curiosity, we communicate:
“I want to understand you.”
And often, their explanation is surprisingly simple:
“I thought you would catch it.”
“I thought it would be funny.”
“I wanted to draw.”
Understanding why kids misbehave often reveals a missing skill, not a bad intention.
Step 4: Teach the Skill That Was Missing
If your child throws something at your face because they wanted to play catch, the missing skill is communication.
If they draw on the wall, the missing skill is knowing where drawing belongs.
If they experiment with peanut butter shampoo, the missing skill is understanding consequences.
Instead of punishing the naughty behavior, we can teach:
“If you want to play catch, say ‘catch.’”
“If you want to draw, ask for paper.”
“If you want to experiment with your hair, we can do that at bath time.”
That is curious parenting in action.
The Reframe That Changes Everything
When you understand why kids misbehave, you stop seeing every incident as intentional disrespect.
You start seeing:
Brain development
Curiosity
Skill gaps
Impulse control limits
And yes, sometimes inconvenience.
This does not mean allowing ongoing child misbehavior.
It means responding in a way that:
De-escalates conflict
Preserves connection
Builds skills
Reduces repeat behavior
Naughty Behavior Is Often Experimentation
Young children are scientists.
They are constantly testing:
“What happens if I do this?”
When we treat every experiment as malicious child misbehavior, we risk escalating power struggles.
When we respond with curious parenting, we teach them how the world works.
And over time, that is what actually reduces naughty behavior.
Final Thoughts
You are not wrong for feeling frustrated.
It is hard when mornings get derailed.
It is hard when your plans are interrupted.
It is hard when child misbehavior feels intentional.
But most of the time, why kids misbehave has more to do with development than defiance.
The next time your child does something “naughty,” try:
Regulating yourself
Solving the immediate problem
Exploring with curiosity
Teaching the missing skill
That shift toward curious parenting will not eliminate all chaos.
But it will reduce escalation.
And it will help you feel proud of how you handled the moment, even if there was peanut butter involved.
You’ve got this.
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[00:00:00] Leah Clionsky: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Educated Parent Podcast. Today we are going to talk about a very common and parenting challenge tied to a very common child behavior. What do we do when our kids do things that just seem quote unquote naughty, right? When they do things that are just not allowed? Usually out of the blue that really inconvenience us and make us angry.
[00:00:30] Leah Clionsky: How should we react? How should we handle this challenging parenting dilemma? So this is one of our chats. There's no guest today. It's just us. And we're going to talk about when our kids do things that basically just get on our nerves. And often in the moment these behaviors feel. Misbehavior they feel like, like naughty behavior, like things that our kids are doing just to bother us.
[00:01:02] Leah Clionsky: We see this a lot around three, around four. Sometimes we see this in older kids too, right? Kids sort of experimenting with behaviors and seeing how we'll react to them. And this has been coming up for me because I have a four and a 6-year-old, and I just realized that I should share some of these insights with you.
[00:01:22] Leah Clionsky: 'cause they happen to me. They happen to you. They happen to every parent with a young child who comes through our practice. So let me give you a typical example. I'm gonna give you an example of something that happened to my daughter when she was three, and she actually thinks this story is hilarious. So I don't think she'll mind me sharing it, but of course it was a morning, we're trying to get out the door.
[00:01:46] Leah Clionsky: Of course, we were late, right? The, the typical morning situation at this point, my daughter was three years old, so that made my son about. One and a half and I was trying to get them both out the door and to preschool slash daycare at the same time, and we were rushing around, but at that time, things seemed to be going manageably.
[00:02:08] Leah Clionsky: Okay. My daughter was dressed, had her clothes and her shoes on. So did my son. We were finishing up breakfast. I was basically locating my things so that we could leave the house. So I was finding my phone, which I lose every single morning. So I was finding my phone, making sure I had my bag, my sunglasses, you know, the things I needed to leave.
[00:02:33] Leah Clionsky: And then I heard my daughter say, mommy, look at me. And didn't your stomach just drop when I said that? Right? Because that never, that is never said before something good has happened. So I look over at my adorable daughter and she has taken her peanut butter toast. Smeared it into her hair, not like on the top of her hair or on one piece of her hair, where I have some hope of being able to wash it out like it is, like in the roots of her hair, as if she had like shampooed her head with peanut butter.
[00:03:09] Leah Clionsky: Like it was awful. It was all over and I just started. To panic, right? My beautiful plans, the fact that we were almost out the door, everything was undone because then, you know, she needed a full shower and her clothes, of course had peanut butter on them too. So we're talking almost like starting the morning.
[00:03:31] Leah Clionsky: From scratch except for with shower time, which I don't do typically in the morning. That's a nighttime activity. And I just remember like freaking out, right? Just like, oh no, why did you do this? I'm sure I yelled at her. Um, I'm sure I did in that time. I don't even really remember like a fully. I remember that she got a shower in new clothes and that I texted like all of my mom friends immediately afterward for like solidarity.
[00:04:02] Leah Clionsky: But what like stands out to me is that she looked at me, you know? And when I was saying to her, why did you do this? Why, why, why? And at first she didn't answer. And eventually she said, I thought it would be funny. So she did this behavior. Out of curiosity and because she thought it would be funny with no understanding of the impact that it was about to have, right?
[00:04:29] Leah Clionsky: She doesn't know anything about peanut butter. She doesn't know that peanut butter is oily, that it's hard to get out of things. She's not thinking about us being late. She's not thinking about any other factor. She's got no impulse control. She's three years old and we don't develop impulse control, like really good impulse control until our thirties.
[00:04:50] Leah Clionsky: So she's got basically nothing work to work with at this point, but there's that deep frustration and I think in that moment when I was got so upset, part of her just felt like really surprised and misunderstood. And I've noticed this happen over and over with my kids when they do something that causes a real problem.
[00:05:11] Leah Clionsky: Sometimes it's destructive or dangerous, even. But when I, when I get upset with them, the reaction is always surprised because they are unaware that it's that big of a deal. They're unaware that it's going to cause a real problem or if they might think it like will be problematic, but they're not aware of the like depth of the problem that's been caused.
[00:05:35] Leah Clionsky: And I remember doing this myself as a kid, don't you? Like I remember being around three and hiding from my mom in the house when we were trying to leave. I thought it would be funny. I thought she would find me and laugh and she found me and she yelled, right? I was completely surprised by that. I mean, I can think of a worse example.
[00:05:54] Leah Clionsky: Do you remember in cartoons, I'm dating myself, right? But remember in cartoons where characters would like jump and land on another character, especially on their stomach, and they would bounce like a trampoline. Um, they would just like land and a boop and bounce off, and it looked really fun. So when I was around five, I remember jumping off a bed onto my brother's stomach because I thought I would bounce, literally did not occur to me that he could get hurt.
[00:06:22] Leah Clionsky: I didn't understand the impact of that action. I was not trying to hurt anybody, but of course I did hurt him. Of course, my parents were upset. So this is a common sort of behavior. It makes sense that our kids would experiment in this way. That they would be trying to figure out, is this funny? Is this um gonna work?
[00:06:45] Leah Clionsky: Is this gonna, how is my mom, how is my dad? How are these other kids? How is my teacher gonna react to this behavior? But I think like, because it is so. Inconvenient to us, or it blocks something we're trying to do. Like for example, my daughter's peanut butter hairstyle absolutely ruined my plan for getting out the door on time.
[00:07:10] Leah Clionsky: We tend to react as adults with like, with a lot of fury with these thoughts. I think we, we think she's doing this to me on purpose or she knew that this would cause a problem. Like it almost. Feels personal because of our level of frustration. I mean, you can see this with kids when they do things like cut each other's hair, not realizing that it's going to have an actual problematic impact.
[00:07:38] Leah Clionsky: Um, there're just so many examples of kids doing things that they think will make sense, and then when they actually happen, because they're. Their ability to foresee the consequences. Even the immediate consequences of these decisions is so poor because of where they are developmentally. They almost feel like a betrayal reaction when we get so angry.
[00:08:02] Leah Clionsky: So I think it all makes sense. Like I think our reaction getting upset certainly makes sense for a human. I think our kids' reaction of surprise. Also makes sense because they're not thinking about all of the factors going into this decision, and often they don't understand the actual real world implications of our choices.
[00:08:26] Leah Clionsky: And here's what can happen next. So imagine times when you felt misunderstood, where you've done something, maybe you've done something, you've done something as an adult that you thought would be funny, maybe you made a joke. And it turns out that you offended somebody. Um, maybe you made a, a choice and then other people felt hurt by it, but you really weren't trying to harm anyone, right?
[00:08:51] Leah Clionsky: Like you, you misjudged essentially, you misjudged how your, um, actions would play out. And then when people get upset with us, when that happens, it like, it hurts our feelings, right? Like it feels almost unfair in that moment. It's not a mature reaction, but that is often our reaction where it's like, wait, wait, wait.
[00:09:13] Leah Clionsky: I didn't even, I didn't mean to do this. Why are you so mad at me? And then how that often shows up for kids when they feel really misunderstood, like you're mad at them. But they didn't even really mean to like, they mean they meant to do the thing. They meant to rub the peanut butter, but they didn't mean to cause a problem.
[00:09:33] Leah Clionsky: And what you'll see once you get angry with them for that is then they'll get angry with you. Often, then the behavior and the tantrum and the conflict will escalate really quickly, right? You yell at them, they feel misunderstood. Suddenly they're doing something to make you angry, and then you're in an escalating conflict.
[00:09:54] Leah Clionsky: Yeah, like it is tough, right? It's so tough. For us, it's, it feels like we have little like saboteurs running around getting in the way of our plans, but the way the kids see it, they're just playing and trying to understand the world and we're getting in the way of their plans. So I think like our reactions make a lot of sense.
[00:10:13] Leah Clionsky: I mean, I get, I certainly get my emotional viewpoint in those moments, but let's talk about what we can do that will actually. Be more effective and not just escalate the situation out of control. Because what we really wanna be doing is teaching kids, but when we're yelling at them, right, when we are now dysregulated, at least when I'm dysregulated, I'm not teaching anyone anything.
[00:10:39] Leah Clionsky: And at that point, my kids are so reacted to my reaction that they're not able to learn anything. So let me give you some steps for what you can do when this happens to you. Teenagers. I mean, really anybody can do this to us. I think we just see the most experimentation in the littles with like really no understanding of consequences.
[00:11:05] Leah Clionsky: Alright, step one, hardest step. Try not to freak out. Try. Try to stay as calm as you can. I know that sounds like, um, almost ridiculous because our adrenaline is just rushing in those moments. The thing happens, your child draws on the wall with the sharpie they found, and like your adrenaline just spikes and you feel so angry and you just wanna start yelling.
[00:11:37] Leah Clionsky: But if you can stay calm, just like in all parenting, if you can regulate yourself, you can make this better. And so one thing I do in these moments where I'm like I'm gonna start yelling is I walk away first. Like I physically turn and walk out of the room if necessary, right? Like not. I just like if I'm really, really there, I just need to literally not be in that moment.
[00:12:02] Leah Clionsky: I will remind myself of whatever is at play. So I might say to myself, he didn't understand that it was this problematic, or this is normal for toddlers. I'm frustrated and this is normal. Or, um, a easy mantra is she's only three. She's only three. She's only three. She's only three. So like, whatever. I would think of it now, right?
[00:12:28] Leah Clionsky: 'cause your kid is gonna do this. Like think, think of a mantra. Think of a thing that you can tell yourself in that moment that is going to remind you that there is another person with a valid viewpoint happening at the same time. And that will help calm you down. Like my son. My daughter's comment, I thought it would be funny.
[00:12:48] Leah Clionsky: Really helped me reorganize my thoughts around her actions with the peanut butter. Or, um, recently my son threw a Beanie Baby and it hit me in the face and it hit me in the face really pretty hard. You wouldn't expect those to hurt, but they kind of do. And I, for a minute, I was like, why did you do this?
[00:13:08] Leah Clionsky: Why did you hurt me? And he sort of froze up about 20 minutes later. I asked him like, how do you feel about throwing the Beanie Baby at my face? He said, I'm sad, but mommy, I thought you would catch it. So in his mind we were playing catch, but he had not informed me that we were playing catch. Sometimes it's communication problems.
[00:13:32] Leah Clionsky: So first thing is remind yourself. Use whatever mantra you can to remind yourself of your child's. Age so that you can calm down. So get yourself out of there and then, and remind yourself that it's developmentally appropriate and not aimed at ruining your life. Our kids don't wanna ruin our lives. They don't wanna make us unhappy.
[00:13:57] Leah Clionsky: So keep that for a second until you can respond, solve the immediate problem. So if there's peanut butter. Wash the peanut butter. If there's sharpie on the wall, wash the sharpie, right? If there's two kids who have now accidentally hurt each other, do first aid and separate them, you know, think about how do I solve this problem and ask your child why they did it.
[00:14:24] Leah Clionsky: Now often kids can't tell us why, or they can't tell us why in the moment. Um, because they, they haven't thought it through. Sometimes I'll say something like, you know, you. I'm gonna use the Sharpie example, which has luckily not happened yet in my house, but who knows? It could happen today. You know, you decided to draw on the wall with Sharpie.
[00:14:45] Leah Clionsky: Tell me what you were thinking when you did that. And this is probably a conversation that needs to happen a little bit after the event, once everyone is calmed down. And if they're like, I don't know. And you're like, well, sometimes people do things like that 'cause they think it will feel good or they think it will be funny or they just really like to draw.
[00:15:04] Leah Clionsky: What were you thinking? Like just kind of basically saying there, there could be a valid reason why you did this in your mind. If you ask the question and you just get a, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know because you're not like, why did you do this? I'm interrogating you for motive. It's like an open curiosity.
[00:15:22] Leah Clionsky: You're approaching them with curiosity, like what was going on with you when you did this? And then you can offer a different solution. You can say the problem with drawing on the wall with Mark with Sharpie is that now our wall can't take the Sharpie off and we're gonna have to repaint it, and that's gonna take a lot of time and effort and money, and that's why I don't like it.
[00:15:46] Leah Clionsky: When you do that, the next time you wanna draw, let me know and I will get you some paper. So you're giving like a solution to how they can get what you want. Or When my son confessed, I thought you would catch the Beanie Baby. I said to him, well the problem with throwing it right at my face is that it hurt when it hit me.
[00:16:06] Leah Clionsky: But if you want to play catch, then what you need to say is catch. And then I'll know you wanna play catch and then I can catch the Beanie Baby. He was like, oh. So the next day I hear catch and I catch the thing that's being thrown at me. I mean, next we can work on like establishing that I even wanna play catch right.
[00:16:27] Leah Clionsky: But what we, what I clearly ran into was a skills deficit. So you don't, it's, I'm not saying like, you don't, you don't get to correct the behavior. Like you can say like, I really don't like that you did this. Now that your hair is full of peanut butter, we have to do a full bath. We're gonna be pretty late for school.
[00:16:45] Leah Clionsky: We have to start all over again. I can see why you thought this would be fun, but it's actually created a really big problem and you can't do this anymore, right? So you can have a, a corrective conversation, but it comes across completely differently than if you're just screaming or getting really, really, like, well fine.
[00:17:06] Leah Clionsky: Now you've lost this privilege, and your child's sitting there thinking, I didn't even mean to cause a problem for you. All right, so I feel like I've been a little less clear in this step. So to summarize, first thing, calm yourself down. Remember your child. Think about their newborn baby pictures, right?
[00:17:24] Leah Clionsky: Remember, it's developmentally appropriate for them to do these things that are experiments on their end, but problematic for us, inconvenient for us to, you know, solve your immediate problem. Fix whatever is going on. You know, clean up the mess, reply the first aid, do the thing that needs to be done in the moment.
[00:17:48] Leah Clionsky: And the third is explore with curiosity. Once everyone has calmed down and you're not, don't, don't explore with accusation, explore with curiosity. Really a, I really do truly wanna understand where you're coming from. And then the fourth one is, see if you can. Find a way for them to get their needs met.
[00:18:06] Leah Clionsky: You can do some teaching in that moment around what to do. What do you do if you wanna color? What do you do if you want to play with something in your hair? You know, like if that had been the real need, then maybe could, she could have put in her own shampoo at bath time. Right. In that case it was just a impulsive experiment.
[00:18:25] Leah Clionsky: Um, and my daughter did not like getting a shower in the morning, so that one sort of sorted itself out. But sometimes, like if we can figure out why our kid is doing something, then we can solve the problem. Or sometimes just understanding why it didn't work. Is very helpful. Like I understood after I tried to jump on my brother's stomach that I could have badly hurt him, and that's why it scared my parents.
[00:18:48] Leah Clionsky: And also that unfortunately you have to jump on trampolines and brother's tummies do not work as trampolines. So really trying to get there from a curiosity, understanding perspective. Will get you a lot further than coming down in a really angry way, which is again, our natural reaction to that. So I'm not saying let this continue.
[00:19:12] Leah Clionsky: Your home is a free for all, and I'm also saying it's normal and see if you can make it a conversation. Where you learn something about what's going on, or at least if you can't hear where they're coming from, you can explain later why that didn't work and give some alternatives and it will get you a lot further and it will make you feel better about how you reacted.
[00:19:36] Leah Clionsky: And it will deescalate and escalating pattern where then your child feels unfairly yelled at, and then everything kind of gets worse and worse and worse. All right. I hope this episode was helpful to you. You know, I get, I get those moments. I often choose to think of them as funny, and if you have a good parent support system, you know someone you can text who will laugh with you, that's very helpful.
[00:20:00] Leah Clionsky: If you're running into these problems a lot and you're just feeling really overwhelmed, but with your own emotions, we do have our calm and connected parent group where you can work on connecting with other parents and also learning some skills for staying calmer in those moments. And if you're dealing with some really, um, challenging behaviors that seem a lot more intentional.
[00:20:21] Leah Clionsky: Are recurrent and are causing a lot of problems in your family, then we can probably help you at Thriving Child Center and PCIT experts. You can schedule a matching call. We will find the right therapist for you so you don't have to shop around and we'll get you all set up so that things can get better right away.
[00:20:37] Leah Clionsky: But I'm so glad I got to speak with you today. I hope your mornings remain peanut butter shampoo free. I will talk to you again next time.