#005 Is It the Child or Is It the Environment
ISSUE #005 | IS IT THE CHILD, OR IS IT THE ENVIRONMENT
THE INSIGHT
We are quick to turn a child’s behavior into a description of the child.
He cannot control himself.
She is not confident.
He does not listen.
She shuts down when things get hard.
But what happens when that same child walks into a different room, works with a different adult, or faces the same challenge in a different way?
Sometimes, we see a different child.
The impulsive child waits.
The anxious child joins in.
The child who “never listens” follows a three-step direction.
The child who gives up keeps trying.
For years, I have watched this happen in my work with children. Changing the structure of an activity, the way an adult responds, or the demands of the environment can completely change what a child is able to do.
My recent research helped me see this more clearly.
Behavior does not come from the child alone.
It develops in the space between the child and everything happening around that child.
That means a child’s behavior may tell us something about the child. But it may also tell us something about the demand, the relationship, and the environment in which we expected the child to perform.
WHAT THE RESEARCH TELLS US
Development does not happen inside a child while the rest of the world stands still.
Ecological theories of development explain that children are constantly affecting and being affected by their surroundings. Their development is shaped by their personal characteristics, relationships, repeated experiences, available opportunities, and the environments in which they participate (Burns et al., 2015; Gabbard & Krebs, 2012).
Attachment research gives us another part of the picture.
Mary Ainsworth found that children’s attachment behaviors became especially visible during stress, separation, and reunion. A child did not act the same way under every condition. The child’s behavior changed depending on what was happening and whether a dependable caregiver was available (Ainsworth, 1979).
David Shemmings later warned against treating disorganized attachment behavior as a permanent trait. The behavior appears when a child’s attachment system is activated. It is a response occurring under particular relational conditions, not a simple description of who the child is all the time (Shemmings, 2016).
These findings do not mean that children have no individual differences. Temperament, developmental level, neurodevelopment, past experience, physical needs, and existing skills still matter.
The environment is not the only influence.
The child is not the only influence either.
Behavior emerges through the interaction between them.
This raises an important possibility: What we see in one moment may not show us the full capacity of the child. It may show us how well the child can access and organize that capacity under those particular conditions.
That is an interpretation of the research, not a fact these studies directly tested. However, it offers a powerful way to think about why children can perform so differently from one setting to another.
WHY IT MATTERS
Adults often judge capacity by looking at performance.
A child does not wait during circle time, so we decide the child lacks impulse control.
A child speaks freely at home but remains silent in a group, so we decide the child lacks confidence.
A child follows directions during one-to-one therapy but struggles in a busy classroom, so we decide the skill did not work.
But those settings are not asking the child to do the same thing.
Waiting alone with one adult is not the same as waiting beside fifteen moving children.
Speaking at home is not the same as speaking while other children watch.
Following a direction in a quiet room is not the same as remembering that direction while managing noise, movement, social cues, and the fear of making a mistake.
The behavior may look simple.
The capacity underneath it is not.
A child may need to manage attention, emotion, body movement, memory, social information, and the adult’s expectations at the same time.
When we ignore those conditions, we may misread the child.
We may give more correction when the child needs more practice.
We may lower expectations when the child needs a better path toward meeting them.
We may keep working on the child while leaving the conditions that contribute to the struggle untouched.
Understanding context does not mean excusing harmful or disruptive behavior.
It means becoming more accurate about what must change.
RESEARCH FOR THE REAL WORLD
This research changes the first question I ask when a child struggles.
Instead of beginning with:
“What is wrong with this child?”
I begin with:
“What is this situation asking the child to do?”
Then I look underneath the behavior.
Does the child need to stop a body that is already moving?
Remember several directions?
Wait without knowing how long the wait will last?
Stay connected to an adult while being corrected?
Manage noise, people, movement, and frustration at the same time?
Recover after making a mistake in front of other children?
Once we name the actual demand, we can ask a better question:
“Where is this child getting the chance to build that capacity?”
For example, telling a child to “use self-control” does not build self-control.
A child needs repeated chances to start, stop, wait, shift, recover, and try again. The challenge must be real enough to require control, but structured enough that the child has a reasonable chance of succeeding.
The same is true for confidence.
Confidence is not built by repeatedly telling a child to be brave. Children need experiences in which they approach something uncertain, receive enough support to remain engaged, and discover that they can handle the experience.
Relationships matter here too.
A dependable adult does not remove every challenge. The adult helps create the conditions that allow the child to engage with the challenge.
In attachment theory, a secure relationship supports exploration. The adult becomes a base from which the child can move outward, not a shield that prevents the child from ever feeling uncomfortable.
In practical terms, adults can begin examining three parts of the environment:
The demand:
What is the child actually being asked to manage?
The support:
What structure, modeling, practice, or relationship is available?
The progression:
Has the child practiced this capacity under easier conditions before being expected to use it here?
Across 30 years of working with children, I have repeatedly observed that changing one of these conditions can change what a child demonstrates.
Sometimes the direction needs to be clearer.
Sometimes the waiting period needs to become predictable.
Sometimes the adult needs to stop repeating instructions and allow the child time to process.
Sometimes movement needs to be included instead of treated as the enemy of learning.
Sometimes the child needs to practice the capacity with support before being expected to use it independently in a group.
Changing the environment does not mean making everything easier.
It means designing the challenge more intentionally.
The goal is not to create a world in which children never struggle.
The goal is to create experiences through which they can build the capacity to struggle well.
THE BIGGER QUESTION
When a child cannot meet an expectation, we usually ask whether the child has the skill.
Perhaps we need to ask something more precise:
Are we seeing the child’s full capacity—or the child’s response to the conditions under which we demanded it?
SOURCES
Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1979). Infant–mother attachment. American Psychologist, 34(10), 932–937. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066x.34.10.932
Burns, M. K., Warmbold-Brann, K., & Zaslofsky, A. F. (2015). Ecological systems theory in School Psychology Review. School Psychology Review, 44(3), 249–261. https://doi.org/10.17105/SPR-15-0092.1
Gabbard, C., & Krebs, R. (2012). Studying environmental influence on motor development in children. The Physical Educator, 69(2), 136–149.
Shemmings, D. (2016). Making sense of disorganised attachment behaviour in pre-school children. Seen and Heard, 26(3), 45–63.
