JJ Behavior and Relationship with Parents

It is observed that JJ often hits out on his parents and siblings when he is upset or even at times for no reasons. Hitting others for a 3-years old can be a natural response to a child's frustrations or angers or unmet needs. However, JJ's behaviour does not conform to a normal schema according to Piaget's theory, that a child grows in stages due to maturation biologically and in his interaction with his environment. JJ also should have the ability to express in simple sentences to make his needs known to his moms, but most time he resorts to physical aggressive.

According to B F Skinner and Ivan Pavlov's behaviourist approach on operant conditioning, JJ associates and learns that he can get his parents' attention whenever he hits them or the siblings. Even though he gets to be disciplined for time-out, his mom would be spending much time with him trying to pacific him or comfort him when he wails and cries.

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In his hitting behaviour, JJ is still getting the attention as a 3-years old would need from his caregiver. This hitting behaviour continues to be reinforced because it serves to meet JJ's need of attention and connection with his mom at this age. JJ uses two words 'stupid' and 'idiot' to insult the mom when he is being put on time-out. To have a 3-years old to use such language is inappropriate. He probably has picked up the words from the parents in their conversations. This is supported by Vygotsky's social contextual theory that a child's learning process is influenced greatly by his parents and caregivers.

In the Social-Emotional Development, every child is unique and has his own temperament and personality. As the child interacts with his social environment and culture, the people around him, the child would make sense of his world and develop his worldview towards people. A responsible and responsive parent or caregiver also would contribute to a child's positive development. JJs exhibits many episodes of screaming, bawling, hitting, crying and other outbursts of tantrum. This may be due to JJ's mom who has often use time-out to curb his misbehaviour. She seems to be drained, out of control and stressed in managing the household. Her low mood and negative and intense emotions may have impacted JJ in a negative way, as children of angry parents tends to be more aggressive and noncompliant. JJ learns to react whenever he is upset. Even when his siblings are playing by themselves besides him and have not disturbed him, he also chooses to hit out at them. What we see is JJ displaying intense anger and outburst in great frequency.