"He's doing it on purpose"

Your child's behaviour is a fire alarm. Stop turning it off.

Picture this week. You’ve been up since the baby woke at half five. Work was a write-off. You walk in the door and your partner hands him straight over, because she’s had her own day of it. He’s grizzling. You try the bottle, he turns his head. You try the bouncer, he arches his back. You walk him round the kitchen for the fifteenth time and he screams right in your ear, and something in you goes: he’s doing this on purpose. He knows I’ve got nothing left.

Maybe you don’t say it out loud. Or maybe you do. Maybe your body language communicates it? Maybe it comes out on the sofa later. “He’s having us on. He only kicks off when I’ve got work in the morning.”

“He’s just doing it for attention.” This is the one phrase I’ve heard more than any other in all my years working with dads. Honestly, I’d love a pound for every time I’ve heard something along these lines. It’d buy me a great holiday and give my face a rest from all the cringing.

But before I go on, this isn’t me telling you you’re a bad dad. It’s normal. When you’re struggling, when you feel like you’ve tried everything (you never have, btw, but to your knowledge you have)… once you think you’ve exhausted every avenue, there’s only one place left to go. It must be the child. Who else is left to take responsibility for everything that’s going on?

The problem is it’s like putting blinkers on a horse at the Grand National. The horse stays locked on what’s in front of it, so the noise and movement either side don’t pull its focus. But a dad who’s already decided his child is the problem stops looking at himself. It becomes a one-way mirror. He can see out, but he never catches his own reflection.

And blame is powerful. It has such a big impact. It tells someone we think there’s something wrong with them. That they’re the problem. When our kids hear it, it doesn’t stay a comment about one moment. It becomes part of who they think they are. It tells them we see them as difficult, as naughty, as someone we don’t much like or love. Blame on top of blame becomes shame. There’s something wrong with me, I’m bad, I’m naughty, I’m not good enough.

Is that an identity you’re happy for your child to carry?

So what actually lies underneath your own use of blame? I wonder if any of these phrases live in your own head too. Did you hear any of them yourself growing up, and how did they shape the way you see yourself? It’s worth asking, quietly, what’s underneath it for you.

Because if you stopped blaming them, there’d suddenly be room to stand in front of that mirror. And we need that. The self-reflection is where the growth is. It’s the only way we start doing things differently.

Think about it this way. If your boss blamed you for everything, day in day out, would you feel good about going in? Would you fancy distancing yourself from them? I know I would. Now think about what that same dynamic sets up between you and your child.

There’s real power in looking in the mirror instead. It changes the whole thing. Not just how you see your children, but how you see the world.

Because blame is toxic to a relationship. Think about a time you were blamed for something, especially something you didn’t feel was your fault. Did it bring you closer to that person? What did it do in your body, the anger, the resentment? And what does that do to a relationship over time?

Then ask yourself the questions that actually matter. What kind of relationship do you want with your kids? How do you want them to see you?

Far too often I hear the same things from the dads I work with. Different words, same thing. The child framed as the problem:

• He’s just doing it for attention.

• He’s only crying the second I put him down.

• You’ll spoil him if you pick him up every time.

• He’s making a rod for my own back.

• He’s got me wrapped round his finger and he knows it.

• She’s too clingy / needy / demanding.

• He’s being lazy.

• He’s doing it on purpose to keep me awake.

• He just needs to learn to self-settle.

• He’s playing games in the night.

• He’s a good baby / she’s a bad baby.

• She’s got a temper on her.

• She’s hard work / a handful / the difficult one.

• He’s the naughty one.

• He knows exactly what he’s doing.

• He’s doing it deliberately, to spite me.

• He’s testing me / seeing what he can get away with.

• He’s trying to wind me up / get a rise out of me.

• He’s trying to push my buttons.

• He waits till we’re in public to start.

• Crocodile tears, there’s nothing really wrong.

• She’s milking it / making a meal of it.

• He knows how to play me.

• He’s playing us off against each other.

• He only does it when there’s an audience.

• If I ignore it he’ll stop.

• He’s doing it because he knows I’ll give in.

• He’s manipulative.

• He’s a little so-and-so.

• She’s stubborn / strong-willed / defiant.

• He thinks he runs the show.

• He’s doing it to win / get one over on me.

• He’s challenging my authority.

If you use any of these, or something like them, check yourself in the mirror. How does saying it out loud change things between you and your child?

Here’s another way to look at it. The fire alarm goes off. You don’t climb up, pull the battery out because it’s making too much noise, and go back to bed. Of course you don’t. You take notice. You think about why it’s screaming at you. You pay attention to what caused the fire alarm to go off in the first place.

So why do we do the opposite with our kids? The behaviour is the alarm. The crying, the screaming, the slammed door, is the noise. Turning it off, calling him naughty, telling him to pack it in, that’s not dealing with the fire. It’s just silencing the thing that was trying to warn you that there were things going on underneath.

So no. You’re not a bad dad. And it’s not just that you’re shattered, though you probably are.

It runs deeper. Most of us blame because it’s the script we grew up with. We heard these phrases ourselves. They’re in our heads before we’ve even thought about it. Sometimes it’s shame doing the talking, that worry that we’re getting it wrong, and blame shifts that feeling off us and onto them. And a lot of the time it’s just that nobody ever told us what was really going on.

For the record.

A baby can’t wind you up on purpose. He can’t spite you, test you, or play games at 3am. He doesn’t have the capacity. Think about it, you’re their key to survival, it’s in their interest to keep you close. Why would they choose to annoy you and push you away when they need you for the basics like getting fed.

And the older ones? By the time they can do those things, it’s still not what’s actually going on. The kid who’s answering back, kicking off, pushing every button you’ve got, that’s not someone who’s out to get you. It’s your child telling you something they haven’t got the words for. The behaviour is never the whole story. It’s just the bit you can see.

The crying, the screaming, the slammed door, none of it’s a plan. It’s the best they’ve got to show you something’s wrong.

Remember - All behaviour is communication.

So next time you catch the thought, he’s doing it on purpose, don’t give yourself a hard time for it. Just get a bit curious. Stop and ask: what are they actually trying to tell me? What do they need from me?