🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Children and their behaviour (Part 3) + Transcript
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Hello, hello, dear listener, and welcome into our IELTS Speaking Part 3 about children and their behavior in general. Rory is a super expert on children. He taught all kinds of children in different countries. ♪

What bad behavior do children usually have? Oh, there's quite a range, really. And a lot of what is considered good and bad depends on cultural conceptions about how to behave properly. Generally speaking, though, it's about actions that disrupt the normal way things should go, or at least they aren't conducive to that. For example, throwing a temper tantrum in a shop isn't very pleasant for the people around you who have to experience this.

Uncontrolled noises aren't that great for public order, to be honest with you. Why do children misbehave? Well, as many reasons as there are potential bad behaviors, I'd imagine. It could be anything from just not having developed self-control to having some kind of behavioral or emotional issue like fetal alcohol syndrome. I mean, that's one end of the spectrum. On the other, they could just be having a very bad day and not dealing with it terribly well.

How should parents stop their children from behaving badly in public? Well, at the risk of repeating the same idea here, there's a huge spectrum of what's considered acceptable for that. I mean, in some places they just use corporal punishment and have no issue using physical force to enforce order, for lack of a better term.

While in others, parents just don't react at all, with the reasoning that, by not reacting, the child doesn't get the attention they want and hopefully opts for something more constructive. Whose influence on children is more important, friends or parents? I think that's dependent on where you are in life, really. At the start, your parents and relatives will have a greater influence just by virtue of the fact they are the ones you spend the most time with.

As you get older and grow more independent and have more relationships, your peers will probably have a much greater role to play in how you act since people generally move away from their families as they age, both physically and mentally. Are parents these days stricter than in the past? I'm not sure. So much of that depends on how we define notions of being strict and

How we measure them, if it's about the use of violence to enforce compliance, then they're probably less strict in many countries, since this is illegal, or strictly controlled. What are the reasons for bullying? It could be down to anything, really.

I remember being told it was related to insecurity by and large. And so when your position in the social hierarchy is threatened or perceived to be threatened, you tend to punch down to restore your certainty about where you are. So if someone is feeling constantly like they're under threat, they might opt to ghouly others to restore their sense of control. And of course, some people just have pathological disorders and enjoy terrorizing other people.

And what are the solutions? To bullying? To be honest, I'm not sure there are. There might be certain actions that are effectively trade-offs. For example, the solution could be to fight fire with fire and bully the bully right back. But then one risks becoming a bully themselves, and that sends the message that it's okay to harass others in the cause of self-defense.

or the perception of it. Adults could also intervene to help out, but then there's a risk of dependency on others to solve your problems, which could retard the development of your independence. So I don't think there are essential solutions in this case. I think it's just about the most effective methods to address the situation in the context in which it occurs. ♪

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Dear listener, you do know that our Rory got a Ben 9 for IELTS speaking recently. Not by bullying my examiner. Yeah, he bullied the examiner. Yeah, I bullied the examiner into giving me my mark. Bad behaviour. Dear listener, first of all, children's behaviour. Children misbehave or they behave badly. Okay. They can behave properly.

or behave well. Or you can just use "when children behave themselves". This means that they behave well. And children have bad behaviour when they disrupt the normal way things should go. Yeah. You may notice a common theme to my answers moving forward in that there is no one concrete answer to this because

How we define bad and good behaviour depends on the culture that we are in. So the best answer I can give here, based on my experience of the world, is just that it's something that disrupts how we think things should be. But you may ask yourself, who gets to decide what's normal and how things should be? Who decides this, Maria? Well... yeah, yeah, you have a point. But, like, generally speaking, right?

If children shout, if they scream, if they run all over the place, if, as you've just said, they disrupt people, they disrupt other people, they disrupt our life. Like I'm sitting there on a bus and then there's a child who runs all over the place, he's shouting, he's touching other people.

He screams out profanities, like bad language. This is disruptive.

And this is bad behavior. But what about in the context of a children's playground? Children run around screaming and causing chaos there, but it's acceptable. So it changes. It's not one fixed thing. It's very difficult to get a grip of. And then Vory does give some examples like throwing a temper tantrum. So throwing a tantrum. When a child throws a tantrum,

a child usually starts screaming, running all over the place. Yeah.

I want this tie! Like a sudden period of uncontrolled anger like a young child's. Like a child had a tantrum or a child threw a tantrum in the past or throw a tantrum. It is also worth pointing out that adults can have temper tantrums. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yes, if kind of... If Rory doesn't buy me diamonds, Maria throws a tantrum. Throws a temper tantrum. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

We've all, I imagine, everybody throughout their life has these periods of uncontrolled rage. It's just how long they last for that is the thing. Some people find it very difficult. Interesting to note is, apparently, scientifically speaking, you can only experience pure anger and rage for 90 seconds maximum. And then after that, you're just making yourself angry again by thinking about the situation. So...

This is something that we should be mindful of. If we experience the anger and if it continues for a long time, you have to think, am I really still angry in the moment from the neurotransmitters in my brain? Or am I just making myself angry by thinking about the situation again?

which can be a useful thing to tell children. Interesting. Wow. Yeah, so uncontrolled noises could be considered as bad behavior. Rory, don't we use an article like a bad behavior? You could. If you're talking about it in general, then you wouldn't have the article. If you're talking about a specific example, we could say a bad behavior. So, for example...

Throwing a temper tantrum is a bad behavior. Is considered to be a bad behavior. Yeah, but a safer expression would be an example of bad behavior. That might be safer to say. If you're using this, you're kind of in band 9 and beyond territory. And of course, some examiners may be stricter about this than others. So just an example of bad behavior, okay?

Children misbehave. Misbehave means behave badly. And usually the reasons are connected to not having self-control or having a very bad day. And then here, Rory, you are using bad behaviors in the plural. So many reasons for bad behaviors. It's also possible.

And also Rory paraphrases super well and uses behavioral. Behavioral. So he makes an adjective from behavior, which is super cool. So what can be behavioral? Anything connected to behavior. So this is a difficult one because it requires us to have an understanding of the causes behind things. Behavioral issues...

are connected to the expression of certain kinds of behavior and controlling them. So just allowing certain thoughts to dictate how you act might be a behavioral issue.

A developmental issue is something that interferes with your brain development or your body's development here. That is a very broad generalization. I am not a psychologist or a child psychologist. I just studied these things broadly. Right, dear listener. So you can say that the reasons could be connected to not having self-control, to other behavioral issues, to mental disorders, to mental diseases.

or like obsessive compulsive disorders, right? So like everybody is kind of a little bit obsessive compulsive these days. So yeah. Or you could name a specific illness like fetal alcohol syndrome. I don't suggest that you just throw that around

Without any context though. Fetal alcohol syndrome. Rory, come on, what? It's like it's banned. 15, not 9. We just need a 9, you know? We don't need 15. Well, it's a medical condition that's caused by exposure to alcohol when you're in the womb. So if your mother is drinking a lot, enough for it to enter your system as a fetus, as a child inside the mother,

then it can have serious consequences for your brain development and it can have consequences for your physical development as well. But we're talking about your behavior here so that seems more appropriate to talk about the psychological consequences. So fetal alcohol syndrome is a condition in a child that results from alcohol exposure during the mother's pregnancy. It can affect

brain behavioral and cognitive pro and and could cause physical behavioral and cognitive problems wow dear listener it could even affect a child's facial features so a child's a baby's face could be affected

Oh my god, this is just dreadful. Wow. Horrible. Horrible things. But yeah, very specific. And this is some of the things that you have to read about when you're a teacher in order to understand what problems people may be having.

Parents can use corporal punishment. Which is a very, very polite way of saying they could beat their children. Corporal punishment is a collocation and it means the physical punishment of people, especially of children, by hitting them. So pretty much you should say parents can hit their children, can beat them up. Or in a more formal way, you can say that parents...

use corporal punishment. In some countries teachers do it too. I have been to schools where this is a thing. I should point out I have never raised a hand to a child in my entire life but I have seen this happening and I don't recommend it. It doesn't seem to work in addition to being extremely unpleasant.

I should say, I would like to draw attention to something I said there, talking about force, because I said using physical force to enforce order. So I used the word force and a word that sounds like force in the same way. Sometimes when this happens, we can recognize that we said something that sounds very similar and strange and just say, for lack of a better term, which means I don't have another word to express this. And really, how often do you talk about being violent towards children? What

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Well, I don't know.

I don't know if it is more constructive always. Some people talk about ignoring the behavior of the child because the child is doing it because they want attention. But of course, you risk in the meantime, while they are regaining control of their senses, that they do something that's even more ridiculous than what they are doing in the first place.

So that might not be constructive. That might be something destructive there. And of course, this relies on a child having a normal thinking process. If the child has some kind of developmental disorder, they might not be able to get themselves out of that situation.

spiral and so ignoring them might just make problems worse. In addition to all the long term consequences that that can have. I agree. Yeah. So tough question. What I'm saying is I have no idea how to raise children so don't come to me for advice. Yeah.

Yeah, listen, if you have any ideas how to stop children from behaving badly in public, I don't know. Well, I think there will be a role where you need to use physical force in order to stop someone from seriously hurting themselves. But that's about protecting people. It's not about forcing someone to comply with your will. These are two different things. And generally speaking, it is very easy to tell the difference between that because you can see it in the adult perspective.

when they do this, what they are doing. Friends' influence on children is more important. Or parents' influence on kids is more important, for example. Or you can say that both friends and parents have an important influence on kids. But as always with my answers, it's both. This is my approach to answering questions from now on. It's like, it's both. It's this when it's this, and it's that when it's the other thing.

As children get older, as children grow more independent, as they become more independent, grow more independent, they're

Peers, friends, mates, classmates have a much greater role to play. A very good synonym to paraphrase influence. They have a much greater role to play. Parents are strict or stricter now than in the past. But it depends on how we define notions of strictness because...

If it is about violence, then probably people are less strict. But strictness isn't just about violence, it's also about being disciplined as well. And again, discipline is not about violence, discipline is about order and structure. So if you try and create an order and a structure for your children, that is...

very inflexible. That's quite strict. But it doesn't have to be based on violence. It could just be about saying: "No, we are not doing what you want to do now. We are doing this thing and no alternatives exist." Some questions could be about bullying. So, bullying is this horrible thing when people bully each other. Usually children bully each other at school or even students can bully each other at university.

C1, dear listener, bully. Oh, this will be an interesting one because there are entire books that are written on the subject of bullying and they find it extremely difficult to define. Yeah, according to the Cambridge Online Dictionary, to bully means to use your power or strength to frighten or hurt someone often over a period of time and often forcing that person to do something they don't want to do.

So bully, someone inter-doing something. Like, for example, he bullied her inter-giving him the money or inter-giving him all her food during lunch. C1.

And people who bully others are called bullies. So he is a bully, he bullies other people. And the reasons for bullying... When we talk about the reasons for anything, we could say... We could talk about what it's down to, what it comes down to. And that is just saying it's caused by this thing. But of course...

As is typical for my answers in this episode, I said it could be down to anything, really. So there are so many causes, I'm not even going to bother listing all of them. Yeah, or, um...

People tend to punch down to restore their certainty. So, punch down, like, meaning beating other people up? Not quite. It could be to do with hitting people, but punching down is actually just exerting the use of force against someone who is lower than you in the social order.

So, for example, if you are a particularly powerful or privileged person and your position is threatened, typically speaking, you will not go after the person who is threatening you. You will attack the person who is below you in the social order. And this is true for all kinds of situations.

So in school, it generally tends to be the weaker children who are picked on, not the stronger ones. Even though the weaker ones do not do anything to the ones who are relatively stronger than them. In the workplace, middle managers do not threaten the people who are above them. They threaten the people who are below them. And that's something to be mindful of if you ever find yourself in a position where you get angry with someone and you're taking it out on them.

You have to learn to stop yourself and say, hold on a minute. Am I aiming my anger in the right place? Because you probably will not be initially. This is something that affects everybody. So true. So to punch down is to attack or criticize someone who is less powerful than you. And usually bullies attack other people to restore their own certainty.

Or if people feel under threat, then they can bully other people. Yeah. See, it doesn't have to be an actual threat. It's about what they feel and what they perceive as the problem.

Oh, this is something else that I talked about in a previous episode where I discussed perception with my examiner in my exam. And I said, it's not about the actual problem. It's about how people perceive or think about what is going on, not actually the reality of the situation. Yeah. And you can say that's...

people might opt to bully others to restore their sense of control so they might opt to choose to bully others attack others to restore to kind of to have it back their sense of control so kind of to be in control usually people bully others and also bullies are

people who bully, have pathological disorders, so mental disorders, mental illnesses. Well, they might. Yeah, they might, they might. That's why they enjoy terrorizing others. So, to terrorize other people is a good synonym for bully people. And the solutions? Well, there might be certain actions to solve this problem.

The first one is to fight fire with fire. So, fight fire with fire. So, if a person is bullied, they can start bullying this person who bullies them. So, you get into this fight. So, you bully the bully right back.

Bully the bully. What? I don't recommend you do that though, because that is very unlikely to have positive consequences or positive results for you. You can also use a verb to harass. Harass others, like terrorize others, bully others or harass others. Harass, continue to annoy or upset someone over a period of time.

And this could be like self-defense if you fight fire with fire. You could ask adults to intervene and help out. So adults could help out, intervene, like get into these bullying situations. But this could retard the development of your independence.

So if a child asks adults for help all the time, this could retard their development. Retard in this context means it slows down the development of a child. Or reverses it. Right, dear listener, how are you doing? Are you okay? I feel like we've given a masterclass in how behavior works. Thank you very much for listening and we'll get back to you in our new episode. Bye! Bye! Bye!

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What bad behavior do children usually have? Oh, there's quite a range, really. And a lot of what is considered good and bad depends on cultural conceptions about how to behave properly. Generally speaking, though, it's about actions that disrupt the normal way things should go, or at least they aren't conducive to that. For example, throwing a temper tantrum in a shop isn't very pleasant for the people around you who have to experience this.

Uncontrolled noises aren't that great for public order, to be honest with you. Why do children misbehave? As many reasons as there are potential bad behaviors, I'd imagine. It could be anything from just not having developed self-control to having some kind of behavioral or emotional issue like fetal alcohol syndrome. I mean, that's one end of the spectrum. On the other, they could just be having a very bad day and not dealing with it terribly well.

How should parents stop their children from behaving badly in public? Well, at the risk of repeating the same idea here, there's a huge spectrum of what's considered acceptable for that. I mean, in some places, they just use corporal punishment and have no issue using physical force to...

In forced order, for lack of a better term. While in others, parents just don't react at all. With the reasoning that, by not reacting, the child doesn't get the attention they want and hopefully opts for something more constructive. Whose influence on children is more important? Friends or parents? I think that's dependent on where you are in life, really. At the start, your parents and relatives will have a greater influence just by virtue of the fact they are the ones you spend the most time with.

As you get older and grow more independent and have more relationships, your peers will probably have a much greater role to play in how you act since people generally move away from their families as they age, both physically and mentally. Are parents these days stricter than in the past? I'm not sure. So much of that depends on how we define notions of being strict and

How we measure them? If it's about the use of violence to enforce compliance, then they're probably less strict in many countries, since this is illegal, or strictly controlled. What are the reasons for bullying? It could be down to anything, really. Um...

I remember being told it was related to insecurity by and large. And so when your position in the social hierarchy is threatened or perceived to be threatened, you tend to punch down to restore your certainty about where you are. So if someone is feeling constantly like they're under threat, they might opt to ghouly others to restore their sense of control. And of course, some people just have pathological disorders and enjoy terrorizing other people.

And what are the solutions? To bullying? To be honest, I'm not sure there are. There might be certain actions that are effectively trade-offs. For example, the solution could be to fight fire with fire and bully the bully right back. But then one risks becoming a bully themselves, and that sends the message that it's okay to harass others in the cause of self-defense.

or the perception of it. Adults could also intervene to help out, but then there's a risk of dependency on others to solve your problems, which could retard the development of your independence. So I don't think there are essential solutions in this case. I think it's just about the most effective methods to address the situation in the context in which it occurs. ♪