Polly Bath: When we are dealing with a child who has a behavior problem, we automatically want to take all the control away from them. Sometimes it’s the worst thing we can do.

How do we react when someone takes all the control away from us?

We panic, right? We get frustrated. We fight back.

Now, for a vulnerable kid, who always wants control, we have to be careful about when we give them some control.

I once dealt with a kid in middle school who wanted to control every situation. One of the biggest things was that he hated eating in the cafeteria. And he would argue with everybody about it.

This was a battle that didn’t need to be fought. So, we decided to give him that little control and let him eat someplace else.

By doing this, we opened up a window to be able to teach him other things that WERE needed. But we had to give him something first.