Understanding Kids and Teens

When can you call a child teen? Basically, a child is an individual from conception to 18 years old, while a teen is in the 13 to 18 year old bracket. Though it overlaps the teen's age bracket, a child, also called a minor in legal terms, can still be categorized as a child and not a teen, depending on her or his mental state.

Child Behavior
How can you consider a child's behavior? There are many aspects in where to base your assessment. It can be answered using the child's age, his personality and his mental and emotional development. A “normal” child should be able to act his own age depending on his personality and should be showcasing proper mental and emotional development. His behavior would somehow be near to the expectation of what society and culture would define as normal. In connection, it is necessary to base a child's behavior with the culture and society he or she is based in and on what kind of family structure he has to get a correct analysis of his or her behavior.

What to do if a Child's Behavior is not Normal?
There are many methods on correcting an unwanted behavior. Should a method fail to stop or curb his or her behavior you can then adapt other tactics and test if it will work.

1. Asses - First off, try to gauge if the behavior is appropriate for his age and personality. Also, it is sometimes helpful to have a barometer for your child's behavior, for example, your neighbor's kid in the same age.
2. Ignore - This is usually effective if the child is misbehaving or having tantrums. It tells the kid you are not interested on what he or she is dong and should stop. A warning though, try to find out first if a repeating behavior is present as sometimes this may be a sign that the child is wanting more attention or lacking of it.
3. Reward System - This method is effective in trying to implement a new behavior for the child. It is also good to use this kind of practice when the child is behaving nicely or showing a good attitude. Do not overdo it though as this may cause concern in the future. It may develop on the kid that he or she would do only good things when rewarded or may behave good because he or she is going to be rewarded. Use this method with limitations.

A child's behavior may be corrected or changed but not his personality. Before trying to change a child's misbehavior, do try to learn if it may be due to his shy, social, active, or talkative personality. Being in a foul or cranky mood may be a direct result of tiredness, hunger, boredom, or overexcitement. A child's family or his everyday companions are also one of the factors in molding his behavior, so being inconsistent and acting what is socially wrong may confuse the child and would contribute in his behavior. Over all, what a child would usually see an adult will do, he or she usually follows it, so act what you want your child to act.