The tip of the iceberg

Picture an iceberg. What you see above the surface of the water is only a small part. The largest part lies below, invisible, quiet – and it carries everything that happens up top.

Behavior is exactly that: the tip of the iceberg. Crying, running away, screaming, freezing, hitting, sudden silence – all of that is what we see. It is loud, visible, sometimes overwhelming. And precisely because it is so visible, we direct almost all of our attention to it.

But the visible part is never the whole story. Beneath the surface lies what set the behavior in motion in the first place: a need that was not met in that moment. A stimulus – that is, a sensory impression like noise, light, or an unexpected touch – that became too much. A demand the child could not manage in that moment. Or very often: a lack of words for something that feels big inside and is welling up.

That is the heart of this entire course, and I will say it clearly right at the start: Behavior is communication. No child behaves in a challenging way “just because.” Behavior is always a message – even when we do not understand it at first.

What we see, and what lies beneath

In my work I often see how much parents focus on what is happening up top. And that is completely understandable – the visible part is what demands our attention, what sometimes pushes us to the edge. And yet it helps to pause for a moment and ask: what is actually the behavior, and what is the message beneath it?

A few examples of what this can look like. These children do not exist as specific people – they are images in which many families recognize themselves:

What you see: When it is time to leave the playground, the child throws themselves on the ground and screams. What might lie beneath: “I was in the middle of playing. The sudden change was too much, and I did not have time to adjust inside.”
What you see: In the store, the child covers their ears and just wants to get out. What might lie beneath: “The lights are flickering, the checkout is beeping, there is a sharp smell – my body is full, I cannot take in anything more.”
What you see: During homework, the child sweeps everything off the table and says, “I'm stupid.” What might lie beneath: “I want to do this and I can't, and the gap between wanting and being able hurts so much that I don't know any other way to show it.”

Do you notice something? In none of these cases does the child want to make us angry. In every case there is a real, understandable need beneath the behavior – and the behavior is the only path the child could find in that moment to show it.

“Why are they doing this?” is the wrong first question

When a behavior surprises or overwhelms us, one question comes almost automatically: “Why are they doing this?”

The question is understandable – but it easily leads us astray. Because “Why?” sounds like curiosity, yet it often means something else. Hidden inside it is often a quiet “Why are they doing this to me?” or “Why can't they just behave?” That question looks for a culprit or a fault to be rooted out. And it assumes the child made a conscious choice.

Most of the time, that is not the case. An overloaded nervous system does not make decisions. A child who has no words for their distress does not choose between “staying calm” and “exploding.” They do the only thing they can in that moment.

So I would like to suggest a different first question. Not “Why are they doing this?” but:

“What are they trying to tell me right now?”

That question changes everything. It does not make you a judge – it makes you a translator. It assumes that a message exists – and that your job is to decode it, not to punish the behavior. And along the way, it takes the pressure off: you no longer have to “get something right” immediately. You are allowed to understand first.

From correcting to understanding

I know this is easier said than lived. When your child is screaming or hitting right now, you want it to stop – not to receive a message. That is human. And still, I invite you to a small shift in perspective.

As long as we mainly want to correct behavior, we are working on the tip of the iceberg. We try to suppress the visible part – and are surprised when it keeps coming back. It comes back because what lies beneath is still there. The need has not been seen, so it keeps speaking up.

When we begin to understand instead, something different happens. We are working below the surface. We no longer ask only “How do I make this stop?” but “What does my child need so they don't have to say it this way at all?” That does not mean everything is suddenly allowed – boundaries and safety remain important. It means we set the boundary with understanding instead of punishment. Many families find it helpful to notice: understanding and guidance are not opposites. A child follows most easily someone with whom they feel understood.

And one more thing matters to me: this is not about anyone having done something “wrong.” Almost all of us learned to respond to behavior by naming and correcting it. That is not guilt – it is simply what we were shown. This lesson only invites you to add another layer: read first, then act. That way, much of what you do often lands more calmly and more steadily – with your child and with you.

The first step is observing

You do not have to change anything about your own behavior today. The first step is much smaller and much gentler: just look more closely.

Before we think about doing anything differently, we practice reading the signal at all. We look: what happened right before the behavior? What stimulus or demand was in the room? What might the child have needed? Often, half the answer already lies in that careful looking. And often the situation eases simply because the child senses: “Someone is trying to understand me, not change me.”

That is exactly what the small practice sheet at the end of this lesson is for – “My observer's eye.” With it, you take one single situation from the past few days and look at it through new glasses. No judging, no solving. Just reading.

Bridge to Lesson 2

In this first lesson we laid the foundation: behavior is a signal, not a problem that has to disappear. The better first question is “What is my child trying to tell me?”

In Lesson 2 we dive deeper below the waterline. We will take a closer look at what can actually lie down there – the most common needs and triggers behind the behavior that demands so much of us. You will get a kind of map to read your child's signals even more reliably.

For today, one sentence is enough to take with you:

My child doesn't have difficult behavior. My child has something important to say – and I am learning to listen.