I know a child who often has this reaction to negative consequences, natural or imposed. I’d welcome discussion on what works well for that mindset. I don’t have any insight, it’s not how my mind works.
It seems like very very small consequences can help a bit. Also trying to address the anxiety with OTC supplements like Magnesium Glycinate and lavender oil.
I’d guess that you have to rely a lot more on persuasion and positive reinforcement—if you want them to do something, it’s probably not going to happen unless they willingly agree to do it.
I wasn’t really like this until I was about 12-13 years old, though; as a younger child I often went into violent rages instead of displaying submissive behavior. I eventually did grow out of hitting peopIe and now only rarely feel genuine anger (as opposed to anger-adjacent feelings such as frustration), but 15-year-old me was still willing to passively resist by laying in a limp ball and enduring the consequences for as long as I needed to!
Update: I’m now familiar with the term “demand avoidance”. One recommendation for caregivers is “declarative language”. On LessWrong we might call it “guess culture” or perhaps “tell culture”. Aesthetically I dislike it, but it works for this child (in combination with other things, including your good advice of persuasion and positive reinforcement).
Although I don’t quite fit the broader diagnosis, the phrase “demand avoidance” does describe how I’ve been at my low points—what I wanted most at those times in my life was to be free from obligations in general, such as the obligation to go to school, the obligation to get out of bed, the obligation to eat food, etc. - for there to be absolutely nothing that I would “have to” do if I preferred not to do it. Unfortunately, taking that impulse—to be free to do absolutely nothing, without anyone or anything influencing me otherwise—to its logical extreme would mean being dead, because, given physics, nonexistence is the only state in which that condition actually holds.
I know a child who often has this reaction to negative consequences, natural or imposed. I’d welcome discussion on what works well for that mindset. I don’t have any insight, it’s not how my mind works.
It seems like very very small consequences can help a bit. Also trying to address the anxiety with OTC supplements like Magnesium Glycinate and lavender oil.
I’d guess that you have to rely a lot more on persuasion and positive reinforcement—if you want them to do something, it’s probably not going to happen unless they willingly agree to do it.
I wasn’t really like this until I was about 12-13 years old, though; as a younger child I often went into violent rages instead of displaying submissive behavior. I eventually did grow out of hitting peopIe and now only rarely feel genuine anger (as opposed to anger-adjacent feelings such as frustration), but 15-year-old me was still willing to passively resist by laying in a limp ball and enduring the consequences for as long as I needed to!
Update: I’m now familiar with the term “demand avoidance”. One recommendation for caregivers is “declarative language”. On LessWrong we might call it “guess culture” or perhaps “tell culture”. Aesthetically I dislike it, but it works for this child (in combination with other things, including your good advice of persuasion and positive reinforcement).
Although I don’t quite fit the broader diagnosis, the phrase “demand avoidance” does describe how I’ve been at my low points—what I wanted most at those times in my life was to be free from obligations in general, such as the obligation to go to school, the obligation to get out of bed, the obligation to eat food, etc. - for there to be absolutely nothing that I would “have to” do if I preferred not to do it. Unfortunately, taking that impulse—to be free to do absolutely nothing, without anyone or anything influencing me otherwise—to its logical extreme would mean being dead, because, given physics, nonexistence is the only state in which that condition actually holds.