What if Your Child's Behaviour Is a Response to an Unpredictable World?
By Dr. Bob Carey
New research suggests that the everyday experiences we sometimes overlook may have a much greater influence on children's emotional well-being than we realize.
Most parents are familiar with those mornings when everything seems to go wrong. One child cannot find their shoes, another is refusing to get dressed, breakfast has barely been touched, and the clock seems to be moving much faster than everyone else. A parent who began the morning determined to remain patient and organized gradually becomes frustrated, reminders turn into demands, and before long the entire family is caught up in an unpleasant exchange that leaves everyone feeling upset. By the time the children have left for school, the parents may already be wondering why something as ordinary as getting ready in the morning has become so difficult.
For many families, these experiences are simply accepted as part of raising children. Parents recognize that children can be demanding, that routines do not always go smoothly, and that even the most carefully planned day can become unexpectedly complicated. However, when these difficulties occur frequently, parents may begin to focus increasingly on the child's behaviour, wondering why their child is so uncooperative, why ordinary requests lead to arguments, or why seemingly minor disappointments produce such intense emotional reactions. The natural response is often to look for more effective ways of managing the behaviour, perhaps through clearer rules, stronger consequences, additional rewards, or greater consistency in discipline.
Although these approaches can certainly be helpful, I have often wondered whether our efforts to manage children's behaviour sometimes prevent us from considering a more fundamental question. Rather than concentrating exclusively on what the child is doing, perhaps we should spend more time examining what the child is experiencing and how the circumstances surrounding them may be influencing their ability to cope with everyday expectations.
A fascinating study published in Nature Mental Health in July 2026 provides an interesting perspective on this question. The researchers examined the relationship between unpredictability in children's everyday environments and their emotional and behavioural well-being, identifying an aspect of childhood experience that has received considerably less attention than more recognizable forms of adversity. Their findings are particularly relevant to the principles underlying Positive Systems Approach (PSA), which has been central to my professional work for many years and forms the foundation of my latest book, What if It's Not Just the Behaviour? A Parent's Companion.
Looking Beyond Traditional Understandings of Childhood Adversity
Over the past several decades, considerable attention has been devoted to understanding the effects of adverse childhood experiences, commonly referred to as ACEs. These experiences include abuse, neglect, exposure to domestic violence, and other significant disruptions in children's lives. Research has demonstrated that exposure to such experiences is associated with an increased likelihood of emotional, behavioural, and physical health difficulties, sometimes extending well into adulthood. Consequently, screening for childhood adversity has become an increasingly important component of pediatric and mental health services.
However, there are many children who experience significant emotional and behavioural difficulties despite having no apparent history of these more serious forms of adversity. Some children struggle with anxiety, emotional regulation, sleep difficulties, or persistent behavioural challenges in families where there is no evidence of abuse, neglect, or other traditionally recognized traumatic experiences. This raises the possibility that there may be additional aspects of children's everyday environments that influence their development and emotional well-being, but which are not adequately captured by conventional approaches to understanding childhood stress.
Researchers Laura Glynn, Tallie Baram, and their colleagues explored this possibility in a large study involving 29,861 children and adolescents attending 19 pediatric primary care clinics in California. In addition to examining conventional adverse childhood experiences, the researchers assessed the extent to which children were exposed to unpredictability in their everyday lives. This included experiences associated with inconsistency and uncertainty in the environments and relationships upon which children depend.
The researchers found that greater exposure to unpredictability was associated with an increased likelihood of several mental health difficulties, including depression, anxiety, externalizing behavioural problems, and sleep disorders. Of particular interest was the finding that measures of unpredictability identified additional mental health risks among some children who had not reported conventional adverse childhood experiences. This suggests that children may experience significant stress associated with the uncertainty of their everyday environments, even when their circumstances do not include the more dramatic adversities that traditionally attract clinical attention.
As with all observational research, these findings need to be interpreted carefully. The study does not establish that unpredictability directly causes mental health difficulties, nor does it demonstrate that introducing more consistent routines will necessarily eliminate these problems. Nevertheless, it provides an important reminder that children's emotional well-being is influenced by a broader range of experiences than we sometimes recognize and that relatively ordinary aspects of family life may deserve greater consideration when we are trying to understand why a child is struggling.
Why Predictability Matters in Children's Lives
To appreciate the potential importance of predictability, it may be helpful to consider how adults respond when they find themselves in environments where expectations are constantly changing. Imagine working in an organization where responsibilities are poorly defined, where the same behaviour is praised on one occasion and criticized on another, and where the reactions of supervisors are difficult to anticipate. Even a capable and emotionally resilient adult would likely find such circumstances stressful over time, particularly if there were few opportunities to influence what was happening.
Children are considerably more dependent on the predictability of their environments because they have not yet developed the cognitive, emotional, and social resources that adults use to manage uncertainty. Much of their understanding of the world develops through repeated experiences in which they gradually learn what to expect from other people, how daily activities are organized, and what consequences are likely to follow particular events. Familiar routines and reasonably consistent expectations provide a foundation of security that allows children to devote their attention to learning, developing relationships, exploring their surroundings, and acquiring greater independence.
When the environment becomes difficult to anticipate, some children may devote considerably more emotional energy to trying to understand what is going to happen next. They may become more vigilant, anxious, irritable, or resistant to changes that appear relatively insignificant to the adults around them. Others may seek greater control over their surroundings, repeatedly ask questions, resist unfamiliar activities, or become distressed when established routines are interrupted. These responses are not necessarily deliberate attempts to be difficult but may reflect the child's efforts to manage circumstances that feel uncertain or overwhelming.
Of course, family life cannot and should not be completely predictable. Children need opportunities to develop flexibility, cope with disappointment, and learn that unexpected events are a normal part of life. There is an important distinction, however, between occasional changes in routine and an environment in which expectations, relationships, or daily experiences are persistently uncertain. The objective is not to create a rigid household where everything happens according to an inflexible schedule, but rather to provide sufficient consistency and emotional security that children can gradually develop the confidence and skills necessary to manage life's inevitable disruptions.
Why Children Respond Differently to the Same Environment
One of the most interesting aspects of child development is the considerable variation in how children respond to apparently similar experiences. Parents frequently describe situations in which two children raised in the same household, exposed to similar expectations, and provided with comparable opportunities nevertheless respond very differently to everyday demands. One child may readily accept changes in plans, while another becomes extremely distressed. One may recover quickly from disappointment, while another requires considerable time and support before regaining emotional control.
These differences become much easier to understand when we recognize that children bring their own individual characteristics to every situation. Temperament, cognitive abilities, language development, attention, emotional regulation, sensory sensitivities, previous learning experiences, and developmental vulnerabilities all influence how children perceive and respond to their environments. Consequently, the same family routine or parental expectation may be entirely manageable for one child while creating significant difficulties for another.
Consider, for example, a child with autism who has difficulty managing unexpected changes, or a child with ADHD who relies heavily on external structure to organize activities and regulate attention. For these children, inconsistent routines or rapidly changing expectations may create difficulties that are not nearly as apparent in their siblings. Similarly, a child who experiences significant anxiety may interpret uncertainty as threatening and respond by seeking repeated reassurance, attempting to control situations, or avoiding activities in which the outcome is unclear.
In each of these examples, the child's response reflects an interaction between individual characteristics and environmental circumstances. It would be misleading to attribute the difficulties entirely to the child's developmental or emotional vulnerabilities, just as it would be inappropriate to conclude that the family environment alone is responsible. Rather, the behaviour emerges from the relationship between the two and understanding that relationship is essential if we hope to develop effective supports.
This interaction between individual and environmental influences is precisely what Positive Systems Approach attempts to address.
Understanding Behaviour Through Positive Systems Approach
Throughout my professional work, I have encountered many situations in which considerable effort was being devoted to changing an individual's behaviour without sufficient attention to the circumstances contributing to it. Parents were encouraged to introduce stronger consequences, teachers were advised to establish more effective reinforcement systems, and caregivers were provided with strategies intended to reduce challenging behaviour. While many of these interventions were based on sound behavioural principles, their effectiveness was sometimes limited because the underlying reasons for the behaviour had not been adequately understood.
Positive Systems Approach was developed from the recognition that behaviour is influenced by a complex interaction between characteristics of the individual and the various systems in which that individual functions. Rather than focusing exclusively on observable behaviour, PSA encourages a broader examination of the circumstances that contribute to its development and persistence. The approach identifies seven Individual Factors and seven System Factors that provide a framework for considering the range of influences that may be relevant in any particular situation.
The Individual Factors direct attention toward characteristics such as a person's developmental abilities, communication skills, emotional functioning, learning experiences, and other personal strengths or vulnerabilities. The System Factors encourage consideration of the environments in which the person lives, including the expectations placed upon them, the nature of their relationships, the structure of everyday activities, and the responses they receive from others. Although these factors can be examined separately, their greatest importance lies in understanding how they interact.
A child who has difficulty regulating emotions, for example, may function reasonably well in an environment where expectations are clear, transitions are predictable, and adults provide appropriate support. The same child may experience considerably greater difficulty when confronted with rapidly changing demands, inconsistent responses, or expectations that exceed their developmental abilities. Similarly, a child with limited communication skills may become increasingly frustrated when adults repeatedly misunderstand their needs, particularly if the child has few effective alternatives for expressing distress.
From this perspective, challenging behaviour is not viewed simply as a problem located within the individual. It is understood as something that develops and occurs within a particular context, often reflecting the interaction between the individual's abilities and the demands or characteristics of the surrounding environment.
The recent research on childhood unpredictability is particularly interesting because it draws attention to one of the environmental influences that may contribute to these interactions. While the study was not designed to evaluate Positive Systems Approach, its findings are consistent with the broader principle that understanding children's mental health and behaviour requires consideration of the environments in which they develop.
When Family Interactions Become Part of the Problem
An important aspect of family life that is sometimes overlooked is the way patterns of interaction gradually develop between children and the adults around them. These patterns rarely emerge suddenly, and they are seldom the result of any one person's actions. Rather, they evolve through repeated experiences in which the behaviour of one family member influences the responses of others, creating a cycle that can become increasingly difficult to change.
Consider a family in which a child regularly becomes upset when asked to stop playing video games. Initially, the parents may provide reminders and expect the child to cooperate. When the child resists, the parents become firmer, perhaps introducing consequences or threatening to remove access to the game. The child responds with further arguments or emotional distress, and what began as a relatively ordinary request gradually develops into a prolonged conflict.
As these interactions are repeated, the parents may begin anticipating the difficulty before it occurs. On some occasions, they insist that the child stop immediately, while on others they allow additional time because they are exhausted or want to avoid another confrontation. The child, meanwhile, becomes increasingly uncertain about what will happen and may continue arguing in the hope that the outcome will be different. Eventually, the entire family begins to organize aspects of its routine around the anticipation of another conflict.
At this point, the child's behaviour may be described as increasingly oppositional or defiant, and the family may seek assistance specifically to address the child's refusal to cooperate. Yet a broader examination might reveal that the difficulty involves several interacting factors, including the child's ability to manage transitions, the reinforcing qualities of the activity, inconsistent expectations, parental fatigue, and an established pattern of interaction in which everyone has become increasingly frustrated.
A Positive Systems Approach would attempt to understand these influences before deciding how best to intervene. Rather than simply introducing stronger consequences, the family might benefit from establishing clearer and more predictable routines, providing advance notice before transitions, helping the child develop strategies for managing disappointment, and ensuring that parental expectations are both realistic and reasonably consistent.
The objective would be to change the pattern of interaction rather than continuing to respond to each episode as though it were an isolated behavioural problem. This distinction is particularly important because repeated conflict can gradually alter the emotional climate of a family, making even relatively minor expectations a source of tension.
Predictability, Emotional Security, and the Pressures on Parents
Any discussion of the influence of family environments on children's mental health needs to acknowledge the considerable pressures experienced by parents. It would be both unfair and inaccurate to interpret research on childhood unpredictability as evidence that parents are responsible for their children's emotional or behavioural difficulties. Families function within broader social and economic systems, and many of the circumstances that influence daily routines are not entirely within parental control.
A parent working irregular shifts may find it difficult to maintain consistent evening routines, while a family dealing with financial insecurity, illness, disability, or limited community support may face ongoing disruptions despite considerable efforts to provide a stable home. Parents who are exhausted, overwhelmed, or managing their own emotional difficulties may struggle to respond consistently, even when they understand the importance of doing so. These circumstances illustrate why a systems perspective must extend beyond the immediate interactions between parents and children.
The researchers themselves recognize that addressing unpredictability may require interventions that extend beyond individual parenting practices. Broader circumstances, including employment conditions and the availability of family supports, may influence the extent to which parents can provide predictable routines and responsive caregiving. This is an important consideration because recommendations that appear straightforward in principle may be difficult to implement when families lack the necessary resources or flexibility.
At the same time, emotional security does not depend on parents being consistently calm, endlessly patient, or perfectly organized. Children can tolerate occasional frustration, disagreement, and disruption, particularly when they experience their relationships with caregivers as generally supportive and reliable. Indeed, learning that relationships can withstand disagreements and that difficulties can be resolved is itself an important developmental experience.
What appears to matter is the broader pattern of the child's experience, including whether the people they depend upon are generally available, whether expectations are reasonably understandable, and whether daily life provides enough consistency to support a sense of security. Predictability, in this sense, involves much more than maintaining schedules. It also involves the quality and reliability of relationships and the child's growing confidence that difficult experiences can be managed with appropriate support.
Small Changes in the Environment Can Create New Opportunities
One of the encouraging implications of a systems perspective is that meaningful improvements do not always require dramatic interventions. Sometimes relatively modest changes in the environment can reduce unnecessary demands on a child and create opportunities for more successful interactions.
Consider a child who regularly experiences an emotional meltdown shortly after arriving home from school. Parents may understandably find this confusing, particularly if teachers report that the child has been cooperative and well behaved throughout the day. From the parents' perspective, the child appears to be saving their most difficult behaviour for home, where they should presumably feel most comfortable.
A closer examination may reveal that the child has spent the school day managing academic demands, social expectations, sensory stimulation, and the considerable effort required to maintain attention and regulate emotions. By the time they return home, their ability to tolerate additional demands may be significantly reduced. If the family routine involves immediate questions about homework, requests to complete chores, or pressure to discuss the events of the day, the child may become overwhelmed by expectations that would ordinarily be manageable.
In this situation, an intervention focused exclusively on reducing emotional outbursts might overlook the circumstances contributing to them. A more comprehensive approach might involve establishing a predictable period of quiet time after school, providing a snack, allowing access to a preferred calming activity, and gradually introducing additional expectations once the child has had an opportunity to recover. These changes would not eliminate the need for the child to develop emotional regulation skills, but they might create a more supportive environment in which those skills could be used successfully.
A similar analysis could be applied to bedtime difficulties, homework resistance, sibling conflict, morning routines, or many of the other challenges that parents encounter. In each case, the question becomes whether there are aspects of the child's individual functioning or surrounding environment that are making ordinary expectations unnecessarily difficult.
It is important to recognize that the recent study did not directly evaluate these interventions. Nevertheless, the findings encourage consideration of predictability as one potentially important aspect of the environment, and this fits naturally within the broader PSA framework for identifying and modifying factors that contribute to challenging behaviour.
Helping Parents Look at Behaviour Differently
One of the reasons I wrote What if It's Not Just the Behaviour? A Parent's Companion was to provide parents with a practical way of applying these principles to the situations they encounter in everyday family life. The book examines 45 common parenting scenarios, including homework battles, emotional meltdowns after school, bedtime struggles, sibling disagreements, excessive screen time, and circumstances in which family life has gradually become dominated by conflict.
Although these situations may appear quite different on the surface, they frequently share an important characteristic: the behaviour that concerns parents is only one part of a much larger picture. A child who refuses to complete homework may be experiencing learning difficulties, anxiety, problems with attention, or expectations that exceed their current abilities. A child who becomes distressed at bedtime may be struggling with separation fears, sensory sensitivities, inconsistent routines, or difficulty settling after an overstimulating evening. A child who repeatedly argues with parents may have become involved in a longstanding pattern of interaction in which both the child and the adults anticipate conflict before it even begins.
In each of these situations, the most productive starting point is not necessarily to determine which consequence will be most effective, but to develop a better understanding of why the behaviour is occurring and what factors may be maintaining it. Once those influences are understood, parents are in a much stronger position to develop strategies that address the underlying difficulties rather than simply reacting to their outward expression.
This does not mean abandoning expectations, avoiding consequences, or allowing children to determine every aspect of family life. Appropriate boundaries, consistent expectations, and opportunities to develop responsibility remain essential components of healthy development. The difference is that these strategies are introduced within a broader understanding of the child's abilities, needs, and circumstances, making it more likely that the expectations are reasonable and that the child has the necessary support to meet them.
The book is intended to help parents make this shift in perspective, moving from a narrow focus on controlling behaviour toward a more comprehensive understanding of the individual and the system. In many cases, the process begins with relatively simple questions about what the child is experiencing, what demands are being placed upon them, and whether changes in the environment might make those demands more manageable.
Rethinking What Children May Be Telling Us Through Their Behaviour
The recent findings on childhood unpredictability contribute to a growing body of research suggesting that children's emotional and behavioural difficulties cannot be adequately understood without considering the environments in which they develop. While individual characteristics such as temperament, cognitive abilities, developmental differences, and emotional regulation remain important, their influence is continually shaped by the expectations, relationships, routines, and experiences that make up everyday life.
For parents, this perspective can be both challenging and encouraging. It may require reconsidering familiar interpretations of behaviour and recognizing that strategies focused exclusively on compliance or consequences do not always address the underlying difficulties. At the same time, it opens the possibility that changes in routines, expectations, communication, and relationships may create opportunities for improvement that would otherwise have been overlooked.
Perhaps the most important implication is that we need to become more curious about children's experiences before deciding how to respond to their behaviour. When a child repeatedly struggles with ordinary expectations, it is worth considering not only whether the child has the skills necessary to manage those expectations, but also whether the environment is providing the consistency, clarity, and support that the child requires.
There will always be situations in which children need to learn new skills, develop greater flexibility, accept reasonable limits, or assume additional responsibility. However, these developmental goals are more likely to be achieved when adults understand the factors contributing to the child's difficulties and create circumstances that support successful learning.
The research on unpredictability is particularly valuable because it reminds us that the influences affecting children's well-being are not always dramatic or immediately apparent. Sometimes they are found in the ordinary routines of family life, the consistency of everyday expectations, or the ways adults respond when things do not go according to plan. These experiences may seem relatively insignificant when considered individually, but their cumulative influence can become important, particularly for children who are already vulnerable to anxiety, emotional dysregulation, or developmental difficulties.
For me, this research reinforces a principle that has guided Positive Systems Approach for many years. If we want to understand why children behave as they do, we must look beyond the behaviour itself and consider the interaction between the individual and the world in which they live. This does not diminish the importance of helping children develop appropriate skills or learn to manage their behaviour. Rather, it recognizes that their ability to do so is influenced by the circumstances we create around them.
Ultimately, the most useful question may not be how we can make a child behave differently, but how we can better understand the child's experience and create the conditions in which more appropriate behaviour becomes possible. That change in perspective is at the heart of What if It's Not Just the Behaviour? A Parent's Companion, and it is one that I believe can make a meaningful difference in how families understand and respond to the challenges of raising children.
References
Glynn, L. M., Liu, S. R., Golden, C., Weiss, M., Lucas, C. T., Cooper, D. M., Ehwerhemuepha, L., Stern, H. S., & Baram, T. Z. (2026). Unpredictability is a childhood adversity that contributes to mental health problems. Nature Mental Health, 4, 1219–1226. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00681-x
National Institutes of Health. (2026, October). Spotting mental health risks in kids. https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2026/10/spotting-mental-health-risks-kids
About the Author
Dr. Bob Carey is a psychologist and author of What if It's Not Just the Behaviour? A Parent's Companion. His work with Positive Systems Approach emphasizes understanding the interaction between individual characteristics and environmental influences when addressing challenging behaviour. Learn more at drbobcarey.com.
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