08/09/2026
Sometimes the “bad kid” is actually a scared kid who learned how to survive.
I wish more adults understood that before deciding what kind of child they’re looking at.
The child melting down in the grocery store might not be spoiled. The child hiding food in their bedroom might not be greedy. The child who lies about things that make absolutely no sense might have learned that telling the truth wasn’t always safe. The child who loses their mind over something that seems ridiculously small to you might be reacting to something much bigger than what just happened.
And that child who pushes you away every single time you try to get close? Maybe people haven’t always stayed.
I’ve watched children come into a safe home and still behave like they’re fighting for survival. Of course they do. Their address changed. Their nervous system didn’t get the memo.
You can put clean sheets on the bed, fill the refrigerator, establish routines and tell them a thousand times that they are safe, but you cannot expect a child’s body to immediately believe something their life may have taught them not to trust.
That takes time.
And sometimes healing is ugly.
Sometimes it looks like screaming, hoarding food, stealing things they already have, destroying something they love, lying, shutting down, controlling everything around them or completely losing it because you bought the wrong kind of cereal.
That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be boundaries. Trauma does not mean we stop parenting children or teaching them what is acceptable. But there is a huge difference between correcting a behavior and deciding that behavior tells you who a child is.
I will correct the behavior all day long.
But I will not call a hurting child bad.
Because when you know even a little bit of their story, sometimes the behavior that makes absolutely no sense to everyone else makes perfect sense.
Maybe that behavior kept them safe once.
Maybe hiding food meant they knew they would eat tomorrow. Maybe staying awake meant they could hear if someone came into the room. Maybe controlling every tiny thing was the only way they ever felt like they had control over anything.
Now they have to learn something completely different.
They have to learn that there will still be food tomorrow. That adults can say something and actually mean it. That mistakes don’t automatically mean someone is leaving. That bedtime can just mean bedtime.
That kind of healing doesn’t happen because a child moved into a “good home.”
It happens slowly, sometimes painfully, through a thousand ordinary moments where the adults around them keep showing up.
So before you call a child manipulative, difficult, disrespectful, spoiled or bad, remember that you might be looking at a survival skill that has simply outlived the danger it was created for.
Correct the behavior.
Teach them a better way.
But please don’t make their trauma their identity.
They have already carried enough.
