These are the ‘causes’ of the challenging behaviour. The way we feel and the things that happen to us, and around us, can change the way we behave. We separate these events into slow triggers and fast triggers.
Slow triggers – these are the things that are going on in the background and they often start a long time before the challenging behaviour. Slow triggers make challenging behaviour more likely to happen because they cause people not to feel at their best. Being aware of slow triggers can help us to understand that our young person may find things more tricky today, and may be more likely to communicate that to us through behaviours we find challenging.
Slow triggers include:
- Feeling unwell
- Feeling tired or not sleeping well
- Having nothing to do for a long time
- Being hungry
- Not having any attention
Fast triggers – as you might imagine these are the triggers that have an immediate effect and occur much closer to the behaviour.
Fast triggers include:
- Being ignored
- Being told to do something they don’t know how to do
- An event being cancelled
- Something unexpected happening
- Being told ‘no’
- Slow and fast triggers combine to cause challenging behaviour.
For example if your child is feeling ill, hasn’t slept well and is hungry they are more likely to react to a fast trigger such has being told their dinner isn’t ready than if they are happy and have slept well.