Steven is four years old and lives in a very busy family. Both his parents work at high powered jobs. He has a younger sister who has just turned two. If you could peek into Steven's life, this is what you would see:

Steven's father wakes him up and says, "Come on slow poke, get a move on it or you'll be late for school." Steven gets dressed walks into the kitchen and sits down at the table ready for breakfast. His father and sister are already eating their cereal when he begins chattering away, "Did you see Sesame Street yesterday? Big Bird was taking all the kids to the firehouse. I love Big Bird, but really my favorite person is Oscar. He's so grumpy all the time..." Steven continues babbling, trying to gets his parents attention until his father finally yells, "Steven, please! I don't care about Big Bird! Just eat your breakfast or you'll be late for school." Steven grows quiet and finishes only part of his food.

Steven arrives at preschool and runs into the the block area along with several other boys. They dump the containers full of wooden blocks onto the tile floor. Larry claims an area announcing, "I'm gonna make a block city!" and begins busily building his project complete with sky scrapers, bridges and parking garages. Steven plays nearby with some cars. He looks up and sees Larry's city and yells, "Look out earthquake!" He then proceeds to ram his car into the blocks which come crashing down onto the floor. Larry's city is completely destroyed. He glares at Steven and screams, "You wrecked my city! I hate you! I don't want to play with you anymore."

Just then a teacher comes over and asks, "What happened here?" "Steven ruined my city " Larry says tearfully. "He drove his car into it and wrecked it." Steven jumps up and starts slugging Larry before the teacher can intervene. "Steven, no hitting." She says, physically restraining him. "You better come with me if you can't play considerately around the other kids." Steven is removed from the block area and is sent over to circle time with Ruth.

Ruth invites him into the circle and gives him a rug square to sit on and asks, "Steven, would you like to tell us what you did over the weekend?" "No," Steven answers angrily, "I didn't do anything. You can't make me talk." "You're right Steve," Ruth replies recognizing how angry he is feeling. "You don't have to talk, that's fine."

As she begins to read a story to the group, she glances up and notices that Steven is pushing and pinching the kids on either side of him. "Steven," she sighs, "please come and sit up here next to me. I see you're having a hard time keeping your hands to yourself." He crawls along the floor while Ruth continues reading. As he is sitting next to her he starts sticking out his tongue and making faces at the other kids and distracts their attention away from the story. Ruth finally gives up and takes him over to the "time out" chair and says, "I want you to sit here and think about what you did. When you can control yourself comes back and join the circle."

It is clear that Steven is crying out for several things. He wants attention and to feel connected. But because he doesn't feel good about himself he continually finds aggressive, disruptive ways of getting these needs met.

If you could listen to Steven's internal dialogue about himself it would probably sound something like this, "I'm not very important. Nobody really likes me. Nobody wants to play with me. The kids think I'm dumb and too bossy. No one will pay attention to me. Even my parents don't like me." In short he lacks several of the four factors for self-esteem. He certainly doesn't feel powerful. He doesn't feel his parents listen to and respect him and his sense of belonging to his family is badly eroded. So, he attempts to fill in these emotional voids in the only way he knows how. For example, when Steven ruined Larry's block city, he was begging his friends to notice him and to act scared of him so that he could think of himself as powerful.

All children strive to see themselves as strong and capable. But if they cannot, they will match their behavior to their self-images. A child who believes that he is bad, shapes his actions to fit his view of himself. A lack of the four factors which make up self-esteem is the real cause of misbehavior. What usually happens is that the more a child misbehaves, the more he is punished, scolded and rejected, the less his needs are met and the more firmly established his belief that he is bad becomes. It's a vicious, destructive cycle.

In our next column you'll meet a girl who's 9 and struggling to get her needs met.

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Stephanie Marston is the author of If Not Now, When? Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife. To learn more about her book, visit her website at: www.stephaniemarston.com. Click here to read a sample chapter of If Not Now, When? Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife If you would like information about Stephanie speaking to your organization, please call 505-989-7596.