What are externalizing and internalizing behaviors

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Most parents know that tweens and teens will act out, at least occasionally. These bad behaviors are known as externalizing behaviors. What are externalizing behaviors? In short, they are actions that direct problematic energy outward.

Learn to identify such behaviors with the examples that follow and get tips on the best way to confront such behaviors in tweens and teens with this review. Externalizing behaviors can not only lead adolescents into sticky situations but may leave long-standing consequences in their lives.

Defining Externalizing Behaviors With Examples

A child or an adult who exhibits externalizing behaviors engages in behaviors that harm others as opposed to lashing out at the self (which are known as internalizing behaviors).   Externalizing behaviors include physical aggression, verbal bullying, relational aggression, defiance, theft, and vandalism.

Tweens show many externalized behaviors, especially when they are troubled or have other challenges going on in their lives. Boys are more likely than girls to show the more blatant externalized behaviors, such as physical bullying, but on the whole, levels of aggression are similar between the sexes.

Adolescents Are Vulnerable to Both Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviors

Oftentimes, tweens and teens exhibit both externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Adolescents may vandalize property (externalizing behavior) at school while also using drugs or alcohol (internalizing behavior). Parents may have one child who relies on externalizing behaviors to cope with another who relies on internalizing behaviors. While the former child may be considered “the problem child,” both children need help and intervention before they harm themselves or others.

Consequences

Children who display externalizing behaviors may face a number of consequences for their behaviors.   On a mild level, this can include notes sent home from teachers concerned about the youth’s disruptive behavior in class. This can escalate to school detention, suspensions or even expulsions.

Some schools have zero tolerance policies involving drug use, bullying or weapons. So, children who engage in externalizing behavior using these methods may find themselves kicked out of school.

At worst, children who act out instead of inward (internalizing behavior) may find themselves arrested for theft, vandalism or assault, or they may face consequences at school such as expulsions. This can mark the start of a long journey in the criminal justice system if the behavior isn’t corrected.

Why Children Exhibit Externalizing Behaviors

Children may act out in ways that harm others for a variety of different reasons. They could be victims of physical, sexual or emotional abuse. They may have lost a parent or another close relative to death or experienced a divorce, parental abandonment or other traumatic experience, such as domestic violence, the incarceration of a parent or the substance abuse problem of a parent.

Some children who act out in destructive ways may suffer from mental illnesses or a personality disorder. On the other hand, many children with learning disabilities act out to deflect attention from the fact that they’re having difficulty learning.   Being kicked out of class may seem preferable to them than having their learning disability exposed.

Whatever the reason children engage in externalizing behaviors, it’s important that they get help and intervention. This may include counseling, therapy or an evaluation for a learning disability or disorder.

Talk with your child’s teacher or administrator about getting help or consult a licensed medical professional.

Abstract

Students with externalizing or internalizing behavior problems are at increased risk of underachievement and school non-completion, often due to their lower school engagement. Two studies were undertaken to assess the unique and joint (i.e., interactive) associations between behavior problems and engagement during two developmental periods; childhood and adolescence. These studies also aim to disentangle the contribution of global (externalizing and internalizing) and specific (hyperactivity/inattention, opposition/defiance, anxiety, depression) behavior problems on the global and specific aspects of student behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. Study 1 was conducted among a sample of elementary school students (n = 1036; 3rd to 6th grade; mean age = 9.94 y.o.; 47.30% female; majority native Canadians) and Study 2 was conducted in secondary school (n = 1011; 7th and 8th grade; mean age = 12.93 y.o.; 55.77% female; 60.64% from immigrant background). Results of the bifactor-CFA and path analyses from both studies indicate that global externalizing behaviors were associated with lower global and specific behavioral engagement. In Study 1, global internalizing behaviors were also associated with lower global and specific cognitive engagement, whereas specific anxiety was associated with lower global and specific emotional engagement. In Study 2, specific depressive symptoms were associated with lower global and specific emotional engagement. Together, these two studies suggest that externalizing behaviors remain risk factors for student disengagement during childhood and adolescence, but that the risk posed by internalizing behaviors increases in importance for older students.

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Judith A. Stein, Michael D. Newcomb, Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors and Maternal Health Problems, Journal of Pediatric Psychology, Volume 19, Issue 5, October 1994, Pages 571–594,

Abstract

Examined the impact of a range of health related constructs reflecting maternal physical symptomatology, health services utilization, subjective health status, depressed mood, medical-psychological complaints, and marital adjustment on children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in a community sample (N = 145). Physical symptomatology predicted a general second-order latent factor of children’s behavior problems. Depressed mood predicted a primary latent factor of internalizing child behavior problems. Seizure symptoms, and more health problems in the last 4 years specifically predicted child psychosomatic complaints/anxiety. Thus, general physical symptoms predicted a broad spectrum of problem behaviors, whereas specific mental or physical health problems predicted similar distinct problem behavior syndromes. Implications of these results for identifying children at risk for psychopathology, and the relevance of social learning theory and a broader based family systems approach are discussed.

• anxiety
• seizures
• child behavior
• health services
• health status
• marriage, life event
• psychopathology
• physical health
• depressed mood
• social learning theory
• behavioral problems
• community
• child at risk
• maternal health

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