Same TeamWhere the Wild Things Are: Seeing the Child Beyond the Behavior
The child is always more than the hardest moment of their day
Note: I am going to date myself with this reference, but hang in there. Once upon a time, the story I refer to won a Caldecott Medal and was one of my favorite childhood stories - probably because I had a lot in common with the main character.
“Let the wild rumpus start.”
If you have ever read Where the Wild Things Are, you know Max.
He is imaginative.
He is determined.
He is emotional.
He is intense.
He has big feelings and an even bigger personality.
And if we only looked at the beginning of the story, it would be easy to describe Max by what everyone noticed first.
The yelling.
The anger.
The refusal to follow directions.
The moment when his emotions became bigger than his ability to manage them.
It would be easy to see the behavior.
But we would miss the child.
And that is something I think about often in special education.
Because sometimes the children who are the easiest to notice are the children we have to work the hardest to understand.
Of the many things that I have learned as an educator, administrator, and parent, this one is one of the most important:
Behavior is often the part of a child we see first. But it is never the whole story.
A behavior is not a child’s identity.
It is communication.
It is information.
It is a clue.
Sometimes a child is telling us:
“I am overwhelmed.”
“I do not know what to do.”
“This is harder than it looks.”
“I need help.”
“I do not have the skills yet to handle this.”
The question is not just:
“How do we stop this behavior?”
The better question is:
“What is this child trying to tell us?”
I think about one student I taught many years ago.
If you had walked into my classroom and watched him for five minutes, you would have noticed him.
There was no missing him.
He was energetic.
He was impulsive.
He had a personality that filled the room.
He could tap dance on your last nerve while somehow still being one of the most respectful young people you ever met.
He challenged adults.
He challenged expectations.
He challenged the idea that every child fits neatly into the way we think learning should look.
And honestly?
There were moments when he made things hard.
But here is what I saw:
I saw a child with a heart of gold.
I saw kindness.
I saw humor.
I saw determination.
I saw potential.
I saw a young person who needed adults to look beyond the behavior and see the person underneath.
A few years later, I had the privilege of teaching him again— this time as a high school student.
And do you know what I saw?
The same young man.
The same personality.
The same energy.
The same spark.
But also growth.
Confidence.
Maturity.
A clearer understanding of who he was.
Today, he is thriving.
He is a successful business owner.
An amazing husband.
An incredible father.
The child who once had adults wondering, “How are we going to manage this?” became the adult who uses those same qualities — persistence, passion, determination, and energy — in ways that are changing his own life and the lives of others.
The wildness was never the problem.
The question was always how we helped him understand it, use it, and grow.
This is why relationships matter so much.
Because children need adults who can see both things at the same time:
The challenge.
And the potential.
The behavior that needs support.
And the strengths that need to be developed.
A child may need accommodations.
A child may need interventions.
A child may need explicit instruction in skills that do not come naturally.
But support does not mean lowering expectations.
Support means creating a pathway for a child to reach them.
One of the greatest gifts we can give a child is having adults who refuse to define them by their hardest moments.
The child who struggles with attention may also be the child who notices things others miss.
The child who struggles with regulation may also be the child with incredible passion and creativity.
The child whose behavior challenges us may also be the child who becomes a leader, an innovator, a caregiver, or an advocate.
We cannot see those possibilities if we only see the problem.
At the end of Where the Wild Things Are, Max returns home.
And the most beautiful part of the story is not that Max changed.
It is that Max was loved.
He was accepted.
He belonged.
He had a place where he could be understood.
Every child deserves that.
Especially the children who are the easiest to misunderstand.
The goal is not to erase the wildness.
The goal is to understand it.
The goal is not to change who a child is.
The goal is to help a child become who they are capable of becoming.
Because every child is more than a diagnosis.
More than a behavior.
More than a difficult day.
More than the thing that first catches our attention.
Every child has a story.
Every child has strengths waiting to be discovered.
Every child has potential waiting for someone to see it.
And sometimes the adults who make the biggest difference are the ones who look past the moment…
and see the child.
Because the child is the point.
Stories about the students and families Dr. Long served are composites, with names, schools, and details changed. Stories about her own family are her own. About the author.