Baby Steps to Health July 21’

NMZ Tampa | Church Quarterly Mental Health Newsletter (July)

Breaking Habits

Children and adults both have behaviors that may need adjusting. For children, it could often be disrespecting a parent or not completing chores. For an adult, it could often be over-eating or procrastinating with tasks. So what is a habit and how can habits be changed? As shown below, every habit has a trigger, a resultant behavior and then a reward.

Behavior Change

In order to change a behavior or a habit, these three components need to be identified (trigger, behavior, and reward). Once the reward is identified within the unhealthy habit loop, oftentimes a healthier habit loop can be easily introduced once it’s understood that a similar reward will be gained.

For example, if a child has learned the unhealthy habit of misbehaving in order to gain the reward of attention from their parent; the child can easily learn the healthy habit of simply asking their parent to play, if they gain that same reward of gaining sustained attention from their parent.