Very wrong headed in my opinion.

It assumes we are talking about a toddler and we are not. People find "ways" to survive - even toddlers. I knew a three year old. He found a way, and knew how to use it. It was very interesting to watch - until you realized the back story.

If something bad happened, as in he might be in trouble, he would run around the room as fast as possible and on the way create mayhem. He would knock over a paint jar, purposefully or not. Bump into another kid, knock over a chair. Soon all the adults in the room were dealing with an overwhelming set of emergencies. Todd was forgotten

This happened over and over again until the pattern clicked. Some adult had to keep focused on Todd.

It was a genius thing he came up with. He never faced consequences. One had to wonder how such a set of behaviors would evolve? Was he a bad kid? No. Mean, no. If you step back what you see is a survival skill for a very difficult situation. My guess is that the physical or psychological cost of being "caught" were so threatening that this response evolved as a life saving skill. In a three year old.

One has to think about how this person would be if they did not have some intervention. Would they evolve this particular skill into an increasingly sophisticated way? Certainly inherent in the success of this mode is a fairly strong sense of contempt for people in general. And perhaps this contempt is well earned when given by a three or even four year old. After all where was everyone else when he was in the original situation? But in an adult? Pitiful.

Fortunately for Todd, people took the time and had the care to help him feel safe without that mechanism. Unfortunately, this does not always happen, as we are seeing.

The response to this kind of pattern is the same though, for any age Todd - three or not three.

First the adults in the room have to focus on the source of the problems. And if not stopped, the blame must fall heavily on those so called adults.

Second, the distraction thing has to be addressed. The problem is not this or that is broken. The problem is the Todd.

So where are the adults in the room? We need to ask why the people in the room are not doing their job? And if we have no adults we need to get rid of the people in there. All of them.