In her recent book a psychologist described several cases that exhibit the following pattern: A child, denied something by its parent, initiates problematic behavior such as screaming; the behavior escalates until finally the exasperated parent acquiesces to the child' s demand  At this point the child, having obtained the desired goal, stops the problematic behavior, to the parent' s relief
This self-reinforcing pattern of misbehavior and accommodation is repeated with steadily increasing levels of misbehavior by the child
Parents, by their choices, can inadvertently increase their child's level of misbehavior.