Strategies for Managing Challenging Behaviour in Kids

Strategies for Managing Challenging Behaviour in Kids

Dealing with challenging behaviour in children is part of a normal day for most early childhood educators. High quality child care service providers have procedural guidelines which describe how they positively manage children's behaviour and many services offer parental information to ensure children receive consistent messages about acceptable and unacceptable behavior at home and in care.

Managing unacceptable physical contact between kids such as hitting, kicking, biting and hair pulling requires patience and consistency. Author of the No Cry Discipline Solution Elizabeth Pantly offers these thoughts for educators wanting some fresh approaches:

Children resort to aggressive behaviors because of a lack of wisdom and self-control. It is not a sign that a child is hateful or mean. Kids are human beings and human beings will get angry, we can't prevent that. What we can do is teach children how to handle their frustration and anger in appropriate ways. If a child uses physical acts to express her feelings, use some of the following tips to change their behavior.

Intercede before it happens
Watch the child during playtime. When you see him/her becoming frustrated or angry intervene. Coach them through the issue, teach them what to do or model what to say or do. If the child seems too upset to learn, redirect their attention to another activity until their emotions level out.

Teach and explain
It is one thing to tell a child what not to do or to step into an argument and solve it yourself. It's another thing entirely to teach them what to do in advance of the next problem. This can be done through role-play, discussion and through reading books about children's emotions and how they can be managed.

Look for hidden causes
Is there any chance the child is hungry, tired, sick, jealous, frustrated, bored or scared? If you can identify any feelings driving the child's actions you can address those along with the aggressive behavior.

Give more attention to the injured party
Often a child who hits/kicks receives so much attention that the action becomes a way of gaining the spotlight. Address this problem by briefly reprimanding the aggressor then turn and give more attention to the child who was hurt.

Teach positive physical contact
Under direct supervision, teach children how to play gentle and/or non-contact physical games and offer more the physical children in your centre a positive outlet for their energy.

Teach the clapping method
Tell children to clap their hands, put their hands in their pockets, stamp their feet when they feel an urge to hit or kick. This gives them an immediate outlet for emotions and helps them learn to keep their hands to themselves. Children should be rewarded with praise when you witness them using these strategies.

Avoid play hitting and wrestling
Young children who play physical games during outside or play time may have trouble distinguishing when it is okay and when it is not okay. Children who have trouble controlling their physicality should be encouraged to avoid this kind of play and redirected to games which require less contact.

Keep your cool
Witnessing children hurt each other can be frustrating and hard to understand, however it's important not to show you are angry. Children learn by watching and modelling the behaviour of the adults around them. If you stay calm cool and collected when you are angry you set a good example for children learning how to control their emotions and deal with angry feelings.

Don't assume the child can figure it out
If a child comes to you to 'tell on' another kid don't send them away for tattling. Listen to both sides of the story, ask the children involved what they can do to resolve the situation and try and use the issue as vehicle for sharing some important lessons on problem solving.

This excerpt was reproduced from The No-Cry Discipline Solution (McGraw-Hill 2007) http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth, McGraw-Hill Publishing.