Managing Challenging Behaviors in Children: A Comprehensive Overview

This report delves into the complexities of challenging behaviors exhibited by children, offering a comprehensive overview of their identification, causes, and management strategies. It begins by defining challenging behaviors and outlines key indicators, such as refusal of requests, frequent frustra...Read More

Challenges
behaviour

Introduction
Children with challenging behaviors present signs and
symptoms which are not easy to detect.
Challenging behaviours are a characteristic that all humans
have as a result of being uncomfortable with something.
Children display such behaviours by crying or showing
tantrums (Matson & Timina, 2008). .
However, the behaviour becomes questionable if it risks the
life of other people around or makes it difficult to manage the
child, this calls for a thorough examination to understand the
causes.
Therefore, behavior becomes challenging when it is difficult
to understand and manage the situation that the child is
facing.

How to tell challenging behaviour in
children
Some of the challenging behaviour exhibited by the
children are as follows :.
• Refusal and rejection of orders and requests from their
parents and adults.
• Showing signs of frustrations easily.
• They tend to show longer tantrums , which are different
from other children.
• Shows signs of aggression and belligerence that are
hard to handle and control.
• They exhibit no response to all the behaviour strategies,
that are applied on other children (Lapointe, 2017)

How to tell
behaviour
problem in
children?
The child finds difficulty in subsisting
with the environment like learning and
playing with other children, thus it can
be said that, they exhibit characteristics
which are beyond the children who
belongs to similar age group (Hunter &
Hemmeter, (2009).
Exhibition of ill-suited response or
reactions to the situations . For example
the child may tend to be hostile to other
children.
Unpredicted behaviors like dearth of contrition
Uncontrolled crying and throwing of
tantrums for unforeseen reasons
On the contrary they display violent
behaviour like discarding toys, kicking
objects and sometimes even abusing
others .

Causes of
behaviour
s,
frustration:
fear: they are frightened of
something
strong feelings:
anxiety:
Hyperactivity
Cultural norms
Temperament of child
Age of child
Environmental
arrangements
Reactions to behaviour
(Lapointe, 2017)

SOME BEHAVIOUR THAT CHALLENGES IS MORE
LIKELY IN CHILDREN WITH PARTICULAR MEDICAL
CONDITIONS OR DISABILITIES. FOR EXAMPLE:
ADH children can report challenges in longer periods of
concentration as compared to normal kids.
Autistic children with ASX can be unsettled making them
anxious and upset with situations. Such children sometimes
react strongly to some environmental situations like crowds
(JinaJang, Tarbox & Granpeesheh, 2011).
Sensory impairment children can be stimulated by other
environmental situations like sound which can make them display
challenging behaviours.
Children with other disabilities like speaking challenges
require special attention to make them not look like they are
ignoring communication.

SOME BEHAVIOUR THAT CHALLENGES IS MORE LIKELY IN
CHILDREN WITH PARTICULAR MEDICAL CONDITIONS OR
DISABILITIES. FOR EXAMPLE:
• Children sometimes display some behaviours , which are
due to genetic characteristics and these behaviours are
not deemed challenging .
• Certain behaviours like crying, phobia, difficulties in
making friends, low self-esteem and getting angry easily
are deemed as emotional or behaviour difficulties instead
of challenging behaviours (JinaJang, Tarbox &
Granpeesheh, 2011).
• Children , those who have difficulties in reading, learning
and speaking finds it difficult to adapt , this requires
support from the school systems , which can prevent the
tendency of this behaviour from becoming challenging ..

Early
intervention
(JinaJang,Ta
rbox, &
Granpeeshe
h, 2011)
Clinical psychologist support:
Educational school psychologist
to increase cognitive
development:Occupational therapists:
School counselling:
use of Special educational needs
coordinator:
use of Speech pathologist:.
Social workers for specific
problem solving:

Improve child
behaviours
Hunter & Hemmeter (2009) suggests the following
approaches
• It is important to talk with the family members in
order to understand the child .
• In order to satisfy the needs of the child it is
necessary to review the support programs .
• Planning, implementation and Reviewing of the
intervention strategies is essential
• It is important to maintain ongoing communications
and check-up with the family members of the child.
• In order to enhance the intervention strategies , it is
essential to communicate with the relevant staff.

Teaching
strategies
(Park &
Scott,
2009).
Be positive when handling the
child:
Be consistent with the
intervention to achieve the
intended results :
Help child regulate their
emotions:
Redirect:
Working ion the Sensory needs:
Assisting the child on better
choices for communication
Choices:

Teaching strategies
Use of role playing to develop social skills
Assisting family to form positive
relationships with the child to control
challenging behaviours
Creating a supportive environment that
limits occurrence of challenging behaviours
Maintaining eye contact during
communication to assist the child learn :
Use of Simple language to make the child
understand instructions:
Keeping a low and normal Tone for the child
to understand communication
Set boundaries to be used in guiding
behaviours through reinforcement: (Presser,
2004)

WHAT IS Behaviour Management
Plans
Presser (2004) suggests that a behaviour
management plans seeks to control the behaviour
through:
Understanding the function of the behaviour that the
child is using
Teaching alternative behaviours through redirecting.
Providing other alternatives for the child to use in
response

Behaviour
Management
Plans
Preventative mechanism
Discussing and planning with family
members
Developing positive behaviour strategies for
the child
Developing strategies and planning with
people like, staff, teachers, carers and
parents who exist in the life or the
child(Park & Scott, 2009).
Developing outcomes that march with the
age and needs of the child.
develop strategies that meet the available
resources and work in the child’s
environment.
Include cultural and family factors that can
boost or hinder response to behaviour
therapies.
Identify resources and support agencies
within the child’s reach for support.
Work with the agencies to boost
effectiveness of the intervention (Presser,
2004).

MANAGMENTS PLANS

ABC SHEET

ENVIRONMENTS
Components of Early
Childhood Environments
Definition
Physical environment The overall layout of the intervention room
that includes the materials of learning ,
furnishing and other features that the child is
realated to
Social environment The intercommunications that take place in
the life of the child either consciously or
unconsciously with the members of the
family, friends, staffs and others .
Temporal environment Associate with the intervention mechanism
that includes timing of intervention ,people
who are involved and also the approaches.

PHYSICAL ENIVOURMENT
• Making use of strategies that supports
ownership and appreciates the endeavours of
the child in the intervention. This helps in
enhancemnt of communication with the child
and elevates development(Presser, 2004).
• Making use of objects that connects the child to
the environment (e.g., culture, disability,
language, family structures)

Social Environment
• Making use of objects that engages the
child like toy or games, songs or any
other participative appliance that are
able to inspire the child to respond (Park
& Scott 2009).
• Involvement: It is important to make the
child actively engaged which would help
to overcome challenging behaviour.

Temporal environment
• Share the performance of the child with authentications
like scores for ownership.
• Teach several activities daily , which the child can easily
work and also assess them .
• Make compatible routines which the child can follow and
also upgrade the routine with new ones .
• Use schedules that arte aligned with the age of the
child. For example, making use of visuals intended for
children of young age (Matson & Timina, 2008).

Learning experience
• Making use of symbolic objects which the child can
connect to their own environment (Odom et al,
1992). The toys should be provided to capture social
and cultural background of the child for accepting
easily.
• The objects provided to the child for playing should
met the needs of the child . For example, disability.
The toys should be compatible for the use of more
then one child in order to encourage sharing
(Lapointe, 2017).
.

IN LAST
• In order to communicate children make use of
challenging behaviour .
• The first step in redirecting is understanding and
comprehending the function of the behaviour .
• In order to redirect , moral support is required for the
children with challenging behaviour . Negative reactions
can increase the chances of such behaviour .
• In order to change them , the only option is to
understand the child (Hunter & Hemmeter, 2009).

• Hunter, A., & Hemmeter, M. (2009). Mental Health consultation in
child care: Transforming relationships. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
• JinaJang, R.D., Tarbox, J.D & Granpeesheh, D. (2011). Symptom
severity and challenging behavior in children with ASD.
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5(3), 1028-1032.
• Lapointe, V. (2017). What is your child’s Challenging Behaviour
trying to tell you? Disability Service Commission.
• Matson, J., & Timina, R. (2008). Characteristics of challenging
behaviours in adults with autistic disorder, PDD-NOS, and
intellectual disability. Journal of Intellectual Development and
Disability, 33(4), 323-329.

• Park, K. L., & Scott, T. M. (2009). Antecedent-
based interventions for young children at risk
for emotional and
behavioral disorders. Behavioral Disorders,
34, 196-211.
Presser, K. (2004). Supporting and managing
children's behavior. Port Road, Hindmarsh:
DECS Publishing.