Challenging Behavior

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When working with children, such as in a childcare center, you will soon find out that children react in a vast number of way to their environment. It would be nice if all children had behaviors that were easy to understand and deal with, but the truth is – that is not the case. A childcare teacher will come in contact with children that have a variety of challenging behaviors. It is important that the childcare teacher understand the nature, causes, and ways to deal with these behaviors. By so doing, they can handle their own actions and reactions as well as those of the child with the challenging behavior. Challenging behavior is any repeated pattern of behavior that interferes with learning or engagement in social interactions (Dunlap). …show more content…

These challenging behaviors show up in at least six different ways, with each one having varying behaviors. Aggressive behavior is one of these and the child will tend to be mean to other children by biting, hitting, use verbal threats and even chocking others. A second one is self-injury. This child may bang his head on the wall or the floor, pinch or scratch himself or herself. As they get older this type child would possibly move into cutting, which has become more “popular” among teens in the last few years. A third one is classroom disruption. The child will repeatedly blurt out answers or just say things to be heard, make unusual or inappropriate sounds, often hoping to get attention. Fourth is the child that displays behavior that is non-compliant. These children tend to be defiant at most everything they are asked to do, or they may simply ignore you and act as if you are not there. Fifth is the challenging behavior of inappropriate play or behavior. This one shows up in more of the unusual ways. Behavior such as exposing the privates, trying to touch other people on their privates or in the eyes, etc. and eating things that just are not meant for eating – such as leaves, chalk, bugs, and even feces. Another way these children may act is to become juvenile thieves. The final one is the compulsive repeated action behavior (Newsletter – Beyond

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