Foreword by Marilou Hyson
Preface
Introduction
1: What Is Challenging Behavior?
Basic Facts about Challenging Behavior
What forms does aggressive behavior take?
What happens to children with more serious behavior problems?
What Do Theory and Research Say?
Some theories of aggression
What else does research show?
The Role of Culture
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading and resources
2: Risk Factors
What causes challenging behavior?
Biological Risk Factors
Genes
Gender
Temperament
Complications of pregnancy and birth
Substance abuse during pregnancy
Alcohol
Tobacco and nicotine
Illicit drugs
Neurological problems
Executive functions
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Learning disabilities
Language and speech disorders
Intellectual disabilities
Autistic spectrum disorder
Emotional and behavior disorders
Environmental Risk Factors
Family factors and parenting style
Peers
Child care and school
Poverty
Lead exposure
Malnutrition
Exposure to violence
Violent media
Turbulent times
Understanding risk
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading
3: Resilience
What Makes Resilience Possible?
Responsive caregiving is key
Provide a secure and predictable environment
What is the role of context?
The importance of culture
The genetic factor
Steeling
How Can You Promote Resilience?
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading and resources
4: Behavior and the Brain
How Does the Brain Develop?
How does early experience affect brain development?
How Does Stress Influence the Young Brain?
Toxic Stress and Executive Function
What Role Do Genes Play?
What does all this mean?
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading
5: Relationship, Relationship, Relationship
The caring connection
Understanding Yourself
“Who are you?” said the caterpillar
What influences the way you relate to a child with challenging behavior?
How do these barriers affect your behavior?
What is self-reflection?
Think like an anthropologist
How do you reflect?
What other techniques help you to reflect?
Understanding the Child and the Importance of Attachment
What is the role of attachment?
How does attachment affect behavior?
Is attachment culture bound?
Establishing a Relationship with the Child
How does a secure attachment to a teacher protect a child?
How can you develop a positive relationship with a child with challenging behavior?
Sensitive, responsive care
Teacher talk
Talk openly about feelings
Positive outlook
Banking time
Establishing a Relationship with the Family
What keeps teachers and families apart?
Obstacles for teachers
Obstacles for families
Engagement versus involvement
Getting to know you
Going home
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading
6: Opening the Culture Door
What Is Culture?
How can you see your culture?
What does culture have to do with identity?
Are cultures really so different?
The melting pot and the salad bowl
When Home and School Meet
The culture of child care and school
How does culture influence behavior?
How can you make your teaching more culturally responsive?
Form authentic and caring relationships
Use curriculum that honors each child’s culture and experience
Shift instructional strategies to meet diverse learning needs
Hold high expectations
Make the implicit explicit
Language and Culture
How important is home language?
How does language learning affect behavior?
How can you support language learning?
Encourage children to use their home language
Interact with children as much as possible
Create opportunities for peer interaction
Develop predictable routines and activities that use language
Concentrate on meaning
Some Cultural Characteristics
Does each culture have its own special characteristics?
Latino culture
African American culture
Asian American and Pacific Island culture
American Indian culture
Middle Eastern and Arab American culture
Why all this matters
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading
7: Preventing Challenging Behavior: The Social Climate
How Does Prevention Work?
We’re all the same, yet we’re all different
Creating a Positive Social Climate
How does the social climate affect aggressive behavior?
A caring community
What is the teacher’s role in the social climate?
How can you create a cooperative, inclusive community?
Community-building activities
Affect and language
Rules and policies
Class meetings
Peer partners
Teaching Social and Emotional Skills
Why are social and emotional skills important?
How do children learn social and emotional skills?
How do you teach social and emotional skills?
What skills should children learn?
Emotional regulation
Identifying emotions
Impulse control and anger management
Empathy
Social problem-solving or conflict resolution
Assertiveness
Entering groups
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading and resources
8: Preventing Challenging Behavior: Physical Environment, Routines and Transitions, Curriculum, and Teaching Strategies
The Physical Environment
Welcome
Arranging the furniture
What about personal space?
Does the level of stimulation make a difference?
Deck the walls
Consider the results
Creating a Predictable Day with Schedules, Procedures, and Transitions
A daily schedule
Teach procedures
Legitimize movement
Getting from A to B
Pay special attention
Give a warning
Assign tasks at cleanup
Rethink the line
Moving from subject to subject
The hardest transitions of all
Naptime
Drop-off time
Departure
Curriculum
How do the Common Core State Standards affect your program?
The importance of play
HighScope Curriculum
Teaching Strategies
Being there
Differentiated instruction
Providing choice
The Project Approach
The Reggio Emilia Approach
Working in groups
Cooperative learning groups
Peer tutoring
Partner learning
Technology
A compendium of teaching strategies
Get them going
Expect the best
Give it over
Break it up
Mix it up
Shake it up
Wait it out
Out in the open
Homework or not?
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading
9: Guidance
About Guidance Strategies and What Makes Them Effective
What makes a strategy work?
Some Guidance Strategies
What is developmental discipline?
How does teacher effectiveness training work?
Using collaborative problem solving
How useful is positive reinforcement?
What does new research say?
How can you make positive reinforcement effective?
What if positive reinforcement provokes challenging behavior?
What about natural and logical consequences?
Time-out and punishment
Time-away as an alternative
Diversity in discipline
When a Child Loses Control
What about using restraint?
Picking up the pieces
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading
10: Functional Assessment and Positive Behavior Support
Performing a Functional Assessment
When do you use functional assessment and Positive Behavior Support?
Create and convene a team
How do you figure out the function of a behavior?
What functions can behavior serve?
What about appropriate behavior?
What will help you understand the function of the behavior?
Reviewing records
Conducting interviews
Observing the child and the environment
How do you develop a hypothesis?
Creating a Positive Behavior Support Plan
How do you develop a positive behavior support plan?
Prevention
Teaching appropriate replacement skills
Responding to appropriate and challenging behavior
How does the plan look?
How do you evaluate the plan?
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading and resources
11: The Inclusive Classroom
About Inclusion
Why is inclusion important?
How does IDEA work?
What services does IDEA offer young children?
What’s happening on the front lines?
How is a child who needs special education identified?
Does IDEA include all disabilities?
Can an IEP address behavior?
Who is responsible for implementing an IEP?
Preparing to Teach an Inclusive Class
Does disability play a role in challenging behavior?
Who can help?
Families
Colleagues
Preventing Challenging Behavior
How can an inclusive social climate prevent challenging behavior?
Develop sensitivity
Teach values directly
Normalize and include in every possible way
Create opportunities for interaction and friendship
Teach social and emotional skills
How can the physical environment, routines, transitions, curriculum, and teaching strategies prevent challenging behavior?
Make room for everyone
Make the day predictable
Implement the IEP
Adapt assessment
Responding Effectively to Challenging Behavior
Using the tools in your toolbox
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading
12: Working with Families and Other Experts
Preparing to Meet the Family
Who can help?
How do families react to news of challenging behavior?
How do you feel?
Meeting with the Family
Making arrangements
Preparing for the meeting
Talking with the family
What if you and the family disagree?
How do you handle challenging behavior when the parent is present?
What if a child is hurt?
Working with Other Experts
What about getting expert advice?
Can you ask a child with challenging behavior to leave?
What do you know?
What do you think?
Suggested reading
13: Bullying
What Is Bullying?
How common is bullying?
How does bullying behavior develop?
The importance of climate
Why is bullying so hard to see?
Who Is Involved in Bullying?
Who are the children who bully others?
Who are the targets of bullying?
Who are the bystanders?
Who are the defenders?
Why do bystanders behave the way they do?
What are the effects of bullying?
How Can Teachers Reduce and Prevent Bullying?
Relationships
Teach the facts
Rules
Make bullying part of the curriculum
Look for hot spots
Supervise
Give students control
Involve families
What protects children?
It takes a village
Responding to Bullying
What does the law say?
How can you respond to bullying?
What if you don’t see the bullying?
Should there be consequences for bullying behavior?
Talking with the participants
Meeting with children who’ve bullied
Meeting with children who’ve been targeted
Meeting with bystanders
What do you do next?
Working with families
What do you know?
what do you think?
Suggested reading and resources
Books to read with children
Appendix A: Reflective Checklists for Chapters 7 and 8
Appendix B: The Functional Assessment A-B-C Chart
References
Photo credits
Index
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