Child Behavior Problems: What Pre-K Educators Need to Know?

Spending time with the kids actually tells the problems that they’ve been facing, maybe either for quite some time or for a long time. Many times it's not easy for people, especially the parents, to recognize their problems straight away; hence it becomes imperative for parents to spend some time and have some idea about the problems of their children.  

There will be different expressions that the children may have, ranging from sudden fits of volcanic rage, crying, aggressive behavior, shyness, and whining. These variations in their behavior tell many more things, and such behavior may be just the starting expressions that they may have. Many chaotic moments can be known by spending some time with them. When it comes to preschool children, they also have such behaviors, and the educators in preschool need to understand these behavioral problems early to work better for them.

Kidzville Learning Center, a Childcare in Surrey allows children to open up in front of other mates to make them socially interactive and learn to share their thoughts and values with others as well.

 

The preschool educators start learning the way they need to respond to such behavior problems that the children face. With the passage of time in classrooms, educators also start observing many things which keep going on in the minds of the children. Many kids exhibit behaviors of different types, and educators start becoming familiar with all such behaviors. In addition to understanding the patterns of behavior that the children may have during a period, preschool teachers also need to understand many more things which can come as problematic behavior.

They need to understand whether a type of behavior is acceptable or not in a social setting, and there is an assessment system known as ASEBA which means an Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment.  This particular assessment can be used very well to assess the active functioning, strengths, competencies, emotional and social problems, as well as behavioral problems in human beings who may be between 1 ½ year and in 90 years. 

This process also helps in evaluating the children and also talks about problematic preschool behaviors such as wandering off, clinging to adults, whining, hitting or being cruel to animals, needing things in proper places. These things provide reference points to work for their betterment. 

Things that need to be kept in mind while going through child behavior problems are given as follows:

Behavior is a part of communication

Joni Kuhn, who is the professor of early childhood education at Rasmussen University, says that behavior is communication, and she has her own explanation regarding it that children start expressing their wants and needs when they don't have the words to express themselves.

She says that we need to understand that they are very young and they have been alive for a few months only, and at preschool, they are still not at the proper age to verbally communicate all the things that they have. She says that a child who is 2 years old doesn't have verbal skills to say many things, but the child can express many things through behavior. 

 

Adults may be unaware of the number of things they want out of the kids: There are situations in which the professor of early childhood education says that many adults are unaware that there is an unmet need of the children which may lead to many behavioral issues. Many times adults make the kids get overwhelmed by so many situations in which it becomes difficult for the kids to behave normally.

Awareness about the stages of development: Educators must be aware of the development of the children, which becomes essential to understand other things related to physique, intellect, emotions, social bonding as well as language. Joni Kuhn says that even if the child who is 2 to three years old says that he went to the moon last night, the educator has no right to scold or correct the child; instead, she says that the educator can go through responding in a good manner. The educator must give the expression of wow! You went to the moon last night. Great! That’s very nice. In this way, the child starts responding positively rather than being rude.

Go through the reason behind behavior problems: When children start behaving in the way we find challenging, we need to go through the reasons without scolding the children. The professor says that even if a child breaks a toy, instead of scolding the child, the child must be asked what exactly he found after breaking the toy apart. Did he learn something as to how the toy was made by breaking it apart? Such questions will be good for the children to be creative.  

Children must get space to solve problems themselves: All children must get space to solve any problem themselves. They should learn how to work things out on their own which will make them more creative. Many times things go out of control, especially when there is a challenging situation, but in this situation, the educators should not try to solve or take the children out of the situation; but instead, the educator must let the children start controlling the situation themselves.

A specialist should get to diagnose the problem: There can be some problems that the children might be facing, and they can be related to disorders or mental health issues. Here Joni Kuhn says that when it comes to the issues related to the behavior problems with the children, there are specialists who are either medical or psychological experts, and they can look after the children to diagnose the problems. 

Kidzville Learning Center, an infant-toddler daycare in Surrey makes children take an initiative and talk about their emotions and experiences in class, to their teachers, and friends. 

Educators should not try to give any name because of the abnormal behavior of the children. The professor says that it is the responsibility of the educators to go through the individual needs of the children and understand their behavior properly.