April 21, 2009 , ExchangeEveryday
Children with challenging behavior is far and away the leading training priority for teachers identified in our current Exchange Insta Poll. And, this has been true for over five years of doing this survey. [If you want to share your views on Teacher Training Needs, you still have 16 hours to participate in the Exchange Insta Poll.] A number of reasons have been proposed for this phenomenon:
- Cultural: Children today, from the earliest ages, are exposed to enormous amounts of violence on television, videos, and computer games and are given the message that you solve problems with aggression.
- Societal: This theory points the finger at parents whose lives are so hectic and stressful that they are not spending enough time nurturing their children and helping them develop self control.
- Environmental: Contaminants and additives in the air we breathe, the fast food we consume, and water we drink are polluting and impacting our children’s health and dispositions.
- Professional: In classrooms of highly functioning teachers, there is little misbehavior to manage — children are engaged. The prevalence of misbehavior in programs is attributable to low pay and low skills of our workforce.
We hesitate to select any one of these theories as the answer. But, it is clear that children’s challenging behavior is an issue our field needs to address in order for children to have positive, nurturing experiences in our programs.
