Behavioral Challenges and Emotional Challenges refer to inappropriate behavioural and emotional responses to situations that persist over a period of time.
Its effect is seen as:
- Interference in the child’s ability to learn.
- Difficulty in engaging and interacting in a socially approved manner with adults and peers.
- Interference with the teacher’s ability to reach out to the child and other peers and explore opportunities to help them learn.
- Puts the child at high-risk case, exhibiting social problems and academic failure.
Most children with behaviorial and emotional challenges face difficulty in handling their feelings and displaying socially approved behaviour This is generally seen in certain stages of growth and development, in form of inappropriate temperament, impaired relationships with members of the family and others, poor health, difficulty to cope with education and also having troublesome experiences in school or at home.
“Red flags”
- Withdrawn behaviours : shyness, school phobia, social isolation.
- Disruptive behaviours : being out-of-seat, calling out in class, tantrums, swearing, screaming or refusing to follow instructions.
- Conduct Disorder : head banging, kicking, biting, fighting, running away, damaging property around, inappropriate conversations, stealing, inappropriate touching.
- Oppositional Defiant Disorder : defiance and noncompliance to rules, expectations, and directions at home and in the school, argumentative , disrespectful, gets irritated and loses temper often, deliberately gets into fight with others.
- Anxiety Disorders : frequent panic attacks, complain of headaches or stomach aches, display inappropriate emotional responses such as outbursts of laughter or crying out of context.