Challenging behaviour

What happens when Parents and Caregivers find themselves navigating the complexity of a Child's Challenging Behaviour and where do parents turn to when in this situation for help and support ? other members of the family, friends, parent groups?

Our support for Parents and Caregivers is here to provide additional information that may just help you navigate your Child’s Challenging behavioural phase alongside the help and support from family and friends and just help create another area of support and information for you.

Often challenging behaviours can stem simply from a child being tired, hungry, overexcited, frustrated or at times just bored. For example, when children are frustrated and bored, they can act or create behaviours to display and signal this, their capacity to verbalise or manage the situation themselves is limited therefore behaviour becomes their largest communication tool.

Behaviours that are generally defined as challenging can also be part of a child’s natural development. Pushing Boundaries for example is often a Child's way of exploring the world themselves and learning about life through their own experiences and not just what they are being told.

This natural instinct to explore is rooted in their own survival instinct, however Children are still very aware they need their Parent / Caregiver present, hence you will always see a child who is perhaps Pushing the Boundaries turning around to check if their Parent or Caregiver is still there, this can be interpreted as they are being clever or cheeky – What is happening though is whilst they are pushing the boundaries as part of their natural development they are still wanting to know the parent and caregiver is there and that they are safe.

In some cases, Children may have experienced difficult situations during their very early years. Attachment Issues can be a factor in many cases where loss and trauma and neglect have played a part in their early years and as a result, they might behave and act in ways that are challenging and difficult for them to cope with. These behaviours can progress and affect the whole family, that’s why reaching out for support to look after your own Health & Wellbeing in the process is so important. In comparison a Child may go onto experience a Trauma in later years and this could again impact their over Mental Health and Behaviour.

Our below information and resources are here for any Parent or Caregiver who is perhaps dealing with a Child's Mental Health or Challenging Behaviour at this time, our resources are specifically focused to help support Parents and Caregivers.