Early years teams have considerable experience in dealing with the behaviour of young children. However, sometimes you will need outside help.
Your usual strategies may not have made an impact on changing a child's ways of coping, or a child's reaction may seem sufficiently extreme that you become concerned at an early stage.
Any worries from your team need to be taken forward in partnership with parents. Sometimes you may have the opportunity to consult informally about a child or a kind of difficulty in a professional and con-fidential way with a specialist who regularly visits your setting, or within the context of a training day. However, any changes you make to your practice, or insights about what may be happening with a child, should then be shared with parents. And, of course, you would not make any kind of referral without their full involvement.
Information file
It is well worth building up a resource file for your setting that brings together information on local support services and also national organisations and helplines. Sometimes your role will be to bring a specialist into your setting for a joint discussion between your team and the child's family. But at other times your role will be to put parents in touch with a source of advice or support, that they then take forward. Your aim is to develop good communication with parents so that it is easier to make suggestions to them and for them to raise problems with you.
Local support services are not organised in an identical way in all areas, and job and service titles also vary. But you should be able to access these specialists:
* An early years advisor/teacher can visit settings in an informal way.
* Educational psychologists offer assessment and advice for children who are struggling in school, but some are involved at the pre-school stage.
* Support services for disabled children will include different professionals, including the special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO).
* Family support services can include home visitors who offer informal advice on play and/or behaviour. Child and family guidance clinics can be accessed by families who experience difficulties. Play therapists support children who have serious emotional distress from whatever cause.
* Children's behaviour can be linked with their development or health.
Sometimes the most useful approach may be to put parents in contact with a local speech and language therapist or physiotherapist. Occupational therapists advise about appropriate aids for disabled children to support their mobility and skills of self-reliance.
Code of practice
The new SEN Code of Practice outlines a two-stage approach for children with disabilities and other special needs in early years settings: Early Years Action and Early Years Action Plus. The approach allows for the fact that it is not always immediately obvious with all children that they will need additional help and of what kind.
One reason for setting Early Years Action in motion is when children's behaviour or emotional reactions are hard to handle, even though the staff have persevered with positive strategies to help them. Consultations between a child's key worker, the parents and the SENCO will bring together information and observations on the child and together you can develop an individual education plan (IEP) for the child.
Appropriate work with a child and the co-operation of parents will be enough support for some children to learn alternative ways of behaving in your setting. But you would move on to Early Years Action Plus if, despite well planned extra help, a child still shows challenging behaviour. At this point, you should involve other agencies outside the early years setting, but of course still in partnership with the parents.
Parents with children who are disabled or chronically ill often appreciate information, but they do not always know of the existence of the many support organisations and helplines there are, so a resource file in your setting will be invaluable for both you and for your families.
A search on the internet can also add information, and Mencap can be useful for general enquiries about support organisations (tel: 020 7454 0454, e-mail help@mencap.org.uk).
Emotional distress
Of course, challenging behaviour from children can also arise from their reactions to serious disruption and distress. With support, children can cope with major changes in their lives, but sometimes parents are so overwhelmed that they have limited emotional resources left over.
Some families also decide not to talk to children about family upheaval on the grounds that the children will only be upset, but of course children are aware that something serious has happened. They know that family members are not behaving normally. In the absence of an explanation, children often conclude that they must have done something wrong.
Confusion, distress and uncertainty can then emerge in disruptive behaviour.
* Family crises that affect a child's behaviour can include normal events such as the arrival of a new baby or moving home. These may seem ordinary changes to adults but will change the everyday life for a child.
* Other upheavals are less a part of 'normal' life, although they are experienced by many children. The separation of parents is now experienced by many children. Financial stresses from unemployment or bad times for the family business also impact on children.
* A parent may have a long-term illness or die, or spend time in prison, which can impact on children, who may find it hard to understand the loss.
* Children from refugee and asylum seeker families may have experienced a massive disruption in life as they knew it, as well as genuinely frightening events.
Sources of support
This list covers a wide range of family events and even an experienced early years team is unlikely to have encountered all of them. Children are also individual, so their reactions will vary. Your best approach is to build a knowledge of specialist support organisations, their helpline details and useful written materials such as leaflets. Such a resource will support you and your colleagues in your approach to children, your supportive conversations with parents and ideas for how and where they can access information. Some ideas include:
* On any kind of family difficulty: Parentline Plus has a free helpline, tel: 0808 800 2222 and information on www.parentlineplus.org.uk.
* On bereavement in the family: Cruse Bereavement Care helpline, tel: 0870 167 1677 and information on www.crusebereavementcare.org.ukor the Child Bereavement Trust, tel: 01494 446648 and information on www.childbereavement.org.uk.
* For families of prisoners: Action for Prisoners' Families support groups (formerly the Federation of Prisoners' Families), tel: 020 738 41987 and information on www.fpfsg.org.uk.
* Save the Children Centre for Young Children's Rights has material for practitioners who work with refugee children, including a video pack In safe hands. Phone 020 7700 8127, or see www.savethechildren.org.uk.NW
Further information
* Jennie Lindon, 'One by one', Nursery World, 26 July 2001
* Mini series on the SEN Code of Practice by Collette Drifte in Nursery World include: 'Source of support' 28 February 2002, 'Specialists on hand', 14 March 2002
* Jennie Lindon (2002) Child care and early education: good practice to support young children and their families Thomson Learning (especially chapters 8, 17 and 18)
* Collette Drifte (2001) Special needs in early years settings: a guide for practitioners, David Fulton Publishers
