AUTHOR'S NOTE:
The preparation of this manuscript was supported by the Center for Evidence-Based Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behaviors, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education (H324Z010001) and the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (PHS 90YD0215). The author wishes to thank Rochelle Lentini, Linda Broyles, Amanda Quesenberry, and Amanda Higgins for their assistance with this manuscript.

We do workshops on challenging behavior every year, and it is still our biggest problem!!
Program Administrator

There are so many challenging behaviors in my classroom, I don't even know where to begin!
Teacher

I can't deal with Emma's behavior any longer. Either she goes or I go!!
Teacher

To the director of an early childhood program, these quotes will sound familiar. Teachers report increasing numbers of children with challenging behavior and increasing frustration associated with dealing with challenging behavior in their classrooms. Early childhood educators report challenging behavior as a primary training need (Buscemi, Bennett, Thomas, & Deluca, 1996; Hemmeter, Corso, & Cheatham, 2006) indicating that they do not feel prepared to deal with challenging behaviors. Further, a recent study found that children in early childhood programs were 6 times more likely to be expelled from preschool than children in K-12 (Gilliam, 2005).

Many families of children with challenging behaviors have experienced multiple changes in child care because of their child's behavior. While this is disruptive for families, it has even more serious consequences for children. For these children, consistency and continuity is critical to their long term outcomes. In order to build the capacity of programs to meet the needs of children with social emotional needs and challenging behaviors, an approach is needed that includes not only training and support for teachers but administrative supports and policies. In this article, we describe five important steps for building supports within programs to address the social emotional needs and challenging behaviors of all young children.

Adopt a philosophy that focuses on ensuring all children will be successful
in your program

This requires that programs adopt a philosophy that includes the following: a) all children belong here and our job is to provide supports that each child needs to be successful, b) we will work with families as partners in supporting children's success, and c) as administrators, we will provide the supports teachers need to ensure the success of all children. By adopting this philosophy, the program leader is making a commitment to supporting teachers, children, and families. This philosophy means that the program does not ask a child to leave because of behavior and does not blame the teacher, the family, or the child for the behavior. Rather, the focus is on working collaboratively with families to ensure the child's success in the program. This philosophy also means that the program approaches behavior from the perspective of teaching and supporting appropriate behaviors rather than only reacting to inappropriate behaviors.
Adopting a philosophy can be a complicated process that involves ensuring that staff members are committed to it and that it is shared with families in a meaningful way. This can be accomplished by:

• Working with a group that includes teachers, administrators, and families to write a philosophy statement;

• Getting input on the philosophy statement from staff and families through e-mails, surveys, or meetings;

• Sharing the philosophy statement with staff making clear the leader's commitment to having the philosophy drive program decisions and practices;

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