Challenging Behavior in Young Children: Understanding, Preventing and Responding Effectively (3rd Edition)

Are you a student of education or educator currently in the field seeking answers to challenging behavior in your young students? If your answer is a resounding “Yes!” then you have found your survival guide!  Award-winning writers Barbara Kaiser and Judy Sklar Rasminksy have penned the most up-to-date resource for pre- and in-service teachers struggling with the answers to understanding, preventing, and addressing challenging behavior in primary grades and in preschools or child care centers in Challenging Behavior in Young Children: Understanding, Preventing, and Responding Effectively, Third Edition.

Highlighting the importance of relationships, the revised edition provides new background information and additional research-based strategies to enable pre-service and practicing teachers and child care staff to understand, prevent, and respond effectively to challenging behavior. The authors have widened the book’s scope this time around to make this edition just as useful to primary school teachers as it is for preschool educators, furnishing numerous practical, indispensable tips for responding to children’s needs and helping them know what is expected of them. The text stresses that every child has some kind of special need, especially children with challenging behavior, and prevention is the best intervention. The authors have also added material on inclusion, autism, culture, and dual-language learning, as children with disabilities, children from diverse families, and children who speak languages other than English join the classroom mix in greater numbers.

The book retains its personal touch and real-life examples, drawing on Barbara’s three decades in the field, and is replete with in-depth background information, strategies, and evidence-based techniques necessary to help pre-service and practicing teachers understand, prevent, and address the behavior problems found so often in today’s primary schools and child care centers, to work with the most difficult behaviors, and to benefit every child in the classroom. Challenging Behavior in Young Children, Third  Edition emphasizes the teacher’s role in the behavior of children, encouraging students and educators to reflect on their own values, feelings, and actions. The result is an invaluable resource for everyone involved in the education of young children.

CHALLENGING BEHAVIOR IN YOUNG CHILDREN: UNDERSTANDING, PREVENTING, AND RESPONDING EFFECTIVELY, Third edition

“An invaluable guidebook …. In this third edition, Kaiser and Rasminsky fulfill the promise of the book’s title by providing an eminently readable foundation for teachers to understand, prevent, and respond effectively to challenging behavior in young children…. This book could not be more timely or more needed.”

--From the foreword by Sue Bredekamp, author of Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs

“Kaiser and Rasminsky’s many notable changes and additions make an already great book even better. The third edition of Challenging Behavior in Young Children will be a useful tool for higher education faculty, administrators, and teachers. The authors have clearly articulated a framework that is designed to prevent challenging behavior by promoting social emotional competence. I believe that type of framework is necessary for meeting the needs of all children in early childhood settings.” 

--Mary Louise Hemmeter, Vanderbilt University, and Director, Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL)

“This book is a must-read for every early learning educator, from the novice to the most experienced. Kaiser and Rasminsky have early learning in their bones–best evidenced by the warm, caring, professional advice offered in this book; from establishing a positive classroom environment to developing cultural competence and teaching social-emotional skills. All the while the authors keep it real with practical teaching tips, clearly distilled research, and lively classroom examples on virtually every page.”

--Joan Cole Duffell, Executive Director, Committee for Children

“I’m very enthusiastic about this book. It’s interesting, reader friendly, and has a solid research foundation. Best of all, the information is extremely useful.”

--Janet Gonzalez-Mena, author of Diversity in Early Care and Education

“A powerful resource for understanding and working in a caring and respectful way with the neediest children.”

--Diane Levin, author of The War Play Dilemma

“Definitely my textbook of choice. It makes my teaching so much easier.” 

--Isaura Barrera, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, author of Skilled Dialogue

“A deeply sensible and valuable book that presents interesting, practical, and academically rigorous material in a style that’s always easy to read. What a great contribution to the field.”
–Frances Stott, Erikson Institute

According to an Insta Poll by Child Care Exchange, over the last 5 years no problem has troubled teachers more than challenging behavior. Challenging Behavior in Young Children provides the strategies they crave.

The recipient of a Texty Award for textbook excellence, Challenging Behavior in Young Children is in the judges’ words “an absolute winner.”

Barbara Kaiser and Judy Sklar Rasminsky

Challenging Behavior in Young Children: Understanding, Preventing and Responding Effectively, 3/e

From award-winning writers Barbara Kaiser and Judy Sklar Rasminsky comes the Third Edition of their best-selling book, Challenging Behavior in Young Children: Understanding, Preventing, and Responding Effectively. This up-to-date survival guide for teachers struggling to find answers to challenging behavior in the classroom emphasizes the teacher’s role in the behavior of children, encouraging students and educators to reflect on their own values, feelings, and actions. The result is an invaluable resource for everyone involved in the education of young children.

The recipient of a Texty Award for textbook excellence, Challenging Behavior in Young Children is in the judges’ words “an absolute winner.”

“I’m very enthusiastic about this book. It’s interesting, reader friendly, and has a solid research foundation. Best of all, the information is extremely useful.”

- Janet Gonzalez-Mena, author of Diversity in Early Care and Education

“A powerful resource for understanding and working in a caring and respectful way with the neediest children.”

 - Diane Levin, author of The War Play Dilemma

“Definitely my textbook of choice. It makes my teaching so much easier.” 

- Isaura Barrera, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, author of Skilled Dialogue

Barbara Kaiser is the former director of a child care center who has spent 30 years working with young children, their teachers, and their families. Now a consultant in early care and education, she frequently gives keynote addresses and workshops on challenging behavior throughout the United States and Canada. She has taught at Acadia University in Nova Scotia and Concordia University in Montreal.

Judy Sklar Rasminsky is a professional writer with special expertise in child care and family issues. She has won several awards for her work, which has appeared in American and Canadian magazines as well as college and high school textbooks.

Barbara Kaiser is the former director of a child care center who has spent 30 years working with young children, their teachers, and their families. Now a consultant in early care and education, she frequently gives keynote addresses and workshops on challenging behavior throughout the United States and Canada. She has taught at Acadia University in Nova Scotia and Concordia University in Montreal.

Judy Sklar Rasminsky is a professional writer with special expertise in child care and family issues. She has won several awards for her work, which has appeared in American and Canadian magazines as well as college and high school textbooks.