Resource library • Behaviour support • Family life
5 practical strategies for managing challenging behaviour in children.
Challenging behaviour is often a sign that a child is overwhelmed, missing a skill or struggling to communicate what they need. These five strategies help caregivers respond with steadier limits, clearer expectations and more opportunities to practise what to do next.
Centre Famille resource
Practical, respectful tools for the difficult moments that happen in real family life.
Read the behaviour
Look for the need, trigger or missing skill underneath the action.
Regulate before redirecting
Lower the intensity first so the child has a better chance of hearing the limit.
Make expectations visible
Use brief directions, predictable routines and one clear next step.
Reinforce the skills you want
Notice effort, recovery and cooperation specifically—not only the final result.
Use consequences that teach
Keep consequences related, proportionate and focused on repair or practice.
Repair and seek support
Reconnect after the hard moment and get help when patterns are intense or persistent.
A child can need empathy and a clear boundary at the same time.
Strategy 1 • Understand the pattern
Behaviour is information. Start by asking what it may be communicating.
Before deciding how to respond, pause and look at the pattern. What tends to happen just before the behaviour? Is the child tired, hungry, rushed, confused, overstimulated or facing a demand that feels too large? The goal is not to excuse harmful behaviour. It is to choose a response that addresses both the limit and the reason the child is struggling.
Look for triggers
Notice transitions, sensory load, difficult tasks, changes in routine, conflicts, hunger, fatigue and moments when the child loses a sense of control.
Notice the missing skill
Ask what skill the child may not yet be able to use consistently: waiting, asking for help, tolerating frustration, shifting plans, expressing feelings or recovering from disappointment.
Calm the system before you correct the behaviour.
1. Lower your own intensity
2. Reduce words and demands
3. Hold one clear limit
Strategy 3 • Make expectations visible
Make the next right action easy to see.
Directions are easier to follow when they are specific, brief and realistic for the child’s developmental level. Instead of repeating what must stop, show the child what to do next.
Say what to do
Replace “Stop being difficult” with a concrete action such as “Shoes on, then we leave” or “Use a quiet voice beside me.”
Break it into one step
When a child is overwhelmed, give the first manageable step rather than the entire sequence. Add the next step after the first one is complete.
Preview transitions
Give a simple warning before changes: “Five more minutes, then bath.” Visual schedules, timers and repeated routines can make expectations more predictable.
Clear directions describe the action you want to see. They do not require the child to guess what “behave,” “be good” or “calm down” means.
Strategies 4 and 5 • Teach what comes next
Strengthen the behaviour you want—and make consequences teach.
Children learn from what happens repeatedly. Specific encouragement helps useful skills become more visible, while related consequences connect the behaviour to repair, responsibility and a chance to try again.
Reinforce skills you want repeated
Notice the exact behaviour, effort or recovery you want the child to recognize and use again.
“You were frustrated and still used words to ask for help.”
Give attention to small moments of cooperation—not only large successes.
Celebrate recovery: returning, repairing, retrying and calming after a mistake.
Use consequences that teach
A consequence is most useful when it is calm, related to what happened and followed by a clear path back into connection.
Keep it related: clean up, repair, replace or practise the expected action
Keep it proportionate and short enough for the child to understand
Avoid humiliation, threats, sarcasm and unrelated punishments
After accountability, offer a genuine reset and another opportunity to succeed
Repair and practise
The most important learning often happens after the hard moment.
Once everyone is calmer, keep the follow-up brief and useful. The goal is not to force a perfect apology or replay the entire conflict. It is to restore safety, understand one important part of what happened and practise a more workable response.
Reconnect first
Offer warmth and reassurance before analysis. Connection helps the child return to a state where reflection and learning are possible.
Name one pattern
Choose one observation: the trigger, the feeling, the missed cue or the moment when the situation became harder. Avoid turning the repair into a long list of every past problem.
Rehearse the next step
Practise one sentence, gesture or action the child can try next time: asking for a break, getting an adult, using a calm-down space or saying what they need.
When patterns persist
Repeated behaviour may mean the family needs more support—not more blame.
Consider additional support when behaviour is frequent, intense, unsafe, happening across several settings or significantly affecting family life, school participation or relationships. A professional can help identify developmental, emotional, sensory, learning or environmental factors and create a more individualized plan.
