Having a child with challenging behavior can affect the entire family, and family members often find the need for more information and guidance in this difficult area. The resources listed below are intended to connect families with resources and support. The list isn’t intended to be exhaustive of the behavior resources available, but it will certainly get you started and lead you to yet more information and resources.

Using Positive Methods for Change at Home

How might you address your child’s challenging behavior?
You’ll find this reader-friendly site is well organized. It has facts about all aspects involved in working with children who have challenging behavior. Links to information on assessment and special education are provided.

English
http://www.pbs.org/parents/inclusivecommunities/challenging_behavior.html

Spanish
http://www.pbs.org/parents/inclusivecommunities/challenging_behavior_sp.html

Yet more on teaching children to manage their own behavior.
What Works briefs from the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning summarize effective practices for supporting children’s social-emotional development and preventing challenging behaviors. This 4-pager describes practical strategies for helping children learn to manage their own behavior and provides references to more information.

English
http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/resources/wwb/wwb7.html

Spanish
http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/briefs/wwb7-sp.pdf

Reinforcing positive behavior at home.
Positive reinforcement is the most powerful and useful method of changing or developing behaviors. Use it to improve your child’s behavior.
http://www.healthyplace.com/parenting/parenting-skills/reinforcing-positive-behavior-at-home/menu-id-61/

Alternatives to spanking.
Based on research, experts offer productive and concrete alternatives to spanking that parents can implement after little kids have misbehaved.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/03/experts-recommend-alternatives-to-spanking_n_1647306.html

Reinforcing small changes in behavior.
Written by a psychologist who works extensively with children and teens with AD/HD and explosive and defiant behaviors, this article talks about how children and adolescents learn, about misbehavior, and small steps that parents can use to help their child toward better behavior.
http://www.greatschools.org/LD/managing/reinforcing-small-changes-in-your-childs-behavior.gs?content=814

Get behavior in shape at home.
How do you create a Positive Behavioral Support system in your home? This Web site gives easy-to-implement suggestions. Learn the reasoning behind different techniques and how to use them to achieve your behavior goals. Specific examples include: eating dinner, asking for things while grocery shopping, and budgeting to teach children the value of money.

English
http://www.pbis.org/common/cms/files/pbisresources/behaviorshape.doc

Spanish
http://www.pbis.org/common/pbisresources/publications/behshapespanish.doc

Learn practical solutions to common behavior problems.
This web page links to 12 different publications on various topics, including promoting resilience in children, encouraging good behavior, and how to get your children involved in addressing their own challenging behaviors.
http://cecp.air.org/familybriefs

Your parent-friendly guide to functional assessment and support.
This 21-page guide describes what a functional assessment is, and what it can do to help your child. You can use this information to help your child at home, and also work with school staff to put a plan into place at school.
www.uoregon.edu/~ttobin/parent.pdf

Top 7 behavior management tips.
Many behaviors can be minimized by controlling your response to them. With these tips, you can decrease behavior problems using redirection. The goal of redirection is to teach the student to monitor and correct his own behavior.
http://learningdisabilities.about.com/od/publicschoolprograms/tp/redrctnrsponse.htm

Managing bad behavior at home.
This article takes a look at the question of “why kids are horrors at home.”
http://www.supernanny.co.uk/Advice/-/Parenting-Skills/-/Discipline-and-Reward/Why-Kids-are-Horrors-at-Home.aspx

Functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and positive interventions: What parents need to know.
This publication will help you find out what is causing your child’s problem behaviors. After you find the cause, you can create a game plan to support and encourage the behaviors you do want, and get rid of the behaviors you don’t want. Also available in Spanish, and Somali.

English
http://www.pacer.org/publications/pdfs/all12.pdf

Spanish
http://www.pacer.org/publications/pdfs/all12s.pdf

Somali
http://www.pacer.org/publications/pdfs/all12so.pdf

Improving Family Life

How to get help for your child.
Having trouble getting what your child needs? This reader-friendly site offers communication tips to use when seeking help. You’ll learn techniques for keeping things in perspective, focusing on the problem at hand, and what info you should be prepared to provide when you are asking for help. Plus, you can print out a handy checklist to help keep track of the information you gather.
www.uoregon.edu/~ttobin/Finding.htm

How to get help for yourself.
The link above will lead you to a group of parents who are raising challenging children. They invite you in and offer their site as a “soft place to land for the battle-weary parent.”
www.conductdisorders.com/

Fact sheets! Get your fact sheets here!
This site is a fact sheet treasure chest. You’ll find information on an wide range of topics such as anxiety disorders, bullying, ADHD, and autism.
http://www.nmha.org/go/information/get-info

Mental health fact sheets.
This web site has dozens of fact sheets on various issues, including ADHD, depression, conduct disorders, oppositional defiance disorder, and violent behavior. These up-to-date, well-written pubs are available in English, español, Deutsch, Français, Polish, and Icelandic.
http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/Facts_for_Families_Keyword.aspx

Learn what really works.
This web page links to 12 different research-based publications on various topics, including promoting resilience in children, encouraging good behavior, and how to get your children involved in addressing their own challenging behaviors.
http://cecp.air.org/familybriefs/

About temperament and its effect on behavior.
Let Great Schools introduce you to nine temperament traits: activity level, sensitivity, regularity, approach/withdrawal, adaptability, mood, intensity, persistence, and distractibility. Find out to pinpoint your child’s traits and how they can affect behavior.
http://www.greatschools.org/parenting/health-nutrition/temperament-traits.gs?content=788

Working with your child’s temperament.
Get ideas on helping children in ways that match their natural tendencies. This site offers suggestions for managing extreme behaviors. Click on the link to the Parent to Parent message board to read tips from other parents.
http://www.greatschools.org/parenting/behavior-discipline/tips-for-handling-problematic-temperament-traits.gs?content=787