1. Friends of Foster care
Responding to Challenging Behaviours
Thispresentation has been adapted from Shared Stories, Shared Lives: A course for foster parents and potential foster parents.(Dept. Human Services 2006)

2. Understanding Challenging Behaviour
3. Behaviours that can be difficult to deal with:

Withdraw or cry easily

4. Be easily exhausted or vey excited 5. Try to control people 6. Cling to everyone and anyone 7. Be destructive or aggressive 8. Be self-destructive 9. Be a loner 10. Feel powerless or worthless 11. Resent all rules be generally argumentative 12. Be scared of authority 13. Be unwilling to share 14. Insist that everything be perfect 15. Be very afraid 16. Distort reality 17. Take a hoard food even when theres plenty available 18. Find it difficult to show affection 19. Have problems relating to children their own ageAdapted from Barnados Foster carers training kit.
20. Managing Challenging Behaviour
21. When managing behaviour DONT
Use physical punishment. This teaches the child or young person to control through force and to dealwith his or her anger by resorting to hitting others
Make derogatory remarks about the child or young person, his or her parents, relatives and cultural heritage or religion
Make threats about the security or length of placement
Withhold food or meals
Deny visits to parents, siblings and relatives
Be verbally abusive
Use public humiliation
Participate in activities designed to humiliate a child or young person, to place the child or young person in an unsafe environment, or produce terror or fear.
Lock the child or young person in their room
Use force or threats to elicitgood behaviour.
22. Ways to help children and young people to change their behaviour

Listen to the child or young person

23. Be consistent 24. Praise 25. Use time ins 26. Have realistic, age-appropriate goals and expectations 27. Help older children and young people to articulate what they want and how it might be achieved.What other strategies can you think of? Add them to the discussion forum.
28. When a carer feels pushed too far...
What sorts of behaviours from children or young people pushes your buttons?
Why does this behaviour annoy or upset you?
How will you respond to behaviour that really challenges you?
What can assist you in making an appropriate response?
Respond to these questions in the discussion forum.