Whats going on when a child is well behaved at home, but his preschool teacher reports bad behavior?
Dr. Campbell: When this happens — or the reverse — you want to know what’s happening in both those places. Let’s say it’s an only child with calm parents, and he attends a preschool that’s noisy and chaotic. That can trigger bad behavior in the child at school, who’s not accustomed to the noise and commotion. The opposite can be true. School is calm and structured, and the home is chaotic. So the child “lets go” at school. You’d have to look at what is eliciting the behaviors. It’s definitely a sign that something’s going on somewhere that needs to be looked at. P&C: What’s your take on the issue of kids being expelled from preschool for behavior problems? Dr. Campbell: It’s probably inevitable. The more common it becomes for kids to be together in groups at younger and younger ages — child care settings, preschools — the more likely you’ll see behavior problems, because there will be kids who are probably not ready for a structured group setting. In the past, they might not have had t
