Positive for everyone but necessary for some : A qualitative study about encountering challenging children in preschool

The purpose of this study was to investigate and highlight preschool teachers perceptions of challenging children in preschool. Furthermore, the study aims to increase knowledge about what´s most important when encountering with challenging children and which strategies and approaches that are advocated. In addition, the study aims to highlight children's thoughts on how they think the preschool's staff can respond to their needs in challenging situations. The analyses is based on a special educational field where the relational and categorical perspective has been used to interpret our material. The study was conducted through qualitative interviews with six preschool teachers and a group of eight preschoolers. The results show that it is difficult to interpret the concept of challenging children in preschool. However, the main results show that challenging children are often described as needing more time and adult attention in preschool than other children. The results also shows that the relationship between children and teachers is important, and awareness is needed when encountering challenging children. Furthermore, the study shows that advocated strategies consist of dividing the children into smaller groups, working preventively and using a low-affective approach. The work requires much planning and adaptation at both the individual, group and organizational level in order for challenging children to succeed and develop in preschool. From a child’s perspective the results show that it is important for the educator to see opportunities and base preschool planning on the child's interest. Finally, the results from a child’s perspective show that it is important that the educator tries to understand why the child becomes challenging and enables interactions between children