Child Problem Behavior and Teacher-Child Relationships: Bridging Theory and Practice

Current models of intervention have little attention to the complexities of constructing supportive teacher-child relationships with behaviorally-challenging or aggressive children and the emotional demands placed on teachers. One of the reasons is that we lack a clear understanding of more implicit relationship processes. In addition, there is also insufficient knowledge of how to assess and change negative implicit relationship processes. This proposal for strategic basic research addresses these concerns. The first goal is to increase understanding of the complexities of teacher-child relationships by examining the understudied role of implicit relationship processes in the school adjustment and sociobehavioral development of children with behavior problems. The second goal is to examine how teachers can be made aware of implicit relationship processes in relationships with behaviorally challenging children in such a way that teacher-child relationships can be improved.

Keywords:teacher-child relationship, teacher-student interaction, implicit processes, coaching, intervention

Disciplines:Biological and physiological psychology, General psychology, Other psychology and cognitive sciences