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true. You also know that challenging behavior occurs when life demands skills that a child lacks, and that there’s a whole spectrum of challenging behaviors that can occur—some relatively mild, others much more severe—under these circumstances.
    By the way, there’s a big difference between interpreting the lagging skills described above as “excuses” rather than as “explanations.” When lagging skills are invoked as excuses, the door slams shut on the process of thinking about how to teach the kid the skills he lacks. Conversely, when lagging skills are invoked as explanations for a kid’s behavior, the door to helping swings wide open. As you shall see.
    UNSOLVED PROBLEMS
    I’ve described some of the lagging skills that can set the stage for challenging behavior, but there’s a crucial piece of information missing. Those lagging skills are especially problematic in specific situations. We need to identify the specific conditions or situations (sometimes called triggers or antecedents) in which challenging behavior occurs. I prefer to call these situations unsolved problems. How do we knowthese problems are unsolved ? Because they’re still precipitating challenging behavior. If you don’t identify the problems that are precipitating a kid’s challenging behavior, it will be hard to know what you’re working on, the problems will remain unsolved, and the kid’s challenging behavior will persist. But if you identify the kid’s unsolved problems, you can work with him to solve them, and his challenging behavior will subside.
    For example, if a kid is having some of his greatest difficulties during circle time, then circle time is an unsolved problem precipitating challenging behavior. If a kid is having difficulty getting along with other kids during recess, then getting along with other kids during recess is an unsolved problem precipitating challenging behavior. And if a kid is refusing to work when paired with a particular classmate, then working with that particular classmate is an unsolved problem precipitating challenging behavior. A lot of adults nominate the word “no” as a trigger. But it’s not specific enough. It’s what the adult is saying “no” to—going to the bathroom (yet again), sharpening a pencil (yet again), excessive talking or teasing—that helps adults know the specific problem they need to solve (so they don’t have to keep saying “no” so often).
    Difficulties getting along with other kids on the school bus, behaving appropriately in the cafeteria or in the hallways, transitioning from one activity to another, interacting with a certain teacher or peer, getting started and maintaining effort on specific academic tasks, completing classwork or homework, working with other students cooperatively—these are all problems that commonly precipitate challenging behavior. What’s the next goal? Work with the students in a way that moves these problems from the “unsolved” category to the “solved” category.
    NEW LENSES AND A NEW TOOL
    There are many lenses through which challenging behavior in kids can be viewed. Some people view challenging behavior through theprism of diagnoses. Now you know why that’s not my focus. Some people see passive, permissive, inconsistent, noncontingent parenting when they’re observing a child’s challenging behavior. Now you should be clear as to why that won’t be our emphasis, either. Here’s the mantra that encapsulates the view of this book:
    Behind every challenging behavior is an unsolved problem and a lagging skill.
    Whether a kid is sulking, pouting, whining, withdrawing, refusing to talk, crying, spitting, screaming, swearing, running out of the classroom, kicking, hitting, destroying property, or worse, you won’t know what to do about the challenging behavior until you understand why it’s occurring (lagging skills) and pinpoint the situations in which it occurs (unsolved problems). Lagging skills are the why of