Child behavioral problems hard lesson for pre-K parents

They arrive on day one equipped with juice boxes and sharp pencils, ready to begin a long career of school-based learning. But within a few months, thousands of 3- and 4-year-olds nationwide will be pre-kindergarten dropouts, outcasts because of their unmanageable behavior.

That is the troubling pattern, identified for the first time earlier this year by Yale University researchers, which has advocates, teachers, and parents exploring whether anything could happen to make this year's results unfold differently.

To find answers, they are looking closely at what tends to transpire when a child repeatedly acts up.

All too often, some say, teachers with limited training and mounting concerns about liability look for ways -- some more subtle than others -- to get problem children to go away and not return.

''I think the pattern of kids getting kicked out is the pattern of [teachers saying], 'I don't get paid enough, and I'm worried about getting sued,' " said Catherine Risigo-Wickline, founder and president of Kangaroo's Korner, a preschool in Watertown, Conn., where six of the 59 children were expelled from another site.

But, she added, a few structural adjustments to a program can often make children less explosive. Her teachers, she said for instance, have successfully diffused many a tinderbox by making sure activities are age-appropriate.

''Motor and movement are the foundation to learning" in young children, Risigo-Wickline said. ''So when we began to integrate more motor [skills] into our curriculum, that helped [reduce] some of the biting and screaming and hitting and throwing and all the things that were happening."

Despite its fun reputation, preschool opens nationwide this year against a sobering backdrop. Thanks to a May report from the Yale Child Study Center, parents and advocates now know educators turn to the expulsion solution three times more often with troublesome preschoolers than do their colleagues who teach kindergarten through Grade 12. Survey responses from 3,900 teachers showed preschool boys were 4.5 percent more likely than girls to get expelled. African-American children were twice as likely as their white or Latino peers to be expelled.

In preparing parents this year for what can happen, however, advocates are making sure they know how subtle the expulsion process can be.

''Parents would be called in and told, 'Maybe your child needs to take a break. Why don't they take the rest of the semester off?' " said Don Owens, spokesman for Pre-K Now, an organization based in Washington, D.C., that pushes for universal access to pre-kindergarten programs. But that apparently voluntary choice can have unintended consequences.

''Once the child is expelled or asked to leave, in many communities across the country, there are no other options for them. . . . It's just like filling out a job application or applying for credit: these schools want to know where your child has been," and will refuse admission to those with a checkered history.

Lisa Mathey of Ashburn, Va., understands those frustrations. Her 3-year-old daughter, who has attention deficit and oppositional defiant disorders, had to leave one program after a few months and soon after raised liability concerns at a second one. Her erratic behavior included removing all her clothes and climbing to high spots where she could not be reached. She was allowed to stay, Mathey said, but only because the parents agreed to work with a psychologist at their own expense. Meanwhile, she pleaded with local county officials to admit her daughter into a federally mandated program for children with disabilities.

''I said, 'Look, if I don't get help, my daughter is going to be removed from pre-K, and I don't have anywhere else to go. What do I do?' " Mathey said. Her daughter is now enrolled in the mandated public program.

Across the country, more than 800,000 children participate each year in state-funded preschools, which can include for-profit and faith-based programs.

Receiving public funds, however, does not obligate preschools to educate all comers, according to Walter Gilliam, author of the Yale study. Since no state requires preschool attendance, he said, expulsions generally do not trigger legal problems. But a problem child with potential to endanger others certainly can.

''When you're talking about K through 12, you're talking about the legal concerns of the individual child pitted against the legal concerns of all the children in the classroom," Gilliam said. ''When you're talking about preschool, it's legal concerns for liability toward all the other children in the classroom, but no legal concerns for the [rights of] the individual child. So it certainly tips the balance."

Teachers on the whole ''are genuinely concerned about liability," according to Marilou Hyson, senior adviser for research and professional practice at the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

In a field where some educators have bachelor's degrees and specialized training while others lack a high school diploma, she said, teachers need more help from consultants, as well as from parents willing to take a collaborative approach.

''It's hard not to think of [intervention] as a huge criticism of your child," Hyson said. ''But being bad is even more stressful. No one wants to be in trouble all the time. . . . It shouldn't be an adversarial relationship" between parents and teachers, all of whom want behavior to improve.

Still, preschool problems are sometimes handled so informally that parents take offense. Raquel DeNigris of Watertown, recalled a preschool teacher pulling her aside during pickup time one day when her son was 3 years old. A girl's parents were threatening to withdraw their child, the teacher said, because DeNigris's son had been harassing her.

''They never told me, 'You're going to have to take your kid out of here.' It was alluded to," DeNigris said. ''I didn't want my child to be labeled by the school as the problem child," DeNigris said, so she voluntarily withdrew him. He has now enrolled at Kangaroo's Korner for two trouble-free years.

Nationwide, preschool is getting a close look this year in state capitols, where 36 legislatures have discussed some sort of preschool-related legislation. However, on the expulsion question, advocates say the place to rescue at-risk students is, for the moment, not in state houses but in classrooms where each case gets decided.

''On what grounds are you expelling someone who is coming to you to give them a foundation to stand on?' " asked John Jackson, national director of education for the NAACP. ''If we're expelling them, we're giving up on them at a young age. . . . It starts them in the wrong direction."

For preschoolers with behavioral issues, much will depend this year on whether classrooms are structured to diffuse or exacerbate problem situations.

Equally important may be the diplomatic skills of their parents to find an effective solution. And in minority communities, advocates say, that can be the biggest challenge.

''There's an unfamiliarity [in Hispanic communities] with how to work the system," said Jacqueline Vialpando, a volunteer advocate for Latino children in public schools in Washington, D.C.

''Maybe in their minds they've tried to push levers, [but they] may be louder, more aggressive, humbler, or speak with their eyes" in a way that teachers and administrators do not understand, Vialpando said.

''Finally," she said, ''you just give up."