An important part of being an effective family child care provider is observing and documenting children’s behavior. Sometimes, the underlying cause of a child’s behavior is obvious but usually, it requires careful observation from a provider and detailed documentation of the behavior to determine what the child is trying to communicate through challenging behavior. When trying to determine the cause of a challenging behavior it can be helpful to document when the behavior occurred, where the behavior occurred, what happened before the behavior, and what happened after the behavior. Observe a child in your care and use the following tool below to document their challenging behavior. Collect observations for several days and discuss with your trainer coach or family child care administrator what you think the child may be communicating through behavior.