It’s ten past nine on a Tuesday morning. A three-year-old is standing by the block corner, red-faced, hurling blocks across the carpet because it’s tidy-up time and he isn’t ready. Somewhere behind him, a key person is taking a breath and deciding what to do next.
This is where behaviour support in early years actually happens. Not in a policy document, but in the space between a small overwhelmed person and the adult standing beside them. What that adult does in the next thirty seconds teaches the child something about feelings, and about whether the world is a safe place to be.
At CALM, we work with nurseries, childminders and early years teams to make sense of moments like this. In this guide we look at why young children’s behaviour is best understood as communication, why connection comes before correction, and what a trauma-responsive early years setting actually looks like on a Tuesday morning.
Why behaviour in early years needs a different lens
Behaviour support in the early years isn’t a smaller version of behaviour support in schools. The task is different in kind, not just in scale: we’re helping tiny humans learn what feelings are.
A two-year-old who bites, a three-year-old who throws, a four-year-old who runs and hides at drop-off: none of these children are choosing to be difficult. They’re doing the only thing they can do with a nervous system that’s still under construction.
The lens we use matters. If we see defiance, we reach for control; if we see a feeling too big for a small body, we reach for connection. The child in front of us hasn’t changed, but the response, and everything that follows from it, has.
Children communicate before they can explain
Language is one of the last things to arrive. Long before a child can say “I’m tired and I don’t want to stop playing”, they can throw a block, kick a chair, or bury their face in a jumper. All behaviour is communication, and in the early years, behaviour is often the only language available.
This is worth saying out loud in staff meetings, because it changes how we listen. A tantrum isn’t a performance; it’s a message, sent in the only medium the child has. Our first job is to receive it, not to correct it.
The neurobiology of being two, three, four
The parts of the brain that help us pause, think and choose our words are the last to develop, and they don’t come online for years. A young child in distress genuinely cannot access the thinking part of their brain in that moment: they aren’t refusing to calm down, they can’t, not on their own.
This is why lectures, consequences and reasoning don’t work well with a dysregulated toddler. The child isn’t ignoring us; they can’t yet hear us in the way an adult would. What they can do is borrow our calm, if we have it to lend.
What behaviour might be communicating
Before we respond, it helps to get curious. What is this behaviour telling us? Not as a rhetorical flourish, but as a genuine, working question we return to again and again.
In the early years, behaviour that challenges is rarely defiance. It’s usually one of three things: a feeling too big to hold, a need that isn’t being met, or a moment that feels unsafe. Sometimes it’s all three at once.
Big feelings without words
Frustration, jealousy, grief, excitement, fear: these arrive in full force long before the vocabulary does. A two-year-old feeling jealous of a new baby has the same intensity of feeling as an adult, and none of the tools to name or manage it.
So the feeling comes out sideways: a shove, a wail, a refusal to put shoes on. The behaviour is loud, but the message underneath is often quite simple: I feel something big and I don’t know what to do with it.
Unmet needs (rest, food, connection, predictability)
Small children are astonishingly sensitive to their basic needs. Hunger, tiredness, thirst, needing the loo, missing a parent: any of these can tip a child from regulated into overwhelmed in seconds.
It’s worth keeping a mental checklist. When behaviour feels sudden or out of character, we can ask ourselves: when did they last eat, sleep, have a cuddle, or a moment of one-to-one attention? Often the answer is right there.
Unsafe moments (transitions, separations, sensory overload)
Transitions are one of the hardest parts of early years life. Drop-off, moving from garden to snack, tidy-up time, the shift from free play to circle time: each involves a small ending and a small beginning, and each can feel enormous.
Then there’s sensory input. A busy nursery room is loud, bright, full of movement and other bodies; some children thrive in that, others find it exhausting by mid-morning. Behaviour that spikes at particular times of day is often telling us something about the sensory landscape of the room.
The role of the adult: co-regulation and connection
Here is the heart of it. In the early years, children don’t regulate themselves; they borrow regulation from the adults around them. That is not a metaphor: it is how the developing nervous system actually learns.
Which means the single most powerful intervention in any early years setting isn’t a chart on the wall or a reward jar. It’s the adult standing next to the child.
This is both a relief and a responsibility. A relief, because we don’t need a clever technique to help a distressed toddler; a responsibility, because our own state matters enormously.
Your nervous system is the first intervention
If we approach an upset child with tension in our shoulders and a tight jaw, they feel it. Small children are exquisitely tuned to the adults around them, and our stress becomes their stress, quickly.
The opposite is also true. A calm, grounded adult, breathing slowly, moving without hurry, gives the child something to sync with. This is co-regulation in the simplest possible terms: the child borrows our calm until they can grow their own.
Which means self-awareness isn’t a luxury. Noticing our own state, and taking a breath before we speak, is genuine practice; asking a colleague to step in when we’re running low is a sign of Professional Courage, not weakness.
Tone, pace and presence
Slow down; that’s often the whole intervention. Lower your voice, drop to the child’s level, soften your face, and give them time. The urge to fix, correct or explain can wait a minute.
Fewer words help too. A quiet “you’re cross, I’m here” often lands better than a longer sentence, and the child won’t remember what we said; they will remember whether we felt safe to be near.
Repair after rupture
Sometimes we get it wrong. We snap, we sigh loudly, we hurry a child through a moment that needed more time; every adult in every setting does this. It isn’t the mistake that shapes a child, it’s what happens next.
Repair is one of the most powerful things we can model. A gentle “I got a bit rushed with you earlier, I’m sorry about that” teaches a child that ruptures can be mended, and that they are still loved on the other side. Repair is not weakness; it is how relationships are built.
“Connection comes before correction. Relationships are the foundation of emotional safety.”
CALM Principle: Relationship Promoting
Setting up the environment for success
The early years setting is, for many children, their whole world outside home. The way the room feels, sounds, flows and predicts itself shapes behaviour more than any individual response ever will.
A well-designed environment does a huge amount of the work for us. It offers rhythm, gentle transitions, quiet corners and predictable adults, and it lets children feel their way into the day.
Rhythm, routine and visual cues
Young children thrive on knowing what comes next. A predictable rhythm to the day gives the nervous system something to lean on, and even the youngest toddlers pick up on this quickly.
Visual timetables, a familiar song before snack, a warning bell five minutes before tidy-up: these small structures aren’t controlling, they’re kind. They let a child prepare, and preparation is what makes transitions bearable.
Sensory considerations
Some children need more movement, some less; some need quieter spaces, some need to bury themselves under cushions in a den. Behaviour often changes when we notice a child’s sensory needs and shape the day around them.
It helps to walk through the room at child height once in a while. What’s loud, what’s bright, where is there nowhere to escape to? Small changes, a rug here, a screen there, a heavier fabric on a chair back, can transform how a child copes.
Spaces for calm and connection
Every setting benefits from a soft space. Not a naughty step, but a calm corner with cushions, a few well-loved books, a soft toy or two, and permission to be there whenever a child needs.
Adults can go there with children, not send them there alone. A quiet place that includes a person is a place of connection; a quiet place that excludes them is a place of shame.
Working with parents and carers
Parents and early years teams are on the same team, even when it doesn’t always feel that way. The child moves between two important worlds every day, and the closer those worlds can align, the safer the child feels.
This is delicate work. Parents care deeply, and conversations about behaviour can quickly feel like judgement; approaching them with warmth, curiosity and genuine partnership is at the heart of good practice.
Shared language, shared approach
When practitioners and parents use similar language, small children settle more easily. If “I can see you’re cross” is what they hear at nursery, and something similar at home, the world starts to make sense.
This doesn’t mean scripting parents. It means sharing what’s working, gently, and asking about what works at home; both sides have expertise, and both are worth listening to.
Sensitive conversations about behaviour
When we need to talk to a parent about something difficult, we start with the child as a whole person, not with a list of incidents. “She’s had a hard week, and I want to think it through with you” lands differently to “She hit again today”.
It also helps to be honest about our own uncertainty. “I’m not sure what’s going on for him, and I’d love your thoughts” opens a conversation rather than closing one down. Parents almost always know something we don’t.
How CALM supports early years teams
At CALM, we work with nurseries, childminders and early years teams to build settings where children under five feel safe, seen and understood. Our CALM Core Theory for Early Years course is designed specifically for people who spend their days with the youngest children, and it puts relationships, co-regulation and everyday practice at the heart of the learning.
If you’d like to explore the thinking behind our work before committing to a course, our Trauma Responsive Insights webinar series is a warm, practical place to start. Whether you’re a childminder working alone or a nursery group with settings across the UK and beyond, we’d love to talk about what might help. Connection comes before correction, and it starts with the adults.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is behaviour support in early years?
Behaviour support in early years is the everyday work of helping young children make sense of their feelings, needs and relationships. It’s less about managing conduct and more about co-regulation, connection and building a safe, predictable environment. At CALM, this thinking sits at the heart of our CALM Core Theory for Early Years course.
How do you respond to behaviour that challenges in toddlers?
Start with connection, not correction. Get down to the child’s level, soften your voice, name the feeling, and stay near while the big feeling passes. Correction, if it’s needed at all, comes much later, once the child is regulated and can actually hear you.
Why do young children hit, bite or throw?
Almost always because a feeling is too big for their small body and their words haven’t caught up yet. Hitting, biting and throwing are communication, not defiance. Our job is to receive the message, keep everyone safe, and help the child find another way over time.
How can a nursery be trauma-informed?
A trauma-informed nursery focuses on relationships, environment and adult regulation before it focuses on behaviour charts or consequences. Predictable rhythms, warm key-person relationships, sensory-aware spaces and reflective staff make the biggest difference. The CALM Trauma Course and Core Theory Online course both offer a strong foundation for early years teams.
What does co-regulation look like in early years?
It looks like an adult breathing slowly beside a child who can’t. It looks like a soft voice, unhurried movement, a warm hand on a back, and fewer words than we might think. The child borrows our calm until they can grow their own.
When should I worry about a young child’s behaviour?
Trust your instinct when a behaviour feels sudden, out of character, or unusually intense, or when a child shows knowledge or fears well beyond their years. Follow your setting’s safeguarding procedures, talk to your designated lead, and reach for support from health visitors or family support teams early rather than late.
Do parents and childminders need behaviour training too?
It’s genuinely helpful, and the thinking travels well between settings. Shared language between home and nursery helps small children feel safer in both places. CALM offers early years learning that suits childminders, foster carers and parents as well as larger nursery teams.