What the research of the last 40-50 years tells us is very simple. Behaviorally challenging kids are challenging because they're lacking the skills to not be challenging. If they had the skills to not be challenging, they wouldn't be challenging, because kids do well if they can. What's getting in the way for behaviorally challenging kids - lagging skills. And the research that has accumulated over the last 40-50 years has been quite explicit about what those lagging skills are. Generically they fall into a few different domains - flexibility, adaptability, frustration tolerance, problem-solving. But there are a whole bunch of additional skills that contribute to those more global skills. If you really want to understand what is setting the stage for your child to exhibit behavioral challenges, you're going to have to understand what skills he's lacking. And those lagging skills can fall into any of a variety of domains. Researchers tend to split them up as executive skills, language processing and communication skills, emotional recognition skills, cognitive and reflection skills, and social skills. Important to be a little bit more specific than that. But I can't overstate how important it is when an adult is first getting a handle on what's getting in this kid's way to figure out what skills the kid is lacking and if they can't do it on their own to get some help figuring out what skills the kid is lacking.