Definition
The term emotional and behavioural difficulties (BESD) is used in relation to all those pupils who have difficulty controlling their behaviour and emotions. Their ability to learn is affected, and they may also find it hard to operate in a social setting. Many pupils will go through periods when they are anxious, moody or difficult in response to situations that have arisen at home or at school, but the problems ofBESD pupils are more intractable. Some will become very withdrawn, while others may be disruptive or disaffected.Withdrawn children under-react to situations and may be quiet and passive. They may have a very poor self-image and appear unhappy. They may suffer from depression or a deep-seated feeling of insecurity, or they may be emotionally damaged through physical, sexual or verbal abuse.
By contrast, acting-out, aggressive children are a problem to others as well as themselves. Their inability to fit in to the socially-accepted norms of behaviour make them difficult to control in the classroom. They may have been over-indulged and allowed to believe that their own needs are more important than anyone else's, or they may have become undisciplined through inappropriate social modelling and/or a lack of parental care, control or understanding.
Recently, the term disaffected has been used to describe older pupils who begin to reject their school and its curriculum as irrelevant to their needs.