Observing Children’s Stress Behaviors in a Kindergarten Classroom

This study used qualitative methods to determine whether kindergarten children exhibited stress behaviors during the academic work period of the day. Sixteen children (8 male, 8 female) ages 5-6 years were observed. The data consisted of classroom observations by the researcher, open-ended interviews with teachers, artifacts collected from the classroom, and specific work artifacts of the children. Results showed that a total of 9 children exhibited stress behaviors at some point during the observations. Questions raised by this research include what types of classroom environments and teacher characteristics ease or contribute to stress experienced in kindergarten and whether children in developmentally appropriate settings are less likely to exhibit stress behaviors than those in setting where developmentally inappropriate practices are predominant.