Behavioural problems form a major part psychological difficulties in children.The child is often labelled as a trouble maker, punished, ignored by colleagues, teachers and family members. Even the parents find it difficult to deal with such issues. There is an urgent need to take steps for a better understanding of the problem and attend to it comprehensively.

Any abnormal pattern of behaviour which is inappropriate to age and level of development can be described as “challenging behaviour”. It has been defined as: “Culturally abnormal behaviour of such an intensity, frequency or duration that the physical safety of the person or others is likely to be placed in serious jeopardy or behaviour which is likely to seriously limit or deny access to and use of ordinary community facilities”.

Child psychiatry is primarily concerned with the study and treatment of behavioural and emotional problems of the child. Because the child living through active and critical phase of development, the approach to diagnosis and treatment of children’s mental and emotional disturbance is necessarily different from that used with adult. The behavioural problems in child psychiatric condition make the parents and caregivers to seek for the treatment.   The early detection and treatment of such child psychiatry cases are most important because the child is at the phase of development and untreated cases tends to develop maladaptive behavior which leads to traumatic childhood. Our society tends to take a punitive, rather than a rehabilitative, attitude towards an antisocial, aggressive youth. Thus the emphasis is on punishment and on teaching the child a lesson. Such treatments, however, seems to intensify rather than correct the behaviour.

Mental health conditions in children are diagnosed and treated based on signs and symptoms and how the condition affects a child’s daily life. The evaluation of the condition is made by a specialist through interviews with parents, standardised assessment, and questionnaires