Several studies indicate that various disorders among adolescents are increasing. It is important to identify these disorders at an early stage. The idea of the study came from our teacher Kaisa Koivisto. The study was conducted together with the elementary school in Kempele.

The purpose of the study was to examine how teachers define challenging behaviour, what kind of examples they have of challenging behaviour and how they would like to improve the adolescents with challenging behaviour.

Our study was qualitative. The study was executed by interviewing teachers about their experiences of the subject. Three theme-based interviews were carried out, with the material being analysed along the method of content analysis.

According to the teachers’ experiences challenging behaviour occurs continuously among adolescents at school. Challenging behaviour may occur directly or indirectly. When the teachers face adolescents it is important to consider an adolescent as an individual. Teachers felt that facing the challenging behaviour at school is difficult. The role of multi-professional team and family were highlighted in the teachers’ answers. Teachers came up with ideas how to improve their own work and the procedure at school to develop the facing of adolescents with challenging behaviour.

Our cooperation partner got information of facing adolescents with challenging behaviour at school. With the help of the results the school can develop their procedure and the teachers can develop their own work.