Preschool children are developing social and emotional skills, like recognizing and expressing emotions, building relationships with peers and adults, following directions, and solving problems. To develop these skills, young children rely on support from adults, including teachers, who model and teach children social and emotional skills in the context of consistent and positive interactions and relationships (Cantor et al., 2019; Silkenbeumer et al., 2016). As they learn these skills, preschool children engage in behaviors that adults find challenging, such as having tantrums, not following directions, and various forms of aggression (e.g., biting, hitting; Snell et al., 2012). Though these behaviors are often developmentally appropriate, they can cause frustration for early childhood educators, who identify child behavior as a central challenge of their profession (Haslip & Donaldson, 2021). Much of child behavior is in the "eye of the beholder", and not all behavior is interpreted equally. Perception of child behavior varies based on teacher characteristics (Jeon et al., 2014; Yoder & Williford, 2019), child characteristics (Arbeau & Coplan, 2007; Brady & Woolfson, 2008), and characteristics of the behavior itself (Coplan et al., 2015; Nungesser & Watkins, 2005). Teacher attributions about behavior are the beliefs that teachers have about why children behave in certain ways (Carter et al., 2014; Nemer et al., 2019). Teachers may hold attributions that are characterized by beliefs that a child behaved the way they did on purpose, was motivated to get something for themselves, was intentionally trying to annoy the teacher, and is deserving of blame (i.e., high level of child responsibility), as well as beliefs that the reason the child's behavior comes up often, the behavior is not likely to change, and has to do with something internal to the child (i.e., high level of child causality). When teachers hold attributions that place high levels of responsibility on the child for the behavior, they may be more likely to blame children and families (Martin et al., 2017), more likely to use exclusionary teaching practices (e.g., time out, suspension, expulsion), and less likely to use practices that support positive behavior (Carter et al., 2014; Miller et al., 2017). Despite the importance of teacher attributions, few studies have examined attributions in early childhood contexts. To address this gap, we use structural equation modeling to explore the relationship between attributions and teaching practices. We used data from 183 preschool teachers (see Table 1 for descriptives) collected as part of a relationship-based dyadic intervention (i.e., Banking Time; for full procedures, see Williford et al., 2017). At the beginning of the preschool year, teachers reported on their attributions using the Preschool Teacher Attributions measure (PTA; Carter et al., 2014). The PTA is a vignette measure that is designed to capture teacher's general attributions about various types of challenging behavior, adapted from the Attributional Style Measure for Parents (ASMP; O'Brien & Peyton, 2002). This measure included five types of child behavior: noncompliance to teacher requests, aggression towards peers, aggression or disrespect towards the teacher, interruption, and noncompliance with the routine. The teacher rated each behavior across eight dimensions (purposefulness, globality, stability, motivation, internal-external locus, blame, negative intent, and controllability), using a 6-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6). Teachers also reported on their use of proactive and inappropriate teaching strategies, using 26 items from the Teacher Strategies Questionnaire (TSQ; Webster-Stratton et al., 2003). Teachers reported on how often they used each strategy within their classroom on a scale from rarely/never (1) to very often (5). We conducted a series of confirmatory factor analyses and used the resulting latent factors as the teacher attribution predictor and teaching practices outcome. This resulted in two latent factors for the PTA measure (Causal and Responsibility, r = 0.852; RMSEA = 0.066, SRMSR = 0.044, CFI = 0.962), and two latent factors for the TSQ measure (Proactive practices: e.g., prepare children for transitions, give clear positive directions; Exclusionary practices: warn or threaten to send child out of classroom if they don't behave, send child home for misbehavior). Structural equation models explored the relationship between teacher attributions and teaching practices, controlling for teacher covariates (see Table 2). In partial support of our hypothesis, responsibility attributions predicted exclusionary practices (§ = 0.678, SE = 0.250, p = 0.007). Teachers who had higher responsibility attributions tended to also report more frequent use of exclusionary practices. However, causal attributions were not related to exclusionary practices (§ = -0.231, SE = 0.261, p = 0.376), and neither causal nor responsibility attributions predicted proactive teaching strategies (§ = 0.193, SE = 0.270, p = 0.476 and § = -0.290, SE = 0.259, p = 0.263, respectively). In terms of covariates, teacher race and center type predicted use of exclusionary practices; White teachers reported slightly more frequent use of exclusionary practices (§ = -0.209, SE = 0.126, p = 0.09), and teachers at private centers reported more frequent use of exclusionary practices, compared to Head Start teachers (§ = -0.346, SE = 0. 138, p = 0.012). No covariates predicted teachers' use of proactive practices. The finding that responsibility attributions relate to exclusionary practices is in line with qualitative research that found that teachers who request expulsion have different beliefs about children and families (Martin et al., 2017; Zulauf & Zinsser, 2019). Given the high rates of soft exclusion, suspension, and expulsion in early childhood settings generally, and in particular for boys, children of color, and children with disabilities (Meek & Gilliam, 2016; Zeng et al., 2020; Zinsser et al., 2022), understanding how attributions may work to push teachers towards using exclusionary practices is an important area of future research. Changing teacher attributions to be more supportive may be a promising target for reducing and ultimately eliminating the use of exclusion (Davis et al., 2020). More research is needed to understand how teacher attributions and other psychological factors are related to teaching practices to inform future interventions and policies to better support educators and children.