The attributions parents make about the problem behaviour of their children have been shown to be important determinants of their emotional and behavioural reactions to such behaviour. However, this relationship has not been studied in carers of children in residential settings. In this paper we apply Weiner's attributional model of helping to the self-predicted behaviour of 47 carers in residential children's homes in the U.K. Participants identified causes for four children's behaviours, made attributions about these behaviours on dimensions of internality, controllability, globality and stability, reported their emotional reactions to the behaviours on the dimensions of anger and sympathy and reported their likelihood of making extra effort to help in working with these behaviours. Results showed that attributions of controllability and globality, and the emotional response of sympathy were important in predicting reported likelihood of helping. The implications of these results for carer training are discussed.