How To Deal With Childhood Aggression?
Currently, aggressiveness and violence are common in everyday society. What is really worrying is the childhood aggression, which has been manifesting itself for many years among the younger members of the household. It is very important to know about this problem and how to avoid it in children.
What is aggressive behavior in children?
Aggressive behavior is when the child tries to harm, physically or emotionally, another child, parents or someone close to them. In general, it is an intentional attitude that manifests itself through kicking, screaming, scratching, shoving, swearing, among other actions.
Aggressive behavior in children causes them to have complications in their personal and school life and difficulties in social relationships, as well as in integrating into groups.
In many cases, childhood aggression shows outward signs that manifest an internal problem. These are behaviors that reflect, in general, the child’s great emotional discomfort. The child expresses these emotions he is experiencing through anger and rage.
How to avoid childhood aggression?
Aggressive behavior in children is based on learned behaviors that can be modified with appropriate treatment.
To improve this behavior, the presence of parents and teachers is very important – in the case of the school – as well as constant intervention and monitoring of the child at all times.
Physical punishment is not recommended to treat childhood aggression under any circumstances, as this type of attitude can encourage even more aggression. That is, physical punishment has negative effects: the child imitates aggression and, in addition, the attitude increases his anxiety.
The best way to deal with childhood aggression is to maintain patience and perseverance at all times so that the problem can be resolved.
It is normal for many parents to feel lost and wonder how to avoid the childhood aggression they see in their children. So, next, we’ll look at some important guidelines to be able to modify these behaviors of children in an appropriate way.
1. Identify the problem
The first point is essential to be able to end childhood aggression. Each parent must identify the problem. For this, the first thing to do is to identify what kind of aggressive behavior the child expresses.
It is important to be objective and specific when looking for the type of behavior. This will allow you, through the following steps, to be specific in your treatment.
2. Establish the frequency with which the child is aggressive
Another essential step in the process of eliminating children’s aggressive behavior is to write down for a week the times the child has had aggressive behavior.
Also, it is important to identify in which situation this behavior occurs. That is, what specifically causes this behavior. In this way, the causes, circumstances and responses of your behavior can be related.
3. Weaken aggressive behavior
Once the how and why of these behaviors have been identified, it is important to establish two goals in order to modify the child’s behavior. On the one hand, weakening aggressive behavior and, on the other hand, reinforcing alternative responses to each situation.
One way to do this step is to try to reduce the child’s contact with aggressive role models. It is necessary for parents to show their children other ways to resolve conflicts, such as, for example, through dialogue, reasoning or the establishment of norms, among others.
Likewise, example is an invaluable tool. When children see that their elders solve problems in this way, in an assertive and constructive way, it will be easier to imitate the appropriate model.
4. Determine the procedure, assess whether it is effective
Once it is determined how the treatment of these aggressive behaviors that children present will be done, it must be implemented with perseverance and patience.
To ensure better results and work together, it is important to communicate it to all adults who live with children. Thus, they will also be part of the treatment and modification of aggressive behaviors.
In summary, it is important that parents react to childhood aggression and adopt a positive attitude towards its solution. They should identify what triggers these behaviors and try to improve children’s behavior through good practice, conversations and good examples.
