What are the causes of aggression in children? How do you control aggressive child?
Aggressive behavior in children can best be regarded as a start to other disturbing issues in a child, especially in their early lives.
In this article, you are going to learn;
- what causes aggressive behavior in a child
- early childhood development of aggression in children
- effects of aggression in the life of a child
- how to control an aggressive child
See…
Every young child is a learner of all kinds of strategies for making life easy and meaningful to all extent. From trying to walk to speaking a new language, she is opened to getting frustrated and tired with all the new skills she’s trying to master (at once).
In this process, she might get fussed up and transfer aggression to people around her.
However, the bottom line with regards to aggression in children is to get a control over it. To control an aggressive child, you should first identify the causes. Kids transfer aggression to playmates, especially, due to a lot of different reasons.
Identifying the causes of aggression in children
According to Raul Silva of Child Mind, aggressive behaviour in children is a very polymorphic thing. A commonality for any number of different psychiatric conditions, medical problems, and life circumstances. And so at the very essence of treating aggression is first to find out what’s driving it.
In the process of searching the causes of aggressiveness in your child, it may be shocking to learn that it is a normal part of every child’s development.
A child could suddenly grab their food from the table, smash it on the floor as they yell and cry uncontrollably.
Nevertheless, the major causes of aggression in children are basically the following;
1. Change of environments.
If you have recently moved to a new location, your child will take some to adapt to people in that environment.
Your child will try to get used to staying away from the home she knows. If along the line, she feels rejected or sidelined, she might shove her annoyance on other kids in retaliation.
2. Mood imbalance.
Next is to find out if your child has made an issue with her mood. Children, just like adults develop mood swings quite a number of times.
From depressive lows to manic highs, bipolar kids, especially, are prone to mood swings and can frequently get aggressive when triggered.
3. Hunger.
Sometimes, a child may become aggressive when hungry and not able to communicate that accordingly.
The only feasible medium of expression would be to borrow aggressive measures. In this sense, she feels it’s Okay to simply hit her legs so hard on the floor and screen to pass the right message to the concerns.
4. Tiredness.
This happens most often when a child becomes tired. They tend to throw a tantrum if disturbed.
5. Anxiety and frustration.
At times, kids get furious when they have difficulty in dealing with their anxiety or frustrations. When a child can not verbalize her feelings as others do, they tend to become infuriated.
How to control aggressive child
It doesn’t matter the dimension at which your child’s tolerance can be controlled, it all burns down to how much helping hands you’re willing to offer to curb the situation.
The truth is this;
An aggressive behavior of a child should be quickly controlled in the early stage of their life. This is because we don’t want them to feel it’s one of the normal things to do when tired, frustrated etc.
However, your child is likely to outgrow her aggressive nature as she grows older. At a stage, she would have learned the basics of communication which would eventually replace pulling a tantrum.
The most important thing is to help her realize this in time before things get out of control.
You’d need to help her realize that expressing her feelings verbally is basically all she needed to get her numerous wants, instead of pushing her younger ones to the wall.
Having stated the above which seems normal to some extent, every parent wants a solution to whatever might be a challenge to their parental responsibilities. Hence, below are effective ways to control an aggressive behaviour of your child.
1. Be an example worth imitating.
If you are the type of parent who has to yell, shout and scream every now and then to get your child to obey you, then be ready to stop.
2. Control your temper when passing instructions, even when you are angry.
Avoid yelling at your child no matter how angry you become. When this happens, you might be sending signals to your child unknowingly that such approach is right to get what your heart desires.
The best example you can give is to be as calm as possible yourself – to help your child learn through you.
3. Be attentive.
Be quick to resolve issues that might lead to your child’s aggression. You wouldn’t have to wait till a damage is completely done before you intervene.
4. Introduce soft punishment.
Try limiting his access to some of the things he loves every time he loses his temper.
For instance, if your child loves playing the video games, take the advantage of keeping the pads off for some time to serve him a lesson for being so aggressive a while ago.
You can also ban him from going beyond the house premises to play with friends.
5. Maintain your rules.
Don’t get tired of responding to any aggressive moves by him, using the same pattern of sanctions.
It is better to maintain a particular strategy which your child will know about. In this sense, he knows what to expect whenever he commits.
Eventually, he would get to understand how much would be missing when next he gets aggressive.
6. Talk about his attitude.
A one-on-one communication with your child still plays a major advantage in getting your plan fulfilled. Allow your child to calm down as you sit him down to talk about the more privileges that could be earned if he is that calm.
Allow him some time after an aggressive mood before talking about it. But you have to be sure the memory is still fresh, and not when he has forgotten what happened.
Start by requesting to know what actually got him infuriated, which leads to hitting her younger sister so hard. This might be one of the causes listed above with regards to this topic.
However, you don’t want to raise a child who can’t stand her ground or can be easily cheated. You should remember to let your child know that it’s simply Okay to get angry, just not to the extent of kicking, yelling or hitting people.
There are a few suggestions you can relate to your child if she wants to express her anger. Few ones her;
- kicking a soft pillow
- talking to you about it
- calling the concern — telling them what they did to hurt you
Moreso, teach him to always walk away from situations and people that would get him infuriated. This should be an option until you are sure he is old enough to figure other ways to respond to annoying people aside pulling a fight.
7. Reward when he obeys.
As much as you want to notice when your child become aggressive and misbehaves, it is quite important you pay more attention to the things he does great. I recommend rewarding these good behaviours too.
8. Get him to fix back all damages.
If at any moment while your child expresses his hanger, damage people’s item or property, you should get him to fix them right back. If your child broke people’s chair while expressing his anger, you must get him to fix it back.
However, this is no punishment at all. Anyone would agree that it is right to fix back people’s belonging hat got damaged by us. This is simply a natural way of saying; “oh, I’m sorry. Now, let me get it back the way they used to be “.
Getting a child to do the right things should be our collective responsibilities.
Image: iStock Photo
