Contents
😉 Greetings to my regular readers and visitors of the site! Young parents will be interested in the topic: children’s aggression and how to react to it correctly.
Aggressive child: recommendations for parents
The mother makes a minor remark to her son or refuses some request. And he suddenly rushes at her with his fists, screams, cries, stomps his feet …
Apparently, you have seen such a scene more than once. Maybe your child sometimes does this too? This is childish aggression. How do you react to this behavior? Most of the time, mom will yell back. He will slap the baby on a soft spot, order him to calm down and forbid him to behave like that.
Of course, every mother wants her child to grow up restrained, calm. But isn’t she doing the kid a disservice by forbidding her to show her aggressiveness, to pour out her anger?
Causes of aggression
Aggressiveness in every person, as well as in an animal, is inherent in nature. This is our defensive response to an outside threat. By nature, it is almost the same as that of a cat. The mother cat, in a rage, rushes at the huge dog to protect herself and her kittens.
In many cases, she still manages to frighten this dog with her aggressiveness. However, we humans are civilized beings. Therefore, we cannot show our anger as directly as a cat. We cannot pounce with our fists at the cashier who incorrectly gave us change in the supermarket.
Adults know other, socially acceptable ways to respond to these situations. But children do not yet know how to do this. Therefore, in situations that they consider threatening for themselves, they wake up exactly the instinct of anger and aggressiveness laid down by nature.
But is it worth suppressing it with a strict shout or a prohibition to show your emotions in this way? Will this lead to more problems?
Types of aggression
Have you watched the movie Anger Management? Remember what Jack Nicholson’s character, a psychiatrist, said: “There are two types of aggressive people – open and hidden
- the first type is a person who stands at the checkout and yells at the seller who incorrectly scolded him the change;
- the second type is the salesperson. Every day he is forced to listen to all the claims of buyers and only smile at them in return. One wonderful day, such a seller takes a machine gun and shoots all the customers in the store. ”
Everything is correct. If you restrain your anger for a long time, constantly suppress it in yourself, do not give it discharge, then it accumulates. The desire to carry out aggressive action increases. In addition, the threshold for manifestation of aggressiveness is reduced, and, ultimately, a person’s cup of patience overflows.
Then a sidelong glance or an offensive word is enough for a person who has held back for a very long time, pounced on another with fists or weapons. And even a random person suffers from this, because the object of aggression is often not the biggest irritant. Aggression is redirected.
Once upon a time in Spain there was such a case: a man threw his wife out the window, which prevented him from watching the broadcast of a football match. After that, he calmly settled himself on the couch and watched football until the police came for him.
At first glance, a senseless, wild act. Moreover, the man had a reputation for being quiet and calm. However, such an act of his does not surprise psychologists: it is obvious that this man did not know how to express his anger in some indirect ways.
Tail in himself anger at the boss, who reduced his salary and transferred him to a lower position. He was angry at the people who pushed him into the subway, at a friend who did not return the money on time. He was angry with his wife, who nagged him all the time for not earning enough money.
This went on for more than one year, and in the end one incendiary “phrase of his wife” For you, football is more important than your family! ” was enough to turn on the mechanism of aggression that had been held back for so long and direct it to the nearest object – his wife.
Child Aggression: What Adults Should Do ↓
Childhood Aggressiveness: Recommendations for Parents
Aggression, anger must be able not to suppress, but to learn to express it by indirect methods, direct it to creative, not destructive activity. You need to learn to do this already in childhood. And it is you who should help the child to tame his aggressiveness.
It is impossible to shout at a child who is angry or behaves aggressively for two reasons:
- firstly, all the same by shouting and forbidding you will not achieve obedience from him;
- secondly, in this way, you yourself show him how to express your displeasure, your anger.
Then why are you surprised when he imitates you, behaving the same way? Therefore, if you do not want your child to show his anger with screams and tantrums, try not to behave like that in front of him. Do not discuss your offenders, do not hatch plans to take revenge on them.
If your child is angry with someone, suggest a long-standing way to pour out the anger: pounding a pillow or punching bag. This method of stress relief is quite officially used in Japanese corporations. Moreover, this “pear” there often has a face, like the head of a department or director of a company.
Another way: draw the one who offended the child. Then tear this drawing into small pieces or describe your grievances and destroy this sheet. You can also give the baby leaves and offer to draw how he represents his anger and resentment.
The kid will first start to drive a pencil angrily, and then become interested in the process, calm down and begin to draw calmly. But in this way you can direct the energy of anger in any other direction.
For example, invite your child to compete in running. “Who will run to that tree faster?” Offer to look under your feet for a coin that seems to have rolled away somewhere, or a candy in your bag, to catch a pigeon …
In general, try to react more calmly to child aggression. If you can’t calm down the child, wait until he screams out, and then calmly find out the reasons for his anger, listen, help with advice.
😉 Write in the comments additions and advice on the topic “Child aggression”. Share this information with your friends on social networks.