Hitting, biting, pulling hair – Many parents feel absolutely horrified the first time they see their child show aggression towards another child, or themselves, normally because such behavior becomes a direct reflection on the parents raising of their child and in turn we feel- what are we doing that has our child behaving as such? The reality however is that children learn to do so quite smartly through dominating in order to get what they want or through exhibiting their mixed array of emotions. Even though children will show an abundance of affection and care it is still important for us to instil and show affection daily, raising our children to understand kindness and respect for one another and we get to do this by talking to our children and teaching them to share as well as drawing on developing their empathy.
Elimination of aggression happens when we can use descriptive praise for desired behavior, teach social skills and take decisive action by instilling appropriate consequences for undesired behavior, like removal of oneself for a few minutes to calm down, explaining as the parent what behavior is needed in order to “play nicely” and “make friends”. When a child is shown consistency from their parent and balance we will see less of this behavior and more developed emotional maturity over time leading to better outcomes and a child learning more responsibility for their own actions.
