Helping Aggressive Children

Has your child ever lashed out and hurt someone? Has she/he ever been bothered by another aggressive child? If your answer is "Yes," join the crowd! Almost all of us struggle with understanding and helping our children when they hurt others, and when they are hurt by other children. It's a shock to us the first time our sweet sons and daughters suddenly bite someone, or throw something at the new baby in the family. Here are some guiding principles for understanding and relieving children's aggression, so they can relax and enjoy their friends and siblings.

Understanding Aggression
First, it's important to understand that children don't want to attack others. They'd much rather have fun and feel safe and loved. They play well when they feel connected.

When children lose their sense of connection, they feel tense, frightened, or isolated. In this "emotional emergency," they may lash out at other children. Children don't intend to be mean. In fact, acts of aggression aren't under the child's control.

When a child loses her sense of connection, strong feelings flood her mind. For instance, on an ordinary morning with loving and typically rushed parents, the child's inner voice of emotion might go like this:

"Mommy's gone. She doesn't like me--she rushed me out of bed and ordered me to eat my breakfast. She cooed at the baby, but she doesn't like me. I feel awful. Here comes Joey. He looks happy. How come he gets to feel happy?" At this point, the child may lash out.

If a child feels safe, he will show how he feels. When it feels safe enough to show their feelings, children who feel upset don't hurt anyone. They feel a bond with their parent or caregiver, and run to the nearest loved one for help. They cry, and release the knot of fear and grief they feel. The adult who listens and allows the child to "fall apart" gives the child a huge gift-enough caring and love to allow the child to heal from the feelings that make life hard for him.

If a child doesn't feel safe, he may signal for help by becoming aggressive. The child who lashes out feels sad, frightened, or alone. He doesn't look frightened when he is about to bite, push, or hit. But his fears are at the heart of the problem. Fear robs a child of his ability to feel like he cares about others. His trusting nature is crusted with feelings: "No one understands me, and no one cares about me." If you watch carefully, you will see that this kind of feeling drains a child's face of flexibility and sparkle in the seconds before he lashes out.

Children get these feelings of isolation, no matter how loving and close we parents are. Some children are only occasionally frightened and aggressive. Some children have an abiding sense of fear and desperation that comes from circumstances beyond anyone's control. Children acquire fears from medical crises, sudden unexplained tensions, a lack of warm parental attention, or from experiences like parents fighting or a loved one going away. A deeply frightening time in a child's past can create a habit of aggression.

Parents and caregivers have the power to help an aggressive child. A child's aggression can't be erased by logic, "Time Out," or enforcing logical consequences. The knot of intense feelings inside the child isn't touched by reasoning or punishment and is out of the child's control, once he begins to feel disconnected.

A child's aggression will melt when someone stops the behavior by moving close and offering a warm connection. Then, listening helps heal the hurt. The child will either laugh or cry, and might tremble, perspire, or struggle mightily. The adult provides a safe connection and the time the child needs to release the fear he feels. The crying and physical struggling and perspiring he does get his limbic system (the part of his brain that sounds emotional alarms when he feels frightened) back in working order by providing an outlet for those unmanageable feelings.