Parents often don’t want how to react when their child hits them or other kids. 2 and 3 years old get angry and upset, they shout, hit, stamp their feet and bite because they experience these negative emotions but they don’t know how to deal with them in a constructive way.
In most cases you don’t have to worry when your toddler shows aggression – it doesn’t mean he has some bad (pathological) patterns at home! A child, as every other person, has the right to experience frustration, anger and dissatisfaction, however it is parents’ job to show him how to deal with those negative feelings. Adults need to show the child that screaming and hitting is not a good way of dealing with negative emotions, but there are better, socially acceptable form of reducing stress and negative feeling, for example conversation and negotiations, request and compromise.
1. Types of children’s aggression
Most often they engage in instrumental aggression when they can’t obtain desired object. For example when mommy doesn’t want to buy them a toy, they start hitting, kicking, screaming and biting and in many cases it works – they get what they want, because parents don’t know how to react constructively and want to make their kid quiet, especially when they are in a public place.
The other type of aggression is hostile aggressions, more often used by older kids (middle preschoolers) when they want to hurt other person and they are motivated by revenge, the desire to retaliate and dominate.
2. Why children behave aggressively so often?
There are few different causes of children aggression.
- They want to attract the attention of adults – In many cases when toddler is calm and behaves nicely, his parents don’t pay too much attention to him (because everything is fine). But when the child starts to hit, scream or breaks something, parents immediately concentrate on him. And that’s how the child learns that in order to attract parents attention he needs to behave badly. Therefore you need to remember that it’s important to pay attention to the child whether he’s acting good or bad and always have time for him.
- They don’t know how to deal with negative emotions – Babies don’t realize that being aggressive may hurt someone else. Toddler learn empathy, but at the beginning they don’t understand that hitting, pinching and poking hurts. They behave aggressively because they don’t know how to control their negative emotion and how to show them in more constructive way. It’s important to show the child that feeling anger is nothing wrong, but there are more constructive and effective ways to deal with it, for example tearing a sheet of paper or running and screaming in the backyard.
- They want to demonstrate their independence and self-reliance - When things do not go their way, they explode, because they don’t know how to regulate themselves.
- They feel they are not treated fairly.
- They imitate parents behavior – When the child is aggressive (screams or hits) and parents react by spanking him or screaming at him, he learn that aggressions is good, because parents also act this ways (“The one who hits harder (or as the last one) wins.”).
- They duplicate pathological patterns of behavior in the family – If the child experiences and/or sees aggression at home (for example see that his parents are fighting, screaming and hitting each other or he’s the victim of domestic violence) he starts to imitate this behavior. Parents are the first models whose behavior children imitate.
3. How to react to toddlers aggression? – Tips on how to deal with aggressive child
Parents often ask: “How to react when the child hits me or others?”. First of all, you need to be patient and forgiving. You cannot get provoked and start reacting aggressively, just like your kid, because it only intensifies spiral of anger and violence.
- Never underestimate the child's aggression! As a parent, you need to react decidedly when your toddler beats or teases other children.
- Let your child understand that he has the right to feel anger, dissatisfaction or annoyance, but he cannot show these negative emotions by beating others. Show your kid other forms of dealing with anger. For example you can create a bag for anger, when the child is upset he can scream into the bag and after that you “close” his anger in the bag. He can also tear some old newspaper to give vent to anger.
- When your child wants to hit you or someone else, hold his hand and say clearly: "No beating. Beating hurts!".
- Refer to child's empathy – ask him how he would feel if you or someone else hurt him.
- Be a role model for your child - If you don’t want your kid to be aggressive, you should avoid such a behavior as well (both physical and verbal violence).
- Set the rules that you will all follow in your home, for example “we don’t beat others”, “we don’t scream at each other”, “we don’t use bad words”.
- If your toddler doesn’t follow the rules and still hits others, you need to be consequent and punish him. At first you can use lack of reward, for example refuse to buy a toy.
- If your kid is 1 or 2 years old, don’t give him lectures about violence, because at this age your child won’t understand much about it anyway. Toddler needs a clear message "You can’t hit others". If your child is older you can talk about the reason why he’s angry, what he feels and show him effective methods of getting what you want, better than using a fist or screaming.
- Show your toddler that you appreciate his effort when he’s working on his behavior. Reward his initiative and praise him when he behaves well.
- Give your child opportunity to say “I’m sorry”.
Keep in mind that aggressive behavior is a part of child’s emotional and social development and you don’t have to freak out when your child hits someone else. Rather than that, help him to learn empathy and how to regulate and control negative feelings.
However if your child aggression is more than you can handle, you should get help. When you should consult your doctor or child psychologist:
-Your child aggression/violence is unusual and it lasts for more than few weeks.
-It seems like other kids are upset because of him or even are scared of him.
-Your kid attacks adults.
-All of your methods have little or no effect.