2023 Author: Jake Johnson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 23:11
There have always been aggressive children who express their fierceness verbally, gesturally or physically. Children who react with tantrums, insults, slaps, exaggerated screams, or bites when a situation causes them frustration. Faced with such rebellions, it is usual to witness scenes where parents and educators act disoriented because they feel lost, not knowing how to stop these behaviors.
Angry responses to specific moments are considered normal since children do not have the knowledge or tools to protest negative situations. It will be the consequences of these behaviors that will determine their extinction or their permanence. Of course, the consequences must be (correctly) administered by the adult on duty so that the child perceives that these behaviors are not appropriate and ends up resolving.
It is common that some signs of aggressiveness are motivated by a need for attention on the part of the child. We will therefore have to be prepared to remedy this fact and teach the child that this strategy will not help him get what he wants.
Thus, what marks our son as aggressive is the stability over time and in the contexts of these behaviors.
The influence of the environment in the appearance and maintenance of aggressive actions is important, so that, if the environmentexperiences aggressiveness, the child will have a high probability of repeating that pattern of behavior throughout his evolutionary process.
During early childhood, children absorb all the information that surrounds them, copy, imitate and pay attention to everything their models do, who must serve as an example by carrying out their work with responsibility and commitment. To facilitate this task, we present some techniques that have proven effective as long as they are applied rigorously and under the principle of contingency, since children understand the short-term consequences, they do not have still aware of the long-term consequences.
Behavior Log
We need an objective view of the facts. To do this, family members and professionals in the educational environment have to collaborate in the observation and recording of problem behaviors. It is recommended to describe the behavior framed in the situation: what happens, how, duration and people present. The more information we have, the better we can plan the intervention.
Apply Consequences
The sooner children learn that their actions have consequences, the better they will assimilate the learning. Depending on whether they like or dislike those consequences, they will maintain or eliminate the behaviors that triggered them.
Reinforcement
The idea is to get the child to perceive as a consequence of her behavior something pleasant about her. In this way, we will ensure that the frequency of such behavior increases.
Extinction
It occurs by causing a total absence of consequences to the behavior through which there will be no possibility of obtaining anything. It aims to decrease the behavior.
Punishment
Imposing a negative consequence or withdrawing a positive one lowers the rate of future response. It must be immediate, infrequent and consistent.
Time out
When, after the aggressive behavior, we systematically isolate the child from any interaction and from the activity that is being carried out for a pre-established time, we will be applying the time-out technique.
Don't be afraid to include these techniques in your daily conflict management with children, you will see the results quickly and you will maintain a state of calm never imagined.
