Aggression in Children - Research Paper Example

Aggression in Children School Aggression in children has always been a huge problem for many parents, as children’s hostile conduct is not only inconvenient for domestic atmosphere but also causes a lot of troubles in society for both parents and their children. Despite multiple arguments for the position that human nature is evil and children are aggressive because they were born such, still it is an obvious fact for many parents that children are not born aggressive but gain hostile moods while growing up. Hence, it is important to explore those crucial factors that cause the aggression in children and make them hostile towards the world. First of all, it is impossible to consider children’s aggression without defining the exact symptoms and manifestations of it. Aggression is a hostile, destructive or even injurious behavior of an individual; the inner condition is mostly caused by deep hidden frustration suppressed by a person (Anderson & Bushman 2002). The general notion of aggression contains multiple implementations of the behavioral condition, especially concerning children, as their manifestations of aggression get changed with age and gain new social forms. The infants’ aggression doesn’t have multiple forms and mostly is implemented in crying and loud hysterics. When infant children are not happy about satisfaction of their basic needs like food, hygiene, and parents’ attention, they start behaving hysterically until their needs are satisfied. According to pediatric psychologists’ studies conducted by Balleyguier and Melhuish (1996), such kind of aggression later transforms into toddlers’ aggression engaged with toys and first steps in communication with society apart from family environment. Hence, when children get into kindergarten they may start acting mean and strive to offend other children. First of all, it concerns their greed to share their toys with other children; also, they try to segregate their territory and may use physical force in the order not to let anyone into their personal space. The next stage of children aggression begins to appear in preschoolers who are extremely self-centered personalities with quite low level of empathy. This means that children of the age between 2 to 5 years don’t understand feelings of other people and experience troubles in putting themselves in others’ shoes. This feature literally makes them uncontrollable, as they can’t realize what they are punished for after they have done something aggressive. Thus when a mother punishes an aggressive child, applying aggressive methods in order to teach him, the child probably will not understand the feelings that his mother experiences and will become offended or scared by her anger and aggression towards him. Eventually, the lesson will not be perceived by the child; moreover he can gain certain moral traumas concerning his mother’s conduct. As far as the children of pre-school age are able to express their needs and thoughts using language, the primitive infant aggression is no longer allowed for them, so they seek for new ways to rebel and their behavior may be enormously deviant (Parke & Slaby 1983). For instance, preschoolers often refuse learning and literally ignore the information that their parents are trying to teach them. Their behavior might even become destructive, as they can start destroying toys and throw conniptions regarding them being overwhelmed with parents’ nurture. When children start attending school, they face with totally new kind of environment, which is more competitive and aggressive than the one they were used to in their families. As far as they yet don’t know how to communicate properly, the only way of communication that may help them to protect themselves in the hostile environment is aggression. Hence, the most common behaviors of the children from 4th to 9th grades are typical for boys and girls. Boys act aggressively toward girls and other boys; they imitate war games and frequently fight. Girls’ aggression mostly concerns competitiveness and attempts to humiliate, ostracize, and defame their peers. Moreover, both boys and girls often form hostile groups and stick together in order to protect themselves and be able to attack others (Miller 1996). The school aggression has gained an extremely bad fame within the scopes of school bullying that has become one of crucial problems for modern society. The problem necessitates a lot of kids’ traumas and unwillingness to visit school because of the fear to become victims of bullying. As far as kids are pretty inventive, the particular actions they do in order to offend someone can be various from spreading dirty rumors to straight hitting; moreover they do it both at classes and later at home via social networking cyber bullying. Hence, it often happens that children develop their aggression and transform it into more hidden forms during the school time. It is important to note that aggression is harmful for children of all ages, as, if not being discontinued in a proper time, it might be evolved into more severe kinds of aggression which people frequently can’t get rid of throughout their entire lifetimes (Coughlan n.d.). As for the reasons why children become aggressive, psychologists mark out several crucial factors which are: a specific temperament of a child, particular family conditions, general environment, the community, and cultural specificities. The fact that children are different by their characters is obvious, as their specific features appear in young age. Pediatric psychologists’ studies have revealed that some children might be aggressive from the very beginning and be more inclined to hysterics and mean conduct than others (Miller 1996). Hence, such children do not copy their conduct from anybody else, because it is inherent to them and, being aggressive, they act in a very natural way. Although other children are born lack of aggression, they often learn destructive behavioral patterns from their families. When parents often act aggressively and demonstrate negative emotions openly to their children or in society in general, their kids learn that such kind of behavior is considered to be normal in application to society; as far as children don’t interact with other social groups apart from their families’ environment, they just don’t realize that the behavior is malicious and get used to it. However, when later children face with broaden social groups and meet different people, the environment they find themselves in also forms their behavioral patters. If a child gets into a hostile environment (not only a social one but living environment in general) or the environment where the child is forced to struggle in order to survive, he learns that aggression is the most universal remedy in the face of all odds. Also, such factors as witnessing violence and oppressive scenes (even while watching TV or playing computer games) have been proven to evolve children’s aggression (Bushman & Huesmann 2006). Furthermore, the factor of community where a child is being raised in plays crucial role in development of his aggression (Harris & Fuqua 2000). The point is that children learn their behavior from observing other people’s conduct and copying certain patterns of acting. As long as they tend to communicate only with people from their community, these people are the only examples of behavior which children have in their possession, so if the community is hostile and uses aggressive methods, the children will eventually start acting the same way. It is impossible to exclude the fact that a community is based on a particular cultural environment where it has been formed. Thus the cultural specifics are very important, so there are cultures with rather hostile tendencies where children are taught to be aggressive from the very beginning. Children aggression can have different implementations and be indicated from the earliest age. However, the reasons for aggression in children may be multiple and combine different factors from inside and outside factors. Hence, each and every case of a child’s aggression must be precisely analyzed and identified in order to be eliminated. References Anderson, C. A.; Bushman, B. J. (2002). "Human aggression". Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27–51. Balleyguier, G. and Melhuish. E.C. (1996). "The relationship between infant day care and socio-emotional development with French children aged 3-4 years". European Journal of Psychology of Education, 11, 193-199. Harris, T. & J.D. Fuqua (2000). "What does around comes around: Building a community of learners through circle time". Young Children, 55, 44-48. Miller, K. (1996). The Crisis Manual. Beltsville, MD: Gryphon House. Parke, R.D. & Slaby, R.G. (1983). The Development of Aggression. In Paul H. Mussen Handbook of Child Psychology Volume IV. Bushman, B.J., Huesmann, R. (2006). "Short-term and Long-term Effects of Violent Media on Aggression in Children and Adults". Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med., 160, 348-352. Coughlan, Sean. “Childhood Bullying ‘Damages Adult Life”. BBC News. Retrieved 8 May. 2015 from < http://www.bbc.com/news/education-23756749> Read More