Proactive Aggressive Children

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) November 17, 2011 --

Aggressive children can be a nuisance for parents and other children. They manifest great aggressive characteristics. Aggression and bullying are problematic behaviours in childhood. They cause direct suffering and can have serious long-term effects. The children often annoy other, such as involves him/herself in fighting, arguments and starting fights. Aggressive children worry their parents and teachers. They usually terrify, intimidate and hurt other children and disrupt lessons in school. They may be verbally and argumentative aggressive. Aggressive children may also encounter difficulty in controlling their temper and are easily sadden and annoyed by others. Therefore, they are commonly disobedient and may appear angry and resentful.

Children who are more offensive, instrumental, cold-tempered and predatory are proactive aggressive children. Proactive aggressive children are more goal-oriented. It requires neither annoyance nor anger. In addition, proactive aggression can be oriented towards the ownership of object, for example instrumental. In addition, it can also be leaning towards controlling people such as person oriented or bullying in school. Proactive children are more likely to use aggression as an effective way to attain desired goals more than other children. Children with high levels of proactive aggression are not necessarily responding to the perception of threat, but they are more likely to engage in aggression coldly to obtain rewards or enforce their wills.

Family characteristics play an important role in influencing children behaviours. Children acquire 50% of their mannerisms from their parents. By watching what people are doing, children tend to learn about the way they should behave towards one another, and the way they ought to handle problems. This method of watching, listening and subsequently learning is call observational learning. Psychologists suggested that children learn by observing and imitating what others do. Therefore, the way family communicate to each other is very crucial in affecting children aggressive behaviour. If a parent gives in every time the child throws a temper tantrum, the child will lean that if he wants his own way, he just has to throw a temper outburst to achieve his goals. Most parents are unconsciously fall into the trap of giving in too early when they are frustrated and all stressed out. Consequently the temper tantrum subsides, leaving the child as the winner in this power struggle. Proactive children understand the way to plan and achieve their goals, therefore they will use this method to control people and bullying at school.

In addition, children learn aggressive behavior by watching the actions of those around them. For instance, some parents use a cane to discipline their children when they misbehave. When the canning continued for several months, the child started to learn that when his parents did not get what they wanted from him, they used physical method to solve the problem. Hence, the child started to hit his friend in school when he did not get the toy he wanted or other children go against his wills. Proactive aggressive children often engage in aggression coldly to obtain rewards. Therefore, they are more likely to control or bully peers and other children in order to achieve their wills.

As mention above, the family relationship conflict may cause negative influences on children behaviour. Children aggressive behaviours that are cause family relationship conflict not only will bring negative effect in the family, but also create nuisance in school. Centre for Family Enrichment and Therapy in International Psychology Centre offers family conflict assessment and therapy. In addition, we offer assessment and emotional therapy and family members’ behaviour. At FamPsych™, family enrichment programmes and therapy are given by professional psychologist to help family become closer and more harmonious, whereby unconstructive patterns of emotion, attitude and behaviour are identified and changed to patterns that are more constructive. Through family psychotherapy, we help parents to identify their negative influences such as physical and emotional problems that affecting the hostile behaviour on children, change and manage them to a more positive way.

James, father of two was concerned about his son, Joshua’s behaviour in school. He brought Joshua to The Centre of Educational Psychology (EdPsych™) of International Psychology Centre (IPC) to get assessment test from psychologists. The teachers in school complained that Joshua was creating a lot of nuisance in school and affecting other children. Joshua likes to show expressive aggression including name-calling, teasing, quarrelling and intimidating his friends in school. Joshua has tendencies to harm and injure another persons’ feelings indirectly. Therefore, James brought him to International Psychology Centre (IPC) for assessments and psychotherapy. After 2 sessions of clinical parental interview with James and his wife, Rachel and children assessment, psychologists diagnosed that Joshua’s aggressive behaviours in school was contributed by James and Rachel’s verbal and physical aggression towards each other. Joshua tended to imitate the aggressive way his parents talked and behaved when solving problems. Therefore, our educational psychologist in IPC conducted 6 sessions of family therapy intervention program to resolve the conflicts constructively. At the end of the treatments, the parents understood and learned how to manage their emotional outburst in a more constructive way. Joshua was more able to control his aggressive behaviours, less impulsive and be able to present appropriate behaviours in school.

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