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It's important to take action when your child behaves aggressively. With prompt consequences and new skills, your child can learn to respond to frustration and other big feelings in a more appropriate way.
Provide Immediate Consequences
Any act of aggression should result in an immediate consequence. Don't give warnings or reminders to stop. Consequences might include:
Time-out. When used appropriately, time-out teaches children how to calm down. The ultimate goal of time-out should be for children to put themselves in time-out before they lash out aggressively. In this case, the time-out is not meant to punish the child for the behavior, but rather, to give them the chance to practice calm-down strategies in the moment. Initially, the parent will most likely need to be present with the child to teach them these skills and ensure that they can effectively use them in the future.
Restitution. If your child hurts someone, restitution should be part of the consequence. Restitution may involve loaning a favorite toy to the person that they hurt or doing extra chores to pay for damage the child caused. Restitution can help repair relationships and give your child an opportunity to make amends.
Loss of privileges. Take away your child’s favorite possession or activity for 24 hours. Losing electronics or the chance to go to a friend's house can be an effective reminder not to hurt others.
Natural consequences. If your child destroys their own property, a natural consequence might be the most effective. If your teenager throws their phone and breaks it, don't buy a new one. Going without a phone and then having to buy their own replacement can serve as a valuable life lesson.
Reward systems. If your child exhibits aggression often, establish a reward system. Provide positive reinforcement for desired behavior, like gentle touches. A token economy system can also eliminate aggression in some children.
No matter which type of consequence you choose to use, make sure that it constitutes discipline and not punishment. Embarrassing or shaming your child can backfire and may lead to increased aggression.
Teach New Skills
Aggressive behavior indicates that your child lacks the skills they need to manage their behavior appropriately. Teaching children new skills should be part of the discipline process.Social skills, problem-solving skills, and conflict resolution skills will reduce aggressive behavior.
Discipline should teach your child what to do instead of acting out or becoming aggressive. Help your child see the alternative choices that don't involve aggression. For example, instead of telling a child, "Don't hit," try saying, "Use your words."
Family Resource CenterBehavior Problems
Angry Kids: Dealing With Explosive Behavior
How to respond when a child lashes out
EN ESPAÑOL
What You'll Learn
Why do kids get angry?
How can kids learn how to control their explosive behavior?
What can parents to do help their children handle anger?
Quick Read
It is often difficult for parents to handle kids’ explosive and angry behavior, but understanding why they’re acting out can help. Anger issues in kids often happen because they don’t know how to deal with their frustration or other uncomfortable feelings. They haven’t yet learned skills for solving problems without getting upset. Sometimes anger issues in kids are caused by another problem that needs treatment. This could be ADHD, anxiety, a learning disability or autism.
There are many strategies that can help kids improve their behavior. One of the most important things is to stay calm when they get upset. This can be challenging, but it’s a great way to model good behavior. When they try to express their feelings calmly, praise them. And if they do explode, make sure to praise their good behavior once they’ve calmed down.
Teaching kids problem-solving and communication skills can help them choose different ways to express their feelings. You can also prevent some anger in children by learning what triggers them. For example, if your child gets angry when you ask them to stop something they enjoy, give them gentle warnings before time is up.
If a tantrum isn’t violent, ignoring it usually works best. If your child is getting physical, then the most important thing is to get them into a safe place. For young kids, a timeout chair or a room without toys or other rewards often works. For older kids, you might need to leave them alone so that they aren’t rewarded with your attention. In extreme situations, calling 911 can be the best way to keep yourself and your child safe.
If your child’s behavior is too much for you to handle, there are professionals who can help. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can teach kids coping skills and teach parents ways to help. If CBT doesn’t work, the child may need medication or a different treatment program.
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Full Article
8 min read
When a child—even a small child—melts down and becomes aggressive, they can pose a serious risk to themselves and others, including parents and siblings.
It’s not uncommon for kids who have trouble handling their emotions to lose control and direct their distress at a caregiver, screaming and cursing, throwing dangerous objects, or hitting and biting. It can be a scary, stressful experience for you and your child, too. Children often feel sorry after they’ve worn themselves out and calmed down.
So what are you to do?
It’s helpful to first understand that behavior is communication. A child who is so overwhelmed that they are lashing out is a distressed child. They don’t have the skill to manage their feelings and express them in a more mature way. They may lack language, or impulse control, or problem-solving abilities.
Sometimes parents see this kind of explosive behavior as manipulative. But kids who lash out are usually unable to handle frustration or anger in a more effective way—say, by talking and figuring out how to achieve what they want.
Nonetheless, how you react when a child lashes out has an effect on whether they will continue to respond to distress in the same way, or learn better ways to handle feelings so they don’t become overwhelming. Some pointers:
Stay calm. Faced with a raging child, it’s easy to feel out of control and find yourself yelling at them. But when you shout, you have less chance of reaching them. Instead, you will only be making them more aggressive and defiant. As hard as it may be, if you can stay calm and in control of your own emotions, you can be a model for your child and teach them to do the same thing.
Don’t give in. Don’t encourage them to continue this behavior by agreeing to what they want in order to make it stop.
Praise appropriate behavior. When they have calmed down, praise them for pulling themselves together. And when they do try to express their feelings verbally, calmly, or try to find a compromise on an area of disagreement, praise them for those efforts.
Help them practice problem-solving skills. When your child is not upset is the time to help them try out communicating their feelings and coming up with solutions to conflicts before they escalate into aggressive outbursts. You can ask them how they feel, and how they think you might solve a problem.
Time outs and reward systems. Time outs for nonviolent misbehavior can work well with children younger than 7 or 8 years old. If a child is too old for time outs, you want to move to a system of positive reinforcement for appropriate behavior—points or tokens toward something they want.
Avoid triggers. Vasco Lopes, PsyD, a clinicalpsychologist, says most kids who have frequent meltdowns do it at very predictable times, like homework time, bedtime, or when it’s time to stop playing, whether it’s Legos or the Xbox. The trigger is usually being asked to do something they don’t like, or to stop doing something they do like. Time warnings (“we’re going in 10 minutes”), breaking tasks down into one-step directions (“first, put on your shoes”), and preparing your child for situations (“please ask to be excused before you leave Grandma’s table”) can all help avoid meltdowns.
What kind of tantrum is it?
How you respond to a tantrum also depends on its severity. The first rule in handling nonviolent tantrums is to ignore them as often as possible, since even negative attention, like telling the child to stop, can be encouraging.
But when a child is getting physical, ignoring is not recommended since it can result in harm to others as well as your child. In this situation, Dr. Lopes advises putting the child in a safe environment that does not give them access to you or any other potential rewards.
If the child is young (usually 7 or younger), try placing them in a time out chair. If they won’t stay in the chair, take them to a backup area where they can calm down on their own without anyone else in the room. Again, for this approach to work there shouldn’t be any toys or games in the area that might make it rewarding.
Your child should stay in that room for one minute, and must be calm before they are allowed out. Then they should come back to the chair for time out. “What this does is gives your child an immediate and consistent consequence for their aggression and it removes all access to reinforcing things in their environment,” explains Dr. Lopes.
If you have an older child who is being aggressive and you aren’t able to carry them into an isolated area to calm down, Dr. Lopes advises removing yourself from their vicinity. This ensures that they are not getting any attention or reinforcement from you and keeps you safe. In extreme instances, it may be necessary to call 911 to ensure your and your child’s safety.
Help with behavioral
Help with behavioral techniques
If your child is doing a lot of lashing out—enough that it is frequently frightening you and disrupting your family—it’s important to get some professional help. There are good behavioral therapies that can help you and your child get past the aggression, relieve your stress and improve your relationship. You can learn techniques for managing their behavior more effectively, and they can learn to rein in disruptive behavior and enjoy a much more positive relationship with you.
Parent-child interaction therapy. PCIT has been shown to be very helpful for children between the ages of 2 and 7. The parent and child work together through a set of exercises while a therapist coaches parents through an ear bud. You learn how to pay more attention to your child’s positive behavior, ignore minor misbehaviors, and provide consistent consequences for negative and aggressive behavior, all while remaining calm.
Parent Management Training. PMT teaches similar techniques as PCIT, though the therapist usually works with parents, not the child.
Collaborative and Proactive Solutions. CPS is a program based on the idea that explosive or disruptive behavior is the result of lagging skills rather than, say, an attempt to get attention or test limits. The idea is to teach children the skills they lack to respond to a situation in a more effective way than throwing a tantrum.
Figuring out explosive behavior
How to Help a Child Overcome Rejection
To help your child overcome rejection, it's important to understand its causes. Once you fully understand—through your child's reports, teacher conferences, and observation—what is causing the problem, you can begin to address it in the following ways:
Help your child to become aware of and work on extinguishing bothersome behaviors.
When you see your child exhibiting socially positive behavior, praise him or her and explain how and why the behavior was good.
Teach your child how to ask and answer questions, share the floor, and bring up topics of common interest.
Work with your child to determine his or her strengths and interests, and then build on those strengths through engagement in afterschool or community programs. Confidence-building activities like martial arts can be particularly helpful.
Talk to your child about how close friendships are far more valuable than being popular and help them learn to strengthen the potential friendship(s) they have.
Listen to your child when he or she is feeling rejected. Knowing he or she has unconditional love and support at home can go a long way in boosting confidence.
Next Steps
Social Rejection and Aggression in peer group management
Health Tips
Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” — Fred Rogers,