Causes of childhood aggression

Aggressive behaviors such as biting, later substituted by pushing, are common when children start daycare. The lack of self-control means that, until five years of age, these behaviors become part of a normal process in the child. Even so, it is necessary to analyze if it is the beginning of an aggressive behavior or is just an isolated behavior.

In either situation, it is important that parents correct this behavior as soon as possible. Even taking into account their young age, making the child understand the wrongness of their behavior and the consequences of it, will be a priority for parents.


The objective is not only to avoid negative consequences for others, but to protect your child from himself, and to avoid negative consequences for him, since the aggressive child will often be rejected by his peer group and may feel excluded, and in others you can become an aggressive teenager.

Causes that motivate child aggression

These are some of the reasons why children develop aggression:

- Bad example at home. The modeling theory that assumes that parents are role models for their children reaches its maximum expression here. Children, who certainly learn by imitating what they see, if they observe that the way to resolve conflicts at home is, recurrently, violence, the child will assimilate it as a normal pattern of behavior.


- Exposure to violent content. Just like parents, there are other models of reference. Thus, a child continuously exposed to television programs, movies, wrestling sports or videogames, with a certain amount of violence also directly contributes to their reproducing aggressive behavior.

- Absence of rules at home. When children live at home with no rules, they learn that the law of the strongest actually operates. Given this situation, the little ones understand that they have no choice but to respond with violent behavior if they want to occupy their place in the home.

- Intolerance to frustration. Those children who have not learned to accept and overcome frustrations, when faced with a difficulty they can not cope with, will respond with a violent attitude incapable of assimilating the consequences.


- Lack of social skills. As important as knowing how to solve math problems, it is to solve conflicting situations. For this, however, do not need academic knowledge but social skills that help you solve problems without resorting to aggressiveness.

- Poor communication. In many occasions, the difficulties that a child may have to express themselves or delays in the language, can lead to a frustration translated into the use of aggressiveness in response.

Patricia Núñez de Arenas

Video: How to Tame Your Child's Aggression - Boys Town Center for Behavioral Health


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