The Active/Aggressive Child

What it is

The impulsive, aggressive child is constantly on the go. He runs instead of walks, acts instead of talks. These boys and girls jump headlong into new experiences - diving in first and looking later. If they learn to use their considerable energy in constructive ways, they can be energetic, creative, enthusiastic, charismatic - they may become athletes, pilots, soldiers, business entrepreneurs, or politicians, perhaps. At school, such a youngster could be the class rabble-rouser, throwing his pencils and books around, and enticing all the other children to yell and scream, particularly when the teacher wants everyone to sit down. But he is also easily frustrated and angered, and might resort to hitting, punching, and pinching to get what he wants or to express anger.

There is probably no greater challenge for a parent than coping with an angry, aggressive, frustrated child. When a child gets mad, he challenges our own emotional reactions; we become upset and irrational ourselves. A lot of that reaction occurs simply because we are human. When we are upset or angry, it's easy to forget everything we know. I don't know any parents or educators who would deny that they sometimes yell or say things that they later wish they hadn't. We have a running joke about this in my house: my children tell me, "Daddy, you're getting that killer voice again." As much as I try, at least once a week that voice comes out of hiding.

Anger and aggressive feelings are unavoidable for all of us - children and adults. These emotions play a big role in early development and cannot be swept under the rug. Anger is an essential part of the human drama. It is as important to psychological growth as love and warmth. As long as angry and aggressive feelings are balanced with feelings of closeness and empathy and are well regulated, they can do us an enormous amount of good. They can energize us and motivate us to do more than we thought possible. They fuel our ambitions, spur us to set goals for ourselves, encourage us to achieve and accomplish. They even help us define our sense of self - who we are and what our boundaries are. My colleague Peter Neubauer has observed that angry and rivalrous feelings often help us differentiate ourselves from others. When you're upset or feeling competitive with someone, you certainly know where you stop and the other person begins. Children need to acknowledge the full range of feelings, including the angry ones, so that these emotions can become part of their evolving sense of themselves. Then they can become integrated people - capable of being competitive as well as nurturing, assertive as well as loving.

Children who tend to be aggressive, just like children who tend to be sensitive or withdrawn, vary considerably. Some may be aggressive because they are frustrated and highly sensitive. Other children may be aggressive because they crave lots of sensory input. Whatever the cause, aggression in a child can tax us to our limits. But if we can understand the underlying physical and emotional reasons, we can use it as an opportunity to help the child grow and develop emotionally.

The Severely Antisocial Child: A Family and Societal Challenge
When a sensation-seeking, daredevil child has a family that isn't equipped to provide the child with adequate nurturing, communication, or limits, there is the potential for real problems. Nurture compounds nature, and such a child is prone to dealing with his feelings by acting out physically. The less warmth and nurturing this child gets, the more difficulties he may face. If a child's family is under stress, for example, because of a father who drinks and has an explosive temper, the child's rough-and-tumble nature could easily turn mean and bullying. He could become the type of child who beats up other children, defies teachers and parents, and, later in life, runs into trouble with the law.

The more the impulsive, aggressive child's family life is filled with emotional neglect or physical abuse or both, the more potential there is that the child will become violent. Children who are very aggressive and lack any regard for other human beings, while representing an extreme, have become a pressing societal concern. They need an intensive long-term approach if they are to be helped.

While some of us may consider such cases utter mysteries, in fact we now have the ability to understand more fully just how anger, fear, and violence are fostered in children. Here are some characteristics that many of these children share.

• They can't care for others because no one has consistently cared for them. The process of forming an attachment to someone - which should begin in infancy and continue throughout childhood - is an essential foundation for developing a sense of shared humanity, a feeling of compassion, and concern for others. Without loving contact in infancy and early childhood, a sense of human connectedness may never materialize. The child may view other people as things to be kicked or destroyed when they stand in the way.
• They can't purposefully communicate their desires, intentions, and feelings. As we have seen throughout this book, learning to communicate a full range of emotions in an intentional manner - first nonverbally and then verbally - is an ability all children must master to get their needs met without undue frustration. When a distant, angry parent sees a toddler reaching out to be picked up as an aggressive demand, the parent might say, "Leave me alone!" and the child may withdraw in confusion, in his own wordless way wondering, "Is my request for love an assault?" Even a very young child has developed his own set of emotional expectations. As the child's sense of frustration mounts and his faith that his parents will meet his needs collapses, he may act out with disorganized, aggressive behavior. Children whose constitutional makeup leads them to opt for hitting, scratching, or other physical movements when frustrated are especially likely to show aggressive behavior under these circumstances. Having received no rewarding response when they tried to communicate emotional needs in a nonverbal way, these children will have even greater difficulty communicating needs with words and symbols.
• They can't construct internal dialogues. If you asked people who behave impulsively and aggressively how they are feeling, they probably won't express their feelings at all and may speak only of actions. For example, in answer to the question "How do you feel?" they may answer, "I hit him six times," instead of "I was angry." As we have seen, the capacity to form a mental picture of wishes and feelings develops between about eighteen and thirty months, and keeps developing in more complex ways after that. But many young people who are prone to violence never acquire the ability to visualize their feelings, and are thereby unable to contemplate their actions in advance. When challenged, they respond with impulsive actions - they hit, for example - instead of recognizing their feelings and making a choice.

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