Managing Aggressive Behavior in Young Children

By Carolyn R. Tomlin

"Discipline is the slow, bit by bit, time consuming task of helping children to see the sense in acting in a certain way."

- Dr. James Hymes, pioneer in nursery school education.

Managing children's aggressive behavior has been a concern for parents and educators for centuries. Some people have an enthusiasm for living. They take advantage of their opportunities, get along with almost everyone they meet, and make positive contributions to society. Others are unhappy. They are unwilling or unable to use their abilities, incapable of forming friendships, and inclined to engage in activities that are destructive to themselves and others. What are the causes of such differences in human behavior? Since experiences during early childhood and adolescence have a significant influence on later behavior, shouldn't it be possible to observe how children develop and how they are influenced by experiences in order to find ways to help people live happy, fulfilling lives?

Current Theories and Practices

Grace Mitchell, although she spanked her own children, wrote in A Very Practical Guide to Discipline with Young Children (1982) that she would choose to discipline without spanking if she could repeat the years when she was a young parent. Today, she sees spanking as an admission of failure. Child rearing is a constant challenge. Each individual problem has a solution, but how often do we as caregivers teach our children to do the very things we punish them for? We yell or shout at them in angry tones and then we scold them for engaging in shouting matches with their peers. We criticize them, embarrass and humiliate them in front of others as if they were robots instead of human beings, but we are outraged when they indulge in name calling, hurt their friends with labels such as "Fatso" or "Dummy," or resort to racial slurs and name calling (Mitchell, 1982).           

Seth Scholer, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University has developed a new approach to discipline with young children. Play Nicely is a media-rich CD ROM that teaches parents, health care professionals, counselors, and child care workers and teachers the basics in aggressive management for children ages one to seven. As part of the 30-minute video, viewers see a video clip of one young child hitting another and are asked, "Assume you see your friend hit another: what should you do? There are 12 options to respond and receive multiple feedback in the form of narration and video clips. Participants learn that there are better responses than ignoring aggression, speaking angrily, or physical punishment.        

Dr. Scholer says, "My interest in aggressive management stems from my interest in injury prevention/violence prevention as a pediatrician/researcher at Vanderbilt University. My inspiration for developing Play Nicely occurred after I heard a presentation by Dr. Richard Tremblay from the University of Montreal in May, 2000. Hi