I am married and have an eight year-old little boy. He is in elementary school and I have been told that in school he is pretty well disciplined. But sometimes, he starts breaking and throwing toys, fighting and hurting other children and playing all kinds of war computer games. My wife and I are afraid that our kid may become violent. What should we do in order to prevent him from becoming violent if he really has predispositions toward aggressiveness
Richard from Pittsburgh, PA
Dear Richard,
We all may have compulsive aggressive instincts; so all children will manifest aggressive acts since they are babies from the biting of breast and end up later with hurting/percussion of the other children when they play. Usually, these tendencies are more obvious in boys than girls.
It is important to teach them to keep these tendencies under control. So, try to notice your kid’s behavior. Does he break the toys out of curiosity and impatience or does he feel pleasure and likes breaking them in pieces? Does he fight with the other children for defending or protecting himself, or to demonstrate how strong he is or because he enjoys when the others are hurt?
You have real reasons for worrying if his aggressiveness feeds from the pleasure and joy of making harm and producing suffering and pain to other kids or people.
If that doesn’t happen, then you and your wife should try to identify what of his needs are satisfied when he is violent in order to learn and teach him how he could manage them.
Maybe your child needs some encouragements that he is strong or capable to defend himself or perhaps he needs some extra-attention and assurance that he is loved or maybe he is unpleased and restless and he expresses his anxiety of some intrinsic conflicts and frustrations which manifest through violence. This is only hypothesis, which can explain his behavior, and they can also be an alarm sign of paying more attention to your child emotional needs if they are frequent and persist over time.
Besides that, I also suggest you to pay attention to your family climate because most of the time, possible conflicts between your family members can be expressed through your kid via violence symptoms. The child can develop and manifest psychopathological symptoms as a result of a dysfunctional family climate and/or marriage. If these family conflicts or tense climate are solved and disappear, the child may become better and calmer, and his symptom can very well diminish and disappear. I think you and your wife should be aware of that and take into account this aspect seriously.
Still if the situation is more serious than it seems and also for your quietism, a visit to a child psychologist and/or family therapist is a very good idea.