The Challenge of Aggression

03/23/2016

I am just going to keep having fun every day I have left, because there is no other way of life. You just have to decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.
Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture

Dan Gartrell, one of 50 early childhood experts sharing their views in the popular video training resource Addressing Challenging Behaviors: Promoting Social and Emotional Health in Young Children, offered this insight on aggression in his Exchange article, "Guidance with Children Who Show Challenging Behaviors":

"Aggression, hostile acts and words towards others, is about the most challenging behavior for early childhood professionals to work with. A traditional 'technician' reaction to aggression is to remove the 'aggressor' to a time-out chair, comfort the 'victim,' make the 'aggressor' apologize, and wait until a similar situation happens again.

"Well, the chances are the sequence will happen again. Teachers who react punitively toward a child only elevate the child's stress. And make no mistake: putting a child on a time-out chair is punishment. A child in time-out is not thinking, 'I am going to be a better child because of this experience. I am glad Teacher made me sit here.' The child is angry with the teacher for the embarrassment experienced during the conflict. The child is angry at the one who got him in trouble. The child is feeling rejected by the classroom community and reinforced in a negative self-image. Not having been taught other ways to handle conflict, the child is left with only survival-behavior reactions."

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