How to Teach Aggressive Children Self-Control

Video Transcript

"Hi. Are you struggling with how to handle aggression in your child, and would like to teach him self control? Well, I'm Dr. Felicia, and I'd like to share a few tips with you on how to teach a child to manage self control under aggression. First thing you want to do is have them have timeout. When somebody explodes or has a tantrum or a fit, like many children do impulsively, they often lose sight of the fact that they're actually doing it, it's not a conscious effort, it's impulsive. So what you want to do is bring it to their attention, you want to give them timeout immediately. If the aggression act was very severe, and you're going to do a punishment, you want to make their punishment immediately follow the act. It's no good to punish a child a day later, five hours later, because by that time the child forgot what they actually did. So let's say you have two children, and one actually aggressively attacks the other one, and physically hurts them. You want to pull them apart obviously, put your aggressive child in a timeout management, and then you also want to reinforce to them, exactly what it is they did wrong, that it's not acceptable behavior. If they hit and you're going to punish, you want to make their punish realistic for the child, and reasonable. So for instance, if it's a 7 year old, you might take away television, if it's a 13 year old, you obviously might take away a privilege, going out with their friends, etc. So make the punishment realistic to the child, and then be consistent and follow through with the punishment. Make sure that if you issue the punishment, you're going to follow through, otherwise they'll realize that there's no consequences for their behaviors, and the next time they'll be more aggressive again. Let them know that it's the behavior that you're not accepting, but that you love them, and it has nothing to do with that, but it's the behavior that you do not accept. So, for an aggressive child, you want to make sure they have timeout, immediately followed by a punishment that is relevant to that child, for age appropriate, and then carry through consistently with your punishment. And make sure that you reinforce the same positive behaviors, the next time the child behaves better. Keep that in mind, and that will help you with your child. If you have an aggressive child who lacks control that will help you. I do wish you good luck. This is Dr. Felicia signing out. God bless."