Mrs. Verma was again advised by the principal to shift Rohan to boarding school. The family distress was certainly showing up through Rohan’s aggressive behavior with his peers. Parents of aggressive children are bound to get the taste of their own medicine someday. There is no denying that children reciprocate their parent’s good and bad emotions and that significantly shows up. While some degree of anger is acceptable, it becomes a matter of concern if things go beyond control. Aggression follows a developmental trajectory where household and parenting are the geneses of such behavior. How a child deals with anger tells a lot about their parenting. Parents too fail to realize where they went wrong and what needs to be mended to mitigate aggression in children.
Watch out for certain red flags in your parenting patterns that could be massively responsible for causing aggression in children.
1. Authoritarian parenting style
Stop being that parent who thinks harsh and violent punishments will keep children under control, assuming that it will instill discipline in them. This always backfires in ways one could never imagine. Also, anger is a separating emotion and weakens your bond with children.
Recommended reading: Does Stress and Pressure Toughen Your Child?
Recommended reading: Strict Parenting: Frequently Asked Questions Answered
2. Anger as defense mechanism
There are instances where parents react aggressively or parents follow a strict parenting style, and they don’t even mean it. It could be because of a bad day at work or any other insignificant thing. This could simply be your coping mechanism or to satisfy impulse, but it might be interpreted in a very different way by children. Clueless regarding such type of anger and its intensity, children think it’s okay to be aggressive to feel good and soothe yourself; not realizing that you are hurting someone.
3. Dealing with external relationships
Children are amazing with mimicry. They pick your behavior, your interaction with others in various situations. This could range from your response to a servant to your boss. So, remember that you are not just responding to others but teaching your kids as well. Watch out for how you handle conflicts and whether your approach to conflict management causing aggression in children.
4. Lack of options
Just like children, parents too grow and evolve. There are moments of weakness when parents yell, just to avoid a situation. This usually happens when they lack the ability to handle situations skillfully. And this makes aggression a substitute, as it brings a pseudo sense of power with itself. Aggression in such cases is nothing but a short-sighted and ineffective solution.
5. Break the chain
It’s time to let go of the aggressive parenting behavior that you learnt from your parents. Understand and accept the generation gap. Kids flourish when provided with liberty and not confinement and suppression. In fact, as someone who has been on both sides, you can clearly predict the effect it will have ultimately.
6. Exposure to violence
Whether domestic violence at home, video games, or television shows with elements of anger or violence, it governs the way children respond. Being exposed to violence at home is highly associated with anger in children, as stated by NLSCY data; thus causing aggression in children.
Being a parent doesn’t guarantee that you will not commit mistakes. But what it does guarantee is that by making constant improvements in parenting, one can ace it.
