People often talk about children's aggressiveness and complain about it, and many of them analyze and interpret this phenomenon to know its causes. However, few people care about curing it and providing practical solutions to eliminate or avoid it. From this point, I will suggest some practical and well-defined methods for curing aggression in children.
First: Do not encourage your child to persist in his mistakes and say "no" at the proper time
The child who gets used to having his desires fulfilled will encounter a problem when we deprive him of what he loves. He will behave aggressively to resist this change in the way of treatment. To avoid this aggressive behavior resulting from coddling, it is necessary to use the method of firmness in upbringing and learn to say "no" to the child. Firmness is an essential and indispensable quality for the person assuming the upbringing process. This quality helps him say "no" to his children at the proper time as he means it.
Firmness implies that he looks serious when the child deliberately and repeatedly makes a mistake, to teach him that joking should not be associated with everything. By firmness, one can set the necessary rules for sound upbringing at home for all members of the family and they will realize the difference between unlimited freedom and legal freedom which stands for respecting rules, principles and values.
We are talking about objective and positive firmness, not frowning, anger and inflicting harm. On the contrary, some parents are not able to say "no"; falsely believing that they will lose the love of their children or they simply surrender to guarantee themselves an easy life. In fact, children respect the parent who sets rules and limits for them and feel secure and comfortable under these rules and limits. All children need to work in a healthy system of sound upbringing and discipline, feel secure under it, and know their rights and duties. The other alternative is awful. Put differently, failing to say "no" at the proper time means that parents are negligent and lax, and of course, nobody accepts this quality. [Muhammad Sa‘eed Mursi: Ahsan Murrabbi fi Al-‘Aalam]
Second: Teach your child kindness practically, not just by words
Your child acquires most of his experiences and behavior by watching your behavior. So, how have you been recently? What is the example you have set for him? If you want your child to behave properly every time you are together, you must show kind behavior. There are many opportunities every day for you to do that, such as looking after the son of your friend, calling a friend in difficulty, checking on people, or always talking about others sympathetically and with love. After demonstrating this kind behavior, tell your child how happy you feel when doing so. Your view of kind and gentle behavior through daily works and activities and focusing on the great impact and happiness that this good behavior brings to you will make your child more inclined to imitate you. There is an old proverb that says: "A child learns from what he experiences" and this is true to a great extent.
The child sees samples of aggression everywhere and watches his peers at school, in the streets and his family. Thus, if you do not guide him to the appropriate behavior or criticize bad behavior in front of him, he will follow his peers and imitate their behavior.
Third: Set rules for watching TV
Few parents are in favor of totally giving up the television and are happy with this decision. Children who are not used to watching TV will not long for it and they occupy their days with other activities. Family members often believe that television makes their life easier since it distracts the children for long periods of time. If we think about the time spent on discussing the period that children must spend watching TV and what they should watch, added to that the number of quarrels related to preventing children from watching TV to do their school work and homework, we would find that it would be better to live without the TV at all. If you second the majority of people who prefer living with TV, the most important thing you have to do is to control this matter well. If the child's bedroom has a TV set, get it out in an open place where you can easily monitor what he is watching and the amount of time he spends watching it.
You have to set rules for watching television to guard your child from learning the aggressive behavior presented in the programs. The main terms of these rules include:
- What is the amount of time dedicated to watching TV?
- What are the programs which are allowed to be watched?
- Importance of your presence during viewing time.
- Placing the TV set in an open place, not in bedrooms.