Children play out vertical aggression from parents and older siblings to horizontal relationships with peers. There's a difference in an aggressive child who simply goes for another's ball, and a child who goes for the ball because it represents regaining some of what he's never received. This pent up anger from lack of love and nurturing manifests itself in mean, hateful, hurtful and retaliative aggressive behavior. The aggressive child runs the risk of being rejected by his peer group and becoming an outcast. However, findings demonstrate that aggressive behavior doesn't automatically sentence a child to a life of social isolation.
Many aggressive children have a network of friends who are similar to themselves.
Although these clusters may encourage and thus perpetuate antisocial behavior, they also appear to provide friendships and social support. Positive, consistent, nurturing discipline along with teaching children problem solving techniques and to be empathetic are the best deterrents against aggressive behaviors. Also, parents need to offer scripts to children that support prosocial rather than aggressive anti-social behavior. Planned Ignoring 2. Hurdle Help 3.