Does Your Child Have Hyper-aggressive Behavioral Problem?

Our office allows their employees to bring their children from time to time to the office. Normally children act shyly at first but it’s a given that they’ll soon begin to roam around and explore things. Almost all of the women at the office have kids and at one time or another, they have already brought their kids to work. However, there is this child who stood differently among all the other kids. He tears up papers, he runs around, he slaps others, and sometimes he breaks things like calculators and staplers. He is constantly moving and doing different things. He disrupts everyone with his antics to get one’s attention. One of our research consultants who happen to be a psychologist, too, asked the child’s mom if the child behaves like that all the time. When the mom said yes, our research consultant suspected that the child has hyper-aggressive behavioral problem.

Hyper activism-aggressiveness is one of the major behavioral problems prevalent among children ages 5-11 years old (Pearson, Child Developmental Psychology). Children who have this behavioral problem are often violent with other people and do things hurriedly. They are often irritated and moody, have short attention span and ignore you when you call their attention. When parents observe these manifestations with their children, the best way to handle this situation is to be calm, understanding and open-minded.

The psychologist said the one way to handle children with this behavioral problem is to channel their hyper activism to sports and other creative activities. Let them exhaust that energy by doing sports, with the parents consistently encouraging them to excel in it. Make them watch documentary films that have slow pacing so that it may somehow influence and reduce their constant moving. Talk to the children and make them understand and empathize that hurting people is not good. Avoid hitting and spanking the child as this may be misinterpreted by the child as the proper way to deal with stress and mood swings. Physical abuse will only exacerbate the problem and will not help you in dealing with your child.

In severe occasions, a child with this behavioral problem won’t listen to you. It would be all right if you make him stand at the corner without speaking to him and afterward explain to him the reasons why you did that. It is also best if you consult a psychologist for early detection and intervention.

But what causes this hyper activism-aggressiveness among children? Before you blame yourself, you must understand that there is no conclusive evidence that it is solely caused by genetics. A lot of experts in medical and psychological fields believe that genes only predispose one to have behavioral problems instead of directly causing the person to have it. Majority of the experts still believe that nature and nurture complete the equation of having behavioral problems.

Always remember that our children deserve unconditional love and understanding from their family. Deal with the situation by embracing it with an openness with which you’d be able to forego all negative reaction to the problem. And since this is the moment when your child needs support and care from other people, it’ll be best to assure the child that he/she has the whole family behind her/his back.