When, last October, an eminent paediatric professor delivered a lecture which emphasised the importance to society of curbing anti-social behaviour in the very young, the national press had a field day.
Three- and four-year-olds were branded as being 'more violent than adults' and a war on 'terror tots' was declared.
But as some childcare experts have subsequently pointed out, this seems to be missing the point.
What Professor Richard Tremblay, professor of Paediatrics, Psychiatry and Psychology at Montreal University, was most interested in exploring was the relationship between nurture and nature when it comes to anti-social behaviour.
He has come to the conclusion that aggression in young children is 'natural' rather than a learned behaviour, and peaks between the ages of two and four.
In extreme cases he sees this as potentially damaging to society. 'Physical aggression in children is a major public problem,' he says. 'It is not only an indicator of aggression in childhood, but also leads to other behavioural problems in later life such as alcohol and drug abuse, violent crime, and it continues the cycle of abusive parenting.'
Professor Tremblay notes that as society has become more civilised, so aggression has increasingly become viewed as a 'public problem'. 'In past centuries, widespread deprivation meant aggressive behaviour was the norm, but this is no longer the case,' he says.
According to his research, the roots of aggression can be traced to a child's early experiences, and environment will be key to how aggressive impulses are controlled. The more this behaviour is managed, the more society benefits in the long term.
JUST LIKE CRYING AND EATING
A longitudinal study in Canada has challenged popular perceptions that aggression is learned and increases with age.
'The Development of Physical Aggression from Toddlerhood to Pre-Adolescence: a Nationwide Longitudinal Study of Canadian Children', which was published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology, involved the monitoring of 2,000 children in Quebec from birth, over 14 years.
It was found that children at the highest risk of violent behaviour in adult life included those with mothers with a history of anti-social behaviour during their school years, mothers who had children at an early age, mothers who smoked during pregnancy, parents on a low income, or who had a troubled family relationship.
The study also showed that physical aggression peaks between two and three years of age, with most children learning to regulate their use of physical aggression by the end of middle childhood. Those who stop using physical aggression before school age are mostly girls.
In line with this, infancy and toddlerhood appear to be the best period to learn alternatives to physical aggression.
Professor Tremblay says, 'Physical aggression is a behaviour like crying, eating, grasping, throwing and running, which young humans do when the physiological structure is in place. Young humans learn to regulate these natural behaviours with age and experience.'
He adds, 'Physical aggression is the natural way to solve problems among animals, but the human animal has created different ways to do this. Early years practitioners have an important role to play to prepare children for the modern world rather than the jungle.'
LEARNING ALTERNATIVES
For childcare practitioners, the important thing is to hang on to what is 'normal' child behaviour.
Child experts tend to believe that to label young children is to step away from the real problems. What's needed is a sound knowledge of child development so practitioners can begin to look at ways in which they can intervene.
Child psychologist and consultant Jennie Lindon says, 'All young children need guidance towards considerate behaviour - that is normal interaction between children and adults. It becomes more complex when early experiences have damaged children. But even then, alarmist headlines simply stigmatise the families involved.'
She objects to the liberal use of words such as 'violence' and 'aggression' when talking about young children.
'Children are not naturally aggressive in the way that the word is usually meant, but they are naturally physical. We risk demonising childhood by using this kind of language. Physical aggression is a public problem in some young people and adults too. But there is an issue now, that young people are often seen as a problem for showing ordiinary adolescent behaviour.'
More considerate behaviour naturally evolves with the development of language. As children learn words, they can be guided towards more self-disciplined behaviour. By five years of age they have the ability to take the considerate option, but it would be unrealistic to expect them to do this all the time.
The practitioner's role is to help children understand what the options are and to provide alternatives, so it becomes easier to take the less aggressive route.
THE TERRIBLE TWOS
Much of this work starts around the age of two, when children are at their most volatile. According to psychologists at the Anna Freud Centre in London, toddlerhood is that time in development when children begin to flex their muscles. Issues of who is in control, who is top dog, are likely to be expressed not only in the toddlers' relationship with the adults in charge, but also with their peers.
At this time children begin to feel the full force of their aggression, especially in response to frustration, with group life within the nursery inevitably involving a degree of having to give way and wait. This can often provoke a tirade of rage against another child that neither young person probably has much mental capacity to cope with. Frustration may also prompt a response that expresses cruelty and the wish to triumph over the other person who has got in their way.
In these circumstances, the nursery staff might be tempted to be cruel in response. They need to be thoughtful about the feelings that were evoked in themselves in these circumstances.
Professor Tremblay acknowledges that the young human learns to regulate 'natural behaviours' with age, experience and brain maturation. He says, 'Learning to control implies regulating your needs to adjust to those of others, and this process is generally labelled socialisation,' he says.
But this does not go the whole way to explain how nature and environment interact to create either the well adjusted, or anti-social, adults.
'Most children learn to reduce the frequency of the use of a behaviour which they apparently did not mean to learn,' Professor Tremblay says. 'However, relatively stable differences between individuals remain. So what are the gene-environment mechanisms that explain the difference?
'Knowledge on gene-environment interactions which could explain the development of chronic physical aggression is perilously close to zero.'
While the argument for an informed approach to early intervention is sound, an unhealthy fixation with 'terror tots' is clearly less than helpful. Sensitive practitioners will be best placed to help children grow out of the physical aggression that could be damaging to themselves and society in the long term.
UNDERSTANDING AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR
What seems like aggression or meanness on the outside is not necessarily what a given piece of behaviour means inside. Two-year-old Jonathan was struggling with trying to establish himself in a group of similarly aged children. He was often solitary but would also try to make contact and play alongside others. He had great difficulty in managing the to-and- fro of peer relating and sometimes would hit other adults and children.
On close observation it became clear that not all his hitting was 'pure' aggression. Sometimes he would hit out at another child or adult if they were close by if either he had just hurt himself in some way, or appeared to feel slighted. It seemed that Jonathan was expressing in a more active way what he had passively endured. In his hitting out he was trying to master his own sense of vulnerability by making the other person feel it instead.
The nursery worker was able to talk to him about his feelings in a more appropriate way once she had understood this dynamic.
- Case study provided by the Anna Freud Centre, London NW3
FURTHER INFORMATION
- Journal of Experimental Criminology: www.springerlink.com
- Professor Richard Tremblay is based at the Research Unit on Children's Psychosocial Maladjustment (GRIP) in Montreal: www.gripinfo.ca
- The Anna Freud Centre in London NW3 is a registered charity offering treatment, training and research into emotional development in childhood: www.annafreudcentre.org.
