When a child is born, they have only two basic ways of responding to the world: pleasure, when they are fed, comfortable, and warm, and displeasure, when they are hungry, frightened, in pain, or cold. Pleasure is expressed through smiling, joyful cooing, calmness, or peaceful sleep. Displeasure, on the other hand, is expressed through crying, screaming, and kicking. Later, it may appear as biting, soiling, refusal to eat, and eventually as protest reactions aimed at destroying something that the child believes is valuable to the person who has offended them.
To those around the child, this may sometimes look like unmotivated aggression. Such behavior often causes parents to feel embarrassed and to experience a mixture of shame, confusion, and fear in response to their child’s aggressive actions. As a result, parents may try to impose a prohibition on the expression of aggression.
Parents’ desire to prevent aggressive behavior is also influenced by social expectations. It is unpleasant to hear complaints from a caregiver, teacher, or coach about a son’s or daughter’s destructive behavior. The first reaction of parents is usually to scold or punish the child in order to teach them that such behavior is unacceptable. Unfortunately, this rarely solves the problem, because the most important question is overlooked: what was the child trying to express through this behavior?
Let us try to understand what these aggressive manifestations mean. Once we understand their cause, it becomes much clearer how to respond to them.
A child learns language slowly and gradually. At first, they name the objects they see; later they learn what these objects can do; and only much later do they learn about things that are not directly present in the physical world. The same applies to feelings. Moreover, the ability to connect events develops only with experience. Even adults cannot always precisely explain what they feel and why. It is even more difficult to understand the feelings of a child who cannot yet express them verbally and can only show them through actions.
Therefore, to understand why a child bit a neighbor’s ear or broke another child’s toy in kindergarten, adults must learn to decipher the behavioral language of the child.
First of all, it is important not to ignore the child’s aggressive behavior or excuse it by saying that someone else provoked it. Parents often insist that their child is calm and affectionate in everyday life and therefore cannot be aggressive. It is important to abandon the illusion that your child is incapable of aggression. Any child can instinctively display aggression when they feel threatened or when something they love—whether a person, a teddy bear, or their territory—is under attack.
One of the most common situations occurs when a child reacts with excessive irritation to seemingly harmless stimuli: someone addressing them, asking them to do something, an accidental touch, or simple lack of attention. Such reactions are often connected with a sense of insecurity.
This is a fundamental feeling that begins to form from the moment of birth and is closely related to the emotional image of the external world that the mother conveys to the child.
Imagine a simple example: a child is born at a time when the mother is experiencing a personal crisis, anxiety about the future, despair, or deep sadness. For the infant, who has not yet developed a clear distinction between self and non-self, these feelings become part of their first emotional experience of the world. The child learns from the beginning that the world is not entirely safe—that it contains pain and unpredictability and that harm may come from others.
Later in life this may develop into distrust toward people and the surrounding world. Any external action may be interpreted as a possible attack. Fear and anxiety in contact with others cause the child to interpret almost any signal as confirmation of their worst expectations.
Aggressive outbursts in such children may appear sudden and incomprehensible, sometimes frightening even for adults. Attempts to control the child may only increase their fear, and the child may respond with physical aggression.
Unfortunately, in my professional practice I often encounter such cases, where the reason for seeking psychological help is complaints from teachers and the school’s desire—especially in elite schools—to get rid of such a child.
Very often the child receives a label at school or kindergarten. Feeling this attitude toward them, the child becomes even more anxious. In school, where the psychological load increases, fear often interferes with learning, even though such children are frequently intelligent and capable, sometimes even ahead of their peers intellectually.
For example, complaints about an eight-year-old boy named Andrei focused on the fact that he showed no interest in studying, constantly disrupted lessons, and frequently fought with others. He did not distinguish between classmates, girls, teachers, or even his own mother—he could hit anyone. By the time I met him, he had been held back a year, seated alone at the last desk, and allowed to do whatever he wanted while receiving failing grades.
When the situation was examined in detail, it turned out that his strongest aggressive reaction occurred when he was being given a vaccination. Frightened by his resistance, medical staff and teachers called his mother, whom he kicked while trying to escape.
Did he want to harm his mother? No.
Did he want to harm the medical staff? No.
This is how a person behaves when they are terrified, trapped and trying to defend themselves by any possible means. It is an instinctive defense, similar to how an animal reacts when cornered by a predator.
For this boy, his entire environment felt threatening. His early development had not been peaceful: after childbirth his mother was seriously ill and unable to care for him, the family moved frequently, and his parents constantly argued.
Whom in his life could he trust?
Certainly not someone trying to inject him with a needle and cause pain.
When fear dominates internally, logical analysis becomes impossible. This applies not only to children but also to adults. Many psychological disorders are rooted in such overwhelming fear, which cannot be resolved through rational arguments alone. In such cases, professional help is necessary.
But what can parents do when the situation still seems manageable or as a preventive measure?
First, try to understand whether the child’s aggressive outburst is connected with an internal sense of threat. Try to talk with them—but do not interrogate them insistently about their feelings. This may only push the child away.
If you sense that the child was frightened, you can help by naming the feeling:
“You were scared…” or “You felt frightened.”
By translating action into words, the child learns that feelings can be expressed verbally rather than through hitting someone. Gradually, the child develops a language for their emotions and may begin to say, “I’m upset,” “I’m angry,” or “I’m hurt,” instead of trying to attract attention through “terrible” behavior.
However, adults should not assume they always know exactly what the child feels. An adult can only make hypotheses based on experience and observation. The child must remain the active narrator of their inner world, while the adult provides the opportunity and tools for expression.
Listening is crucial. Children often have much to share, and parents may learn a great deal about what is happening inside the soul of their “unreasonable” child.
If the child is so frightened that they cannot distinguish friend from enemy, the best way to stop them may be holding them firmly in a containing embrace. Enduring their kicking, pushing, or biting, you may soon notice that they gradually calm down.
Such an embrace performs several important functions. For the child it means that the adult can withstand their aggression. This helps the child learn that their aggression can be contained and that they will not destroy what they love. Over time, the child internalizes this ability to contain aggression and learns to regulate it independently.
After the child calms down, it may be possible to talk about their feelings. During such conversations, however, it is important not to lecture or moralize, but simply to show that you are ready to listen when the child is upset.
Another common cause of aggression in children is the frustration of their needs or desires. The most fundamental human need—including for a child—is the need for love.
A child needs to feel that they are loved and valued unconditionally, regardless of whether they behave as their parents expect at that moment. When a child doubts this unconditional love, they suffer deeply and may repeatedly provoke behavior that confirms their fear of being unloved.
These provocations often appear as endless or unrealistic demands. When such demands are refused, the child may interpret it as proof that nobody loves them and that they are unwanted. Naturally, this evokes intense anger.
Children love sincerely and cannot easily accept the idea that their love might be unreciprocated.
At the same time, fulfilling every wish does not solve the problem either, because the child’s doubts may arise again in other situations—for example, when they feel ignored emotionally. Therefore, it is important to **sincerely tell the child that you love them**.
The key word here is sincerely. Children are extremely sensitive to discrepancies between words and genuine feelings. If they sense such a contradiction, it may create inner conflict and lead them to stop trusting their parents.
Ignoring a child’s need for love or creating doubts about it can affect their entire psychological life and continue to influence them even in adulthood.
One man who came to therapy near retirement age spoke about a wound that had never healed. From early childhood he was raised by his grandparents and later sent to a boarding kindergarten. Even then he would ask his mother whether she loved him—but she never answered.
In another case, a girl asked her mother whether she was needed. The mother replied:
“You’re my only child. If there were ten of you, one more or one less wouldn’t matter.”
A child who becomes convinced that they are unloved—or worse, hated—may feel that nothing worse can happen. Such a child may become capable of anything, no longer fearing the loss of a love object. They may become hardened or seek revenge.
Many thriller stories about serial killers are built on exactly such childhood experiences—stories that often reveal a past filled with humiliation, neglect, and rejection.
Finally, aggressive behavior may also arise from the child’s need to defend themselves and their boundaries.
As the child grows, they begin to understand the difference between “I” and “mine.” They need to know where the boundary lies between what belongs to them and what belongs to others.
Ideally, a child should have their own space—perhaps even their own room—where they can keep things that belong only to them. Even if a separate room is not possible, the child should at least have their own corner and their own bed. The child needs to know that their boundaries are respected.
Children also have a right to their own thoughts and feelings and to a degree of private space that expands as they grow.
Children may react very strongly when these boundaries are violated. Parents who sincerely believe that their child should have no secrets from them often become the most frequent violators of these boundaries. Yet it is precisely in relation to their parents that the child first learns to establish personal boundaries.
This is not a sign of disrespect or distrust. It is a necessary developmental step. A child is born completely dependent, but their developmental task is to become capable of living an independent life and making independent decisions.
Important stages in this process include around age two, the beginning of school, and adolescence. During these periods children often react especially strongly to intrusions into their lives, expressing themselves through protest behaviors.
Parents with experience usually learn to maintain a healthy balance between acceptable and unacceptable forms of protest.
Excessively strict prohibitions often lead children to break rules secretly. On the other hand, unlimited freedom may make a child feel abandoned and uncared for. Reasonable limits are necessary for the development of internal moral standards.
Extreme approaches in either direction may provoke aggression because both threaten the child’s sense of self.
The examples described above do not exhaust all possible causes of aggression, but they help us approach the feelings that the child cannot manage and therefore expresses toward others.
The first task for adults is to show that they themselves can cope with these emotions. Seeing this, the child gradually becomes more confident.
The second task is to recognize the child’s feelings and their right to experience them. Suppressing aggressive impulses through prohibition or force often leads either to **auto-aggression** (self-harm) or to psychosomatic disorders.
Finally, the child should be taught to express aggression in socially acceptable ways: through words, drawing, modeling with clay, playing with toys, or through safe physical activities such as sports.
After all, aggression is also a powerful energy that can become a source of strength for constructive purposes.