Thus the pleasure of being part of the group forces the child's brain to develop ways of regulating anger. The orbital frontal cortex will send very extensive anatomical projections to to the various regions that are part of what we call the limbic system, the emotional part of the brain, and it will send an inhibitory command to these regions. It will shut them them out using mainly a neurotransmitter called serotonin. Serotonin is a key structure, a key neurotransmitter involved in emotional regulation.
We know, for instance, in individuals with lowered level of serotonin in their system, they will be more prone to display aggressiveness and very violent behaviors. on tryptophan a natural amino acid from which serotonin is created study we did was to take a hundred normal people and give them tryptophan for 12 days so that we get about 70 interactions during that time and placebo for 12 days and the tryptophan relative to the placebo made them less quarrelsome and more dominant which is kind of interesting because often people think of dominance in terms of aggression but it It doesn't have to be if you're being agreeable and dominant. You'd use other words to describe it like charisma or leadership or something else like that.
So it seemed to be a move to more constructive social behavior. As their brains grow and develop, children acquire the ability to control their emotions. Little by little, as their parents guide them through various experiences, children learn to pause and watch, listen, touch, rub, suck, or use other techniques to forestall a temper tantrum.
Around 15 months, a phenomenon with an important link to physical aggression takes place. It's during this period that children develop self-awareness. Children realize they are different from other people and start to experience other emotions.
Pride, for example. But also shame and embarrassment. These new emotions will help children hold in check aggressive behavior towards others. But these new feelings are also new sources of anger and tantrums.
The neurocircuits needed to regulate anger and frustration have not yet matured, so as a result, children are often ruled by their emotions. We shouldn't be at all surprised that children resort to physical aggression most often during the terrible twos. and that their most spectacular tantrums take place at this age. However, it's critical that they learn during this period that shrieking, hitting, slapping and biting are unacceptable ways of expressing themselves.
You hit mommy, you don't get a banana. No. No. Tony, Tony, Clara is saying you already had your turn, so you're sitting down now with Laura. Okay.
What? You don't hit me. You get that?
You don't hit me. Do you understand? No, you don't bite me either.
Fortunately, because the brain is maturing, this is also the age when children increasingly master a tool that provides them a means to resolve conflicts more peacefully. language they can learn to use language to express their needs desires frustrations and emotions I am the more adults help provide children with words to express themselves the less the children will do so by crying and hitting Memory also plays an important role in inhibiting physical aggression. The more children live and experience, the more they recall solutions other than those related to aggression. Conscious regulation is the memorization of all the social rules that we will learn throughout our education.
There are things that you already know because you have learned them throughout the socialization process, throughout education. And you don't have to even think about those things to be able to... behave in a morally acceptable fashion, if you will. Hi, are you okay?
Yeah, you're like a sad one. Among humans and social animals, the young learn the rules of controlling aggressive behavior by mixing with members of the tribe. This is called socialization. One very important step in the socialization process is play fighting. Dr. Jan van Hoof has spent most of his career studying the social behavior of chimpanzees.
Play fighting is of course a very remarkable phenomenon. It teaches you a lot of how the world is and how your social relationships are. are but the thing is it is not serious it is done for fun and in primates and chimpanzees in particular they have a play face which is very much related to our laughter if you play with one another tickle one another the chimpanzee play face something like that, tells you I appreciate this as being funny, as being not serious, I like it. I'm going to hit you, I'm going to beat you, and I'm going to grab you, but we do this for fun. But at the same time, when the animals compete with one another in the play fight, one animal can be a little bit rough by pushing a little bit harder, nuzzling a little bit harder, sometimes even making a little nip.
on the back of the neck. So that the animal that's a little bit more forceful is now telling something to the other animal. It's telling it, I'm tougher than you. If we were in a real fight, I could win. Even if play fighting is as natural in humans as it is in other animals, parents and teachers often forbid it because they see in play fighting disturbing signs of violence.
However, play fighting can be extremely useful to a child's development. By competing physically with others, the child discovers who is stronger, where each person's limits are, and whether aggressive acts are acceptable. Play fighting also requires compromises.
The strongest must learn to play with their own body. to let other partners win from time to time, or they will find themselves without playmates. In fact, as shocking as it may seem, play fighting apparently teaches youngsters to control their aggressive behavior.
Discipline plays a vital role in eliminating aggressive behavior. Dr. Joan McCord, former president of the American Society of Criminology, started studying the role of parents in the socialization process when she was an adult. undergraduate student at Harvard. Well, let's consider the child fighting with a sibling. You'd like the child to stop.
You can hold his hands and say, Stop hitting. Do you see how you're hurting your brother? Or you can say, Stop hitting or I'll punish you. Or you can say, Stop hitting and hit the child. Let's go back and see those three.
If you say, stop hitting, look how you're hurting your brother, the child is being taught that hurting the brother is the wrong thing to do. It's a reason for not hitting. It's not a game, honey. It's very dangerous.
You understand? Give me a kiss. Go outside and play. Okay.
If you say stop hitting or you'll be punished, it's implying that I have the power, the person who's going to hit, can change you and the child has to figure out whether it's because you're a parent, whether it's because you're bigger. What are the circumstances that you have the right to give pain? And you've introduced the whole notion of giving pain. And if you hit, then the child's problem is to figure out when it's all right to hit.
and he'll start hitting more. There's lots and lots of evidence that shows that children who are hit are more likely to be hitting later on, and it's even a very good predictor of crime later on. Children between age 2 and 3 are using physical aggression very often. They learn to be more aggressive.
not to use physical aggression by interacting with others.