Instant Gratification What does it mean? It simply means that whatever the child desires is immediately available to her. Most of us tend to think that it pertains only to material acquisitions like toys, gifts , clothes and other items. I suggest that we look at it in a broader perspective. It also implies that when Tina wants to watch her favourite cartoon its immediately available thanks to technology. She wants a chocolate again immediately available because we tend to stock up on such things. She wants noodles again available in two minutes. Now what does this two minute business does to the child’s brain? It prevents Tina’s brain to develop the necessary neuro-pathways to deal with delay or non availability. Overtime anything which is not available instantly causes high level of dissonance and stress in Tina’s mind. And once again there are two behaviours available to Tina in this situation. Avoid everything which is not instant or go aggressive. Both of which further compromise the learned skills of the mind to deal with situation of non gratification.
Little opportunity to Learn to Fail At present the entire system is geared up to make the child succeed. What should Tina learn, what should Tina not learn and to top it up we tend to believe that it is best if the Tina does not even realise that she is learning or has to make an effort to learn, everything should be effortless We are not only physically protecting the child we are mentally and emotionally shielding Tina to the extent that they are totally unaware of something called failure. The entire system makes us feel that if we as much as utter the word failure it will adversely affect the psyche of the child. What I believe is that its not avoiding the word failure or avoiding failure or sugar coating failure that severely hampers a child’s coping mechanism. In other words Tina does not develop the ability to take NO for an answer. Children need to have challenging situation in which they will fail and they should know that they have failed and its ok. Failure will happen. Once their brain develops the coping mechanism it shields then aggression and depression. And Tina can’t succeed till she can handle failure.
Aggressive Personalities in Family: This is fairly simple as children learn by seeing so if in the family aggressive behaviour happens it will be imitated. It is not necessary that our Tina is the object of aggression but even if the aggression is directed towards somebody else it impacts Tina. It may be that we are annoyed with maid, or office boss or on the road while driving …it all adds up. Even non verbal expression of aggression like stomping your feet, loudly banging doors,keep things on table with force, staring in anger etc affects.And you will be amazed at how early it starts affecting the child…from the age of 3 to 4 months!!! We don’t realise because we don’t see the manifestation of this behaviour before around 3 years of age.
Lastly genetic factors: In some cases inherited factor like predisposition to Attention Deficit syndrome and other medical conditions can also cause aggression. Temporary aggression can also be a result of some medication.#aggression in children
For queries please contact. For free tips leave your number to join whatsapp group. If you like what you read please like this blog and leave a comment
