10 Tips and strategies for dealing with children's irritability and aggressiveness in daycare settings

Do you work in a daycare environment and have to deal with easily irritable toddlers? You're not alone: it's one of the main concerns of parents and educators of young children. Irritability could be defined as a reduced threshold of tolerance to frustration, leading the child to experience anger easily and to have little control over it. At this age, a lack of control over anger leads to acting out, with the child shouting, hitting, pushing, spitting, biting and throwing objects. Anger is the emotion experienced by the child, while aggression/violence is the set of actions taken and motivated by the emotion of anger. 

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‍The"terrible two":

You know the expression? That period around the age of two when the child seems to want to oppose everything, just for the sake of opposing! Adults are desperate to get their child to cooperate with the slightest request, such as getting dressed, eating, washing, going to bed, buckling up in the car, or giving a toy back when playtime is over. The age of two is often referred to as "terrible two", but in reality, we should be talking about the period from two to four. This is a time of opposition and angry reactions, as the child learns to develop autonomy. Between the ages of two and four, language and motor skills develop in leaps and bounds, as do the child's ability to think for himself. He realizes that he can assert himself and sometimes get what he wants through his behavior. He explores this new power and gets excited about his newfound autonomy, which requires a lot of adjustment on the part of parents and daycare educators!

Causes of irritability and aggression in preschool : 

Irritability and aggression are part of the normal development of children between the ages of zero and five, both at home and in daycare. During this period, children experience minor frustrations on a daily basis, but neurologically they lack the ability to control their own anger.

Frustrations can be caused by : 

• Immature fine motor skills. For example, a little girl tries to make a tower out of stacked blocks, but her tower keeps collapsing. A little boy wants to show his parents that he can zipper up his coat himself, but can't get one end to fit into the other. A child wants to carry his glass of juice himself, but clumsily spills half of it on the way. All these examples are frustrating and can make a child angry.

• Insufficient language to express an idea. Think how frustrating it can be to try to express an important request, but not be understood by the person we're talking to. Young children experience this kind of frustration all the time, because they lack the words and sentence structures to express their thoughts adequately. A child with a language delay is all the more exposed to this kind of frustration on a daily basis. 

• A lack of codes of conduct in social interactions. During the preschool period, children don't master the codes of conduct that enable harmonious social relations. Basically, they are guided by their impulses and desires, with no consideration for others. So if they want the little car that another child is holding in his hand, they'll simply snatch it out of his hands! They don't know that an agreement can be negotiated with the other child to share time in the toy car, and they're certainly not equipped to negotiate such an agreement! So they act on their impulses, which makes the other child react and leads to conflicts that quickly escalate into anger and aggression. Conflicts over the possession of objects are common in daycare settings.

• New rules create new frustrations. For some children, their arrival in a daycare setting means the imposition of new rules and a new environment compared to what they know at home. With rules come frustrations! Rules are essential for children to function properly, but they are often designed to prevent them from fulfilling certain desires. It's frustrating! 

Other causes, such as stresses experienced at home, aggressive conflicts between parents or impulsivity linked to ADHD, for example, can also explain the presence of aggressive behavior in children.

Tips and interventions :

Here are 10 strategies, tips and tricks for managing aggressive behavior in daycare settings. These strategies are designed to help more irritable children integrate positively into their group.

1. Differential attention. The idea here is to give the child plenty of attention when he or she adopts the behaviors you're looking for, but to withdraw this attention and ignore him or her when unpleasant behaviors occur. Mind you, we can't ignore behaviors where the child risks hurting another child, hurting himself, or damaging objects. But when the child starts complaining, complaining, whining, whining about nothing or sulking, we can pretend we haven't seen or heard the behavior and simply direct our attention elsewhere. Afterwards, it's important to bring positive attention back to the child when he plays well, interacts well with his peers, or complies well with our requests and instructions. 

2. Small but effective demands. Without realizing it, we sometimes end up imposing a lot of rules on our children. Are they all essential? Perhaps not. Each rule deprives the child of a desire and offers an opportunity for opposition and frustration. Sometimes, reducing the number of rules means less structuring or even disciplinary intervention with the child, and preserves quality time without conflict. It will then be easier to be rigorous and effective about the rules and demands we choose to maintain.

3. Praise and rewards. The vast majority of children enjoy pleasing adults and receiving praise for good behavior. It's a powerful motivator for them. What's more, they build their identity based on the adult's comments. Being told that they're a nice person, a good sharer or a good listener, leads children to integrate this self-image and to want to reproduce these behaviors. Conversely, negative comments also lead the child to identify with them and seek to repeat the negative behaviors that have been reflected back to him. A reinforcement system using tokens or stickers can be a great way to support praise and improve the child's cooperation.

4. Routines. We know that stress is a factor of opposition and irritability. We also know that among the greatest stressors are unpredictable situations over which we feel we have little control. Routines do just the opposite, making situations expected rather than unpredictable, and offering a sense of control as we can see the changes and different stages of the routine coming. Routines also reduce frustration when a child has to stop an activity he or she enjoys, as they can anticipate this moment of transition to something else. 

5. Target triggers to anticipate them. What are the main anger triggers for a child in your group who is described as more irritable, aggressive and hot-tempered? When you know what triggers them, it's easier to mitigate and calm them down. To identify triggers, you can keep a small diary of outbursts, noting :some text
   • What the child was doing just before the crisis, 
   • The demand or frustration that generated the crisis, 
   • The adult's subsequent reactions and interventions, to see whether these have alleviated the crisis or rather maintained it. 

6. Work on emotional regulation skills. A number of little books are available to explain emotions to children in their own words. An anger thermometer is also an excellent emotional management tool. You can also set up a calming corner in the room with, for example, a bean bag, subdued lighting, a soft blanket and soft music. Looking for a good way to teach children to take deep breaths? Above the footstool, hang feathers from the ceiling with strings, and ask the child to blow on them to make them move! He'll need to take deep breaths, and the movement of the feathers will be soothing. 

7. Learn how to deal with provocation from peers. "He started it!!!" Sound familiar? If so, let's teach kids how to properly handle peer provocation. For example, here's a 4-step plan for kids to follow when a friend does something they don't like at daycare: 
   1. Tell the other child what he or she has just done and say that it makes us angry or upset: "You've just gone ahead of me in line and that makes me angry".
   2. Formulate a request: "I want you to return to your place in line."
   3. Negotiate an agreement if possible: "You took the red marker out of my hand and that makes me angry. I want you to give me back the marker I had in my hands. I suggest you quickly finish the section I'm coloring red and give me the red marker as soon as I'm done."
   4. Call in an adult if the first three steps don't work.

8. Problem identification and the other person's perspective. Understanding another person's perspective is one of the most valuable social skills in conflict resolution. This skill can be taught to children by getting them to listen calmly to the other child's side of the story, and to understand that this side of the story makes sense if you put yourself in his or her shoes. Above all, children can be taught that what their friend experienced during the conflict can make sense without invalidating what they themselves experienced during the conflict. For example, a child has experienced injustice because his friend went ahead of him in line for a game. The friend might explain (with the adult's help) that he was so excited about the game that he didn't even realize he was being passed by another child. Both of these experiences are valid and make sense, and can be understood and validated, thus calming the conflict. 

9. Allow time for verbal expression. Preschoolers are still in the process of acquiring their vocabulary, and don't yet have the sentence structures they need to express their thoughts clearly. What he says and what he means may be two quite distinct things. Or he may search for words for a long time and rework his sentences to get the point across. As an adult, patience and a calm, reassuring approach are needed to calm the child and prevent him from feeling he has to rush his words to be heard. Crouch down to his level, place a reassuring hand on his shoulder and listen for as long as it takes to make sure you've understood what he WANTS to say. 

10. Encouraging and valuing autonomy. Since the opposition of the "terrible two" (which often lasts from 2 to 4 years of age), the child's main goal is to gain autonomy. So let's encourage autonomy to prevent opposition! Let the child do things for him/herself, congratulate him/her on his/her accomplishments and often point out how he/she has become a big person, which enables him/her to do what he/she does. Teach him/her how to do things he/she wants to do alone but doesn't know how. The child you empower will want to collaborate with you!

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Text by:
Dr Benoît Hammarrenger, Ph.D.
Neuropsychologist, author, lecturer
CERC Director

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