Dealing with violent children and adolescents

Violent Children and Adolescents | ©: frenzelll – Fotolia

Most children are peaceful and at most use physical violence for their own protection. Unfortunately, there are always exceptions and these children argue with their fists rather than with words. There can be many reasons for this, but one thing is certain, this behavior brings nobody really further. It is the duty of all caregivers of children to teach them disputes and solve any problems in a verbal way. Above all, there is a serious problem. If parents, relatives or other people in the immediate vicinity of the children’s opinion are to have to solve their own problems through physical violence, this often leads to an attempt by the offspring to imitate them. If this is successful, the spiral of violence begins to turn very slowly.

We live as our experience teaches us

The main factor for violent children and adolescents is their experience and what they have learned from it. A child is never born violent, it has little to do with the genes, at most there is a slight disposition. With such a predisposition, however, the path to violence is only a little shorter. It is always crucial whether violence has proven to be a helpful strategy or not. For violent children, this strategy of action appears to make sense based on their experience and is associated with a positive result. In their opinion, these children are doing the right thing, because that’s how they learned it, and so far this path has always worked very well. As long as you don’t show these children a better way or if they accidentally open yourself up, they will continue to use the violence strategy.

This does not mean that the children cannot do anything at all. But that the influences from their environment have led them to believe that this is a good strategy. Especially young children can hardly be accused of this behavior, because they do what they have learned. In most cases, the environment is largely responsible for whether children argue verbally or physically. With age, more and more people realize that this path is not good for you in the long run. New experiences may change the point of view and a new strategy arises. Since this happens, if at all, mostly only in the process of growing up, the motto should be to act immediately. Intervene as soon as possible, preferably immediately, and prevent this behavior. It would be best, of course, it doesn’t get that far. This is at least partly in the hands of the parents, teachers and other caregivers. They can provide the children with better strategies and thus ensure that violence can hardly become an issue. If a child has a better strategy, then it makes no sense to try the violence strategy at all.

How do children become violent?

experienced violence from Children and adolescents | ©: Company V – Fotolia

A lot must have happened for children to choose the path of violence as one of the best strategies for solving problems. Since we humans are ultimately born from the ground up as peaceful beings, it takes some experiences to develop ourselves into a violent being. It is difficult to say what ultimately encouraged how much violence. However, in most cases it is not just a single thing, but a whole series of experiences that have led to it. However, a single factor can shape a child so strongly that violence is seen as the solution.

One of the biggest factors is the family home, because that’s where the children spend their memorable first years. The risk of becoming violent if the father or mother becomes palpable against each other or against the child in question is already very great. This often leads to the children either adopting this behavior or suffering from other psychological deficits. If parents solve their problems through physical superiority, the children will also try this strategy pattern as mentioned above and keep it if it is successful. But it is by no means the case that this must lead to it. Children can also become violent if, from a psychological point of view, they grow up in an almost perfect home. After all, children learn not only from their parents, but also in many other ways. As a parent it is not so easy to keep an overview and to protect the offspring “from the world”.

For example, it is crucial how the circle of friends develops, what experiences the friends bring with them and how they show them to the outside world. In many cases, especially in cliques, it depends on the leader. Someone always has to lead a group and this is mostly a single person. This person subconsciously gets something like a special status and if this person is or becomes violent, then the group participants also tend to develop in this direction. It is therefore very important for parents to take a look at how their children are treated every now and then. What do friends do in their free time, what are their interests and hobbies? Of course, the children should not be constantly monitored, but it would be good to know, for example, if one of the friends is the school thug.

Furthermore, there are slightly more subtle ways to get into the spiral of violence. On the one hand there is the media landscape, especially television. Because Hollywood starts and musicians are idols for many young people. If they solve their problems with violence, whether in the film or in the celebrity news, then this also contributes to the children’s willingness to use violence. Not to forget drug use. Drugs in which children lose control and feel stronger than before are particularly dangerous. The most dangerous everyday drug for us is alcohol. This regularly leads to violent riots among young people. Those who were able to solve their problems with physical superiority once in the alcohol intoxication may solve them the next time without alcohol in this way.

Preventive measures

A violent personality can begin to develop at any time in life, but such behavior can usually be traced back to early childhood. It is therefore the best time to take preventive measures. No matter how much parents are careful, it can always happen. Suddenly the call comes from school: Your child has struck, please come and collect your child. Then you have to react immediately. First of all, it must be honestly determined whether there are two perpetrators or one victim. The parents must not overlook anything and should not consider their child a victim, even if it could also be a perpetrator (children often lie here!).

Now the perpetrator (s) must feel that this strategy does more harm than good. If this does not happen, the risk of a violent personality increases sharply from now on. There must be consequences that are so bad that the violent conflict was not worth it. If you can clearly see who the perpetrator and who the victim was, the victim must also see the consequences that the perpetrator must now endure. Of course, this cannot always be clearly separated, then the children have to be “interrogated” until the situation is crystal clear. This requires patience, but children also deserve justice. There are often two perpetrators and no real victim. But it may also be that both gives. Then, of course, the victim should not be punished and in principle it should be less about punishment than reparation.

An apology or tolerating again is the bare minimum. If something has been broken, it must be paid from pocket money. If this is not bad enough for the child, then reparation is needed. The first time you may be able to do without it, but if something like this happens more often, the child must feel so much "pain" that violence is no longer worth it. That may sound a little hard, but if you are violent on a regular basis, it will always be and it is a dangerous game with fire. The child absolutely needs a strong reason to solve his problems peacefully again and he only gets it if his strategy is too painful.

But be careful: the deed is not the culprit

However, it is very important to only condemn the act and not the perpetrator. As I said, it must be made clear that this behavior is in no way acceptable. Consequences must follow, namely those that cause the child not to do this again. After that, however, there must be an end. The child must also learn that he is not judged for one mistake, only one mistake. If this does not happen, it can lead to a defiance and then hardly any consequence will help.

Violent children in the youth group

It can happen that young people are in our youth groups, which are generally considered to be violent, or even participate in leisure time. I already had young people from educational homes on their free time, who were repeatedly noticed because of violent crimes. However – maybe I was lucky too – these teenagers were (almost) completely inconspicuous on the holiday trip.

I can still remember a teenager well. He was a regular guest with the police for everything. The classmates were afraid of him because if someone struck him he had to strike immediately. In a long conversation with him I had told him that he would never find friends in this way, nobody would want to have anything to do with him. He then: "I don’t need friends …". I answered him. "But you need that. Everyone wants friends, wants to be accepted and accepted. ”Then he started to cry. I had hit the nerve. We talked for a long time about how to solve conflicts instead of fists. After many years, the police officer came to me once and said that it was noticed that this youngster had changed for the better because they had taken care of this youngster.

What do I want to share with this example??

First of all, as described above, many children and adolescents cannot do very much for their behavior. They have not learned it differently, have been given no opportunity to behave differently. In principle, however, these children and adolescents want to be loved and accepted just like everyone else. Clearly, you often have to be consistent and sometimes resort to “punishments”. But always the deed, never punish the youth. And I would look for the conversation, I would try to get to know the young person, his parents’ house, his career to understand him.

What to do if a young person continues to use violence against others despite repeated conversations?

If nothing helps, then I would give such a young person the choice: "either …, or …" and then consistently send these young people home in the next incident. I never sent young people home from the youth group forever, but at most for 3-4 weeks at a time – so they always gave them the opportunity to come back, but also expressed that their behavior must have consequences.

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