Children Aggression

Introduction

Anyone who grew up with siblings knows lots of aggression can occur in childhood. I have an older brother and younger sister, so being right in the middle I feel I know exactly what aggression is. From my experiences I believe there is more agression between male and female children rather than between two females or two males. It also seems ligitiment that the way a parent punishes a child could cause more aggression. If the parent shows any aggression towards the child during the punishment, the child will likely follow in their footsteps.

Literature Review

Martin, J., & Ross, H. (2005). International journal of behaivoral development. Sibling

aggression: Sex differences and parents'reactions. 29(2), 129-138. Retrieved from

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=12&hid=104&sid=ac6a5031-6c96-4dae-8e13-



In this study boys and girls, ages two and a half and four and a half engaged in aggression. This study shows how parents reacted towards this aggression by punishing the boys more than girls, and feeling that the younger children were less guilty. This study also shows the older the boys get the more aggressive they are towards each other.

Takahashi, F., Koseki, S., Shimada, H. (2009). Developmental trends in children's aggression

and social problem-solving. Journal of applied developmental psychology, 30(3), 265-272.

Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=105&sid=4f62b28c-

0ad8-4f88-8d8d-5981b9a1fd34%40sessionmgr113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%

3d%3d#db=aph&AN=37812324

This article gives a good explanation of how a child taught problem solving techniques will not be as aggressive as one who is not. This adds to the point in my hypothesis that a childs aggression depends a lot on parents behaivor. A child who's parent walks through a problem to find a solution will be less aggresive than one whose parent yells to solve everything.

Method

To play out this experiment I plan on sitting in the toy section of Walmart and just observing what I see. I hope to find children fighting over toys, and parents trying to stop the fight. I also am going to look for the children that are nagging their parents to buy them that toy they just can't live without. I will observe how fast the adult replies to the child, how aggressively they tell the child yes or no, and how the adult treats the screaming and crying child that was told no. After I observe the children and adults, I will put all my information together and look for patterns in aggression. I will look at children ages 3-14 with and without adults watching over them.