Nursery World - Learning and development: Aggression

Children's physical responses to the frustration and anger they may feel are often misunderstood, and labelling them is counter-productive, says Karen Faux.

When, last October, an eminent paediatric professor delivered a lecture which emphasised the importance to society of curbing anti-social behaviour in the very young, the national press had a field day.

Three- and four-year-olds were branded as being 'more violent than adults' and a war on 'terror tots' was declared.

But as some childcare experts have subsequently pointed out, this seems to be missing the point.

What Professor Richard Tremblay, professor of Paediatrics, Psychiatry and Psychology at Montreal University, was most interested in exploring was the relationship between nurture and nature when it comes to anti-social behaviour.

He has come to the conclusion that aggression in young children is 'natural' rather than a learned behaviour, and peaks between the ages of two and four.

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