Handling Children's Aggression Constructively: Toward Taming Human Destructiveness

Hostile, destructive kids become hostile destructive adults and create serious problems for society. Handling Children's Aggression Constructively: Toward Taming Human Destructiveness shows how to prevent the development of disturbed aggressive behaviors in children, giving caregivers and educators the tools they need to handle problems in the making so they won't become more difficult and costly problems to deal with later on. Unlike the fine books previously published on how to handle children who already suffer from significant aggressive behavior disorders, this book takes a preventive approach. It focuses on how the ways in which young children are raised contribute toward aggressive behaviors and recommends techniques to manage children's aggression constructively that can be applied from birth through adolescence.

Table of Contents:
1 Preface 2 Acknowledgments Part 3 I. Can We Tame Human Destructiveness? Chapter 4 1. The EPPI/MCP Study of Aggression Chapter 5 2. The Critical Interaction between Human Attachment and Aggression Chapter 6 3. The Impact on the Child of Internally Accumulated High Levels of Hostile Destructiveness Part 7 II. Handling Aggression in Our Children Chapter 8 4. What Is Aggression? Chapter 9 5. Dealing Constructively with Excessive Unpleasure Experiences Chapter 10 6. Recognizing the Child's Need for Sufficient and Reasonable Autonomy Chapter 11 7. Compliance Chapter 12 8. Achieving Compliance: Discipline, Limit Setting and Punishment Chapter 13 9. Teaching the Child to Express Hostility in Reasonable and Acceptable Ways Chapter 14 10. Handling Temper Tantrums and Rage Reactions in Growth-Promoting Ways Chapter 15 11. Helping the Child Cope with Painful Emotional Feelings Chapter 16 12. Optimizing the Parent-Child Relationship 17 Index 18 About the Author

About the Author :
Henri Parens, MD, FACPsa, is a professor of psychiatry at Thomas Jefferson University Medical College and a Training and Supervising Analyst (Adult and Child) at Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has authored several books including The Development of Aggression in Early Childhood, Aggression in Our Children: Coping with it Constructively, and Parenting for Emotional Growth. He is in private practice of Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis.

Review :
Henri Parens is a wise and caring teacher and clinician. This thoughtful, comprehensive, and practically helpful guide will support parents and teachers understand and manage a daunting task: children’s anger and aggression. Over three decades of painstaking child observation and clinical work with children, adolescents, and adults has elevated Henri Parens to the authoritative position to comment upon the causes, manifestations, and amelioration of destructiveness in children. Deftly combining scholarly insight, commonsense pragmatism, and humane concern for all involved parties, Parens deals with limit-setting, punishment , and management of temper tantrums. His approach is anchored in psychoanalytic theory, social anthropology, and contemporary neurobiology and his goal is to help parents and mental health professionals deal with children's aggression. However, his eyes are also set on the farther horizons of taming human destructiveness at-large. Parens' book is simultaneously a clinical gem and a serious civic-minded document! Henri Parens has written a true psychological gem. Extending his lifelong wisdom with child care, rearing and research, his book distills into easily grasped language not only the vicissitudes of aggression and hostility and how to prevent troublesome outcomes in child rearing, but also he considers a wide range of questions commonly asked by caregivers, giving them realistic, sympathetic, and creative responses. Dr. Parens is a tireless proponent of applying psychoanalytic work for the good of our communities and for those less fortunate than many of us. This gifted and altruistic man is a rare event on this planet. For mental health providers who treat children, this book provides a refreshing, comprehensive guide to understanding aggression in children from a developmental perspective.