My son, the aggressive problem child?

"As a baby, my son was a low-maintenance sunshine who slept a lot and ate even more. As he became mobile, however, it became increasingly apparent that his tolerance for frustration was not particularly high. For example, when he learnt to crawl and pushed himself backwards instead of forwards, he sometimes got so angry that he banged his head on the floor. Later, he was the classic playground bully: he hit, bit, took away other people's toys, threw sand and stones - the complete opposite of his older sister.

She would stand at the bottom of the slide and wait until everyone who wanted to go up was at the top before she went up herself. Her brother would pull whoever was on the way off the ladder when he wanted to go up himself.
I was desperate. And kept asking myself what I was doing wrong. How could it be that one of my children was so social and the other so aggressive? I had always thought that aggressive children were like that because they learnt it at home. We had a loving relationship with each other and neither verbal nor physical violence was ever an issue. Where did this aggression come from?

Interestingly, I realised something in a completely opposite situation. We visited a relative in a care home. At lunch, an old lady was sitting all alone in her wheelchair, her face against the wall, connected to countless cables. My son, about five years old at the time, climbed onto her lap, looked at her and said: «Hoi, woman!» The old lady took his little hand in hers and tears welled up in her eyes. And suddenly I knew that this child had such fine antennae that he had sensed this old woman's loneliness, her need for some warmth.

«The many impressions overwhelmed him.»

He couldn't cope with all the impressions he was bombarded with in the playground, the many children, the many toys, the many possibilities - they overwhelmed him. At home, in his safe environment, he was hardly aggressive. I tried to structure the playground visits for him, sat with him in the sandpit and explained to him exactly what we were doing with what, or made sure he had a playmate he could concentrate on. Nevertheless, it remained a cramp and he kept falling back into old patterns.
It was the same in the years that followed. Whenever my son found himself in a new situation, he fell back into his aggressive behaviour pattern - and we had the misfortune that this was regularly the case until two years ago, as he had different teachers and/or classes every year. The kindergarten years were challenging. It took him ages to find half a place in the group, he tormented other children, mimicked the kindergarten teacher and regularly emptied letterboxes and knocked over rubbish bins on the way home. I was repeatedly advised to quit my job, then perhaps the child would be a little more «normal». Or to get him checked out - for ADHD, Asperger's, anything that would explain his «abnormal behaviour». But I didn't want to stigmatise my child before he even started school.
Starting school wasn't easy either. In the classroom, he pushed or pinched other children, and during the break he repeatedly hit them. But the worst part was his homework. He would shout and throw things around, for example when the tip of the pencil broke off while he was sharpening it. I sometimes sat next to him for two hours without getting anywhere, my nerves close to breaking point.
He has now had the same teachers for two years and is more or less in the same class, where he has integrated well. He goes to homework help twice a week, which is a great relief for me. There have been no more incidents at school for over a year. And in his last report card, he did better in almost every subject than before. This is certainly not least due to the teachers, who recognised his sensitivity and didn't simply put him in the «problem child» category.
In a good year, my son will be starting sixth form. I very much hope that the past few years will have made him so self-confident that he won't fall back into old patterns. And that he will also meet teachers there who recognise his potential and - should they turn up again - don't just see his aggression."

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