Today we look at what causes a child to become aggressive and how brain training can eliminate this behaviour.

Dealing with an aggressive child is extremely frustrating, exhausting, and challenging for any parent. You notice that your kid is: 

  • Angry all the time 
  • Uses  abusive language
  • Gets violent, kicks, bites 
  • Often destroys property
  • Has uncontrolled fits of blinding rage

You feel humiliated at social gatherings when your child’s unpredictable behaviour catches everyone’s attention. Your feelings get hurt when your child is labeled “bratty,” “ill-mannered,” “spoilt.” You constantly get complaints from his/her school for episodes of violence against peers.

A sense of helplessness surrounds engulfs you because you have tried behavioural techniques to bring a change in your child. You’ve taken him/her to psychologists for counseling, and even put your child on medication, but nothing seems to provide permanent relief. You wonder if you have failed as a parent in some way. Over the years, you assumed that aggression is common during childhood and will eventually go away. 

You feel sad and defeated when you see other children who are happy, balanced, and leading normal full lives and wonder what went wrong with your child. Emotions of guilt and despair fill you.

But here’s something that probably no one told you before. 

Your child’s aggression is the result of an underperforming PFC( Prefrontal cortex).

The prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is the frontal region of the brain, is responsible for impulse control, memory, etc. Sometimes it is not well developed in some people. Even though the PFC continues to develop until the age of 23-24,  the process is slow in certain cases, resulting in the low functioning of this part of the brain. 

As the PFC continues developing, some children overcome their aggression while in others unfortunately the development is very slow and hence their aggressive behaviour stays and perhaps becomes worse as time goes by. Once the prefrontal cortex is activated, and balance restored in the brainwaves, the aggressive tendency subsides and a calmer behaviour emerges.

While weak functioning PFC is the chief cause of aggression, other factors, such as brain injuries, traumatic events, or a stressful home environment, can cause aggression as well. All these upset the balance in brainwaves which results in aggressive behaviour.

Your child isn’t acting aggressively to defy you or be rebellious. 

He/she simply has no control over their aggression. They are not being ‘mean’,  ‘unreasonable’, or ‘acting out’. It’s just that they can’t help behaving this way. No matter how hard they try, being able to control their aggression is a challenging task. This is because their brain has started to operate from a set brainwave pattern and unless actively broken, the rigid neural pathway will continue to make your child behave aggressively.

It’s not them. It’s their brainwaves.

So how do we restore healthy PFC functioning and balance the brainwaves? With brain training!

US, FDA-approved and NASA-inspired brain training technology Neurofeedback restores the imbalance in the brainwaves and functions through the principle of reward-training. 

Think of it this way: When a child scores well in a test, he/she gets a star on their notebook, and that is an incentive to perform well continually. Our brain loves rewards. And the more rewards it gets, the better it functions. 

With Neurofeedback, the brain receives constant rewards and gradually starts functioning at its optimal level.