ABSTRACT
When teachers and parents are working with and caring for young children, controlling their behaviour is a central concern. From the youngest ages, some children disturb their carers by appearing to want to behave aggressively whenever they feel like it, or when their desires are thwarted. Frequently this tendency leaks into their relationships with other children. Everyone’s instinct is to intervene quickly and stop this expression of aggression. Some carers would go further and remove toys such as toy guns and knives. They think such toys encourage aggressive games and initiation of the aggression the children see almost every day on the media. Others reject this approach and claim that children have to learn how to react appropriately to aggression from other children and to be assertive with others in the correct context. Consequently, they would claim that a blanket ban on the expression of aggression is unnecessary, very difficult to achieve, and may possibly be harmful by giving the message that when children want to be aggressive they have to do so outside adults’ view.
