Kicking, shoving and biting are common among children in the first years of life, an integral part of the ways they experience to express feelings and wills. Within certain limits, they should therefore not arouse apprehension: aggression is one of the most natural and essential implications in the psychic life of the individual, and especially of the child, who has not yet developed all the tools necessary to face the world. To understand how it manifests itself and, above all, to distinguish between healthy attitudes and more worrying forms, which imply punctual intervention by parents and educators, we turned to Dr. Ivana Antonia Longo, Milanese psychoanalyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society with training in psychotherapy of childhood.
At what age can the first aggressive behaviors be recorded?
«Forms of aggression are also found in younger children. Think of crying, which can be a sign of distress or the result of anger. It will already be noticed at a very early age that there are children more or less inclined to aggressive outbursts, but in truth they all have in common. What varies from one subject to another is instead the ability to tolerate frustrations, especially in the first years of life. Later, the child acquires the tools and cases of actual aggression become more evident». 
How do they recognize each other?
“There are several criteria: the frequency and intensity of crises; whether or not the child lets himself be 'contained' by the parent; the tendency to aggressive manifestations in all areas or only in some, from which it can be deduced whether the conflict is limited to a certain context or global. The alarm bell must also ring when there is further symptomatology in more extensive areas: sleep or eating disorders (such as inappetence: does it only occur at home or also in kindergarten, or vice versa?), low frustration tolerance, speech impairment. Aggression - the one that should cause concern - only rarely manifests itself ".
So, does 'healthy' aggression also exist?
“Of course, and it's part of the child's normal reactions to the outside world and to his own inner world. The example par excellence is the typical 'phase of no', around the age of two, which René Spitz defines as 'the third organizer' in his theory of affective development: in this case the child is aggressive, but his behavior does not there is nothing pathological about it, he simply begins to recognize his mother as something other than himself and to want to assert himself through nos. 'Healthy' aggression does not have a symptomatic contour, it is infrequent, easily controllable and momentary: woe to having a child who is always and only good".
But when the concern is founded, what should be done?
«First of all, the parent should trace the triggering cause and try to identify a date of first onset. The question to ask yourself is: what happened at that moment?».
What are the most frequent causes? 
«Most of the time it is a question of 'early separations': the child is sent to nursery school too soon compared to his level of maturity, undergoes hospitalization or becomes seriously ill. Particular situations can also have an influence: postpartum depression in the mother, the birth of a brother, a change of nanny (who is often almost a second mother), mourning the death of a grandfather (the child suffers from it twice, due to the sense of loss and sadness of mom and dad). Even
a very strong intelligence compared to the biological age can cause excesses of aggression: very intelligent children often suffer more because they perceive things that they are not yet emotionally able to contain».
How to intervene?
«There is no need to take the child to a
specialist , it is the
parents who turn to him for help. An expert can tune them into what's going on in their child's head and offer tips for communicating effectively with them, using the
right words at the right time. When the crisis is at its peak, any word is useless and it is postponed until later: only then does one recover what happened, trying to
give voice to his fears and to reassure him. Even if he has screamed, kicked, hit or broken toys or other objects, one must not make him feel bad: he must understand that certain attitudes are excessive, but one must never leave him alone with his negative thoughts, on the contrary one must make him understand that they are legitimate, it happens to have some".
And at the height of the crisis?
«First of all, it is necessary to prevent the child from getting hurt:
the parent holds him back and physically contains him , explaining that he has a duty to protect him. Interventions must always be of a protective and non-punitive nature (but the message must not be passed on that all you need to do is fight the hell out of four to get anything). At the height of the crisis it is not a good idea to leave the child alone, there is the risk that he will exaggerate and feel neglected:
it is better to distract him with a diversion , make him understand that we are interested in him and
we listen to him . Sometimes it happens that we notice in advance the coming scene: the child falls, scrapes his knee, gets scared and angry with frustration. Then it may be useful to console him beforehand, even making an exception to the rule, the important thing is to verbalize him: “
Since you've been brave , you deserve an ice cream; but just this once, it's not snack time yet." Another excellent method is
to use the language of the child : if he loves dinosaurs, when a fit of anger begins to appear (or immediately after) we can tell him "Isn't the tyrannosaurus coming?!", relying on an imaginative language that mobilizes his inner world. Thus, in addition to exploiting the irony, the problem is given a name (Tyrannosaurus) that can be shared and reused».
To receive targeted advice, who can the parent turn to? 
«
To a psychoanalyst or child psychotherapist . But it won't be the parent (or the couple) who will end up under the magnifying glass, I don't agree with this approach: mothers and fathers just need someone to help them understand their child, their relationship with him and to focus on the problem. With the right tools
the parent learns to listen , to use the most suitable words and to intervene; moreover,
in turn he will be less angry , because he will understand the child's difficulties better: after nine months of paradise in his mother's belly, he now has to experience frustration, patience, renunciation and loneliness, and it is never a walk in the park».
by Sara Lanfranchini taken from Birth Mom
