Stress, Aggression and the Development of Inititative

Helping to relieve stress and aggression leads to the development of initiative because as parents take pressure off their children to achieve a task that may be developmentally inappropriate this causes a child to pick a task they can accomplish. For example, when my child was growing up I taught her to help me clean the house. I chose chores for her though that were age and developmentally appropriate. For example, when I had her help me clean the bathroom I had her clean the mirrors and take out the trash. As she got older I taught her how to clean the sink, bathtub and toilet.

When a child is trying to do something that is too hard for them, they get frustrated and can become aggressive because of the stress on them to do something they cannot developmentally do yet. For example, my child wanted to try to vacuum the floor. The vacuum was too heavy for her to push so she couldn't do it yet. I let her try first so she knew she couldn't do it instead of telling her she couldn't. I let her try when it was still off so she knew it was too heavy for her. She got frustrated as she tried because she wanted to do it but couldn't do it yet because she didn't have the strength to push it yet. When she started to get frustrated I let her try for another minute and then suggested I do it while she went to go play. Vacuuming was the last thing that needed to be done in order to clean the house so I let her go play while I did it. I let her take the initiative to try to do vacuum and I let it frustrate her but not to the point that it lowered her self-esteem or made it so she never wanted to try to vacuum again or try anything at all.

Sometimes the expectation to take the initiative to achieve a goal comes from the parents and sometimes it is an unreasonable expectation the child has put on themselves. For example, my child always had to have an A in her classes, she didn't even like a minus to be behind the A it had to be an A or she was not happy. I told her it was okay that the minus was there and that it was okay for her to even have a B in a class but if she ever got one it was not something she liked and she had to turn it into an A by the next report card. This was ans expectation she put on herself. I know some parents put this expectation on their children but I never did. As she got into college though she did stop being so hard on herself and if she got a B she didn't worry about it the way she did in high school. The stress this caused her worried me and I would often tell her to stop being so hard on herself and let her know that my expectation was for her to have A's and B's. This is why it's important to keep expectations developmentally appropriate. When it's developmentally appropriate, the stress the child feels will go down and possibly away and they won't act out aggressively because the expectation has stayed where it can be reached.