Aggression is a behavior that results in physical or mental injury to people or animals, or in the destruction of property. It is different from assertion. Assertion is an act of self-defense. It protects someone from becoming a victim of other people’s aggressive behavior. Assertiveness is an important indication of developmental progress, as it reflects a child’s capabilities and sense of independence.

Aggression is often learned at an early age through “social reinforcing” or role modeling. Babies study the expressions of others to learn how to act. From birth, babies already feel pleasure, distress, and even fear. By the age of 3 months, they are capable of recognizing expressions of joy and sadness. Babies 6 to 12 months old can slowly show signs of hostile aggression by biting, wailing, and even slapping.

From 12 to 18 months old, children are continuously experimenting and picking up emotional cues from their parents, caregivers, and peers. Their emotional-internal response goes through tests and fine-tuning, as they determine which response or action fits a situation. By age 2, kids can express emotions like empathy and shame. Hostile aggression appears as tantrums, and happen when they fail to communicate their emotions.

Pre-schoolers, on the other hand, manifest aggression through hitting or saying threatening words. According to experts, when children turn to aggression, it doesn’t mean they’re bad. It’s just an indication that there is something they can’t express. Something is causing them internal pain. Parents should try to understand what is going on in their child’s life. There is a huge responsibility to understand the developmental stage of childhood.

To deal with kids’ aggressive behavior, parents can try to:

- Soothe them. Most children calm down and feel better when they are held. Sometimes a loving touch is all they need.
- Amuse or surprise them. Provide kids with diversions that are sure to keep their mind away from unruly behavior. Using non-sarcastic humor or doing the unexpected can defuse an explosive situation. Giving kids something to occupy their minds turns negative attention into something positive.
- Take time out. You can employ this as a way to remove your child from the situation and cool him or her down. And this applies to you, too. Don’t forget to explain the reason for the time-out, but do this in a tone that is firm but mild.
- Intervene and teach empathy. Empathy is taught when you put them in a situation that makes them feel what others are feeling. Discuss with them the consequences of hurting others: what happens if they use aggression, and what ways there are other than violence.
- Ignore. Don’t enforce aggressive behavior on kids by giving a child more attention. Underplay bad behavior as much as possible. Stick by your decision and don’t easily give in to their plea for attention.

As parents, therefore, we should keep the following in mind at all times.

- Be a model of good behavior.
- Giving in to your children’s demands tells them that tantrums bring desired results.
- Don’t allow your embarrassment to weaken your better judgment.
- Reassess all factors that may stir up a tantrum. See if you can do something to help them settle down before they totally blow up.

Every human being needs to learn how to deal with frustration. Tantrums are the first step in accommodating frustration. If your child does not throw any fit at all, that is not necessarily something to be proud of. It is a parent’s job to help children learn more productive ways of dealing with obstructions.

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The body is a mass of muscles and bones waiting to be honed into perfection. It is like a mass of rock or timber waiting to be chiseled into a masterpiece, or like a pile of construction materials waiting to be built into a skyscraper.

The body has latent but explosive potentials waiting to be unleashed. If carved out, trimmed, molded, and polished, this potential can bend tough steel to submission and lift heavy iron to its proper place.

Yet, the body initially comes out in its raw form - untapped. Like raw natural resources that are rich though unrefined, the body has to be developed through a process. It must be rid of useless “alloys” (or flabby flesh coverings) to acquire the essential ones (the muscles). The body must be developed into its full potential.

As raw material is nothing if it remains untapped or hidden underground, so is the body’s potential if it remains dormant. The Mona Lisa is a priceless artwork. It originally came from a raw material. The paints used were originally from raw elements of the earth. Had those materials not been made into a conglomeration of canvass and paint mixtures, their potential to produce a world class masterpiece would not have been possible. They would have been useless.

Rocks remain to be mere debris if not sculpted out to be art compositions. Timber will only be good firewood if untouched by the chisel strokes of a carver. Cement, sand, gravel, and steel bars will remain being a construction site if not used for their true intent and design.

In the same way, the body will lose its function if it remains to be a mere untapped potential, undeveloped and left for waste. It will hasten its degeneration if its real design and purpose continues to be ignored.

Muscles and bones are in our bodies for a purpose. They were not put there to remain at rest or to be idle. As things gather dust, moist, and web when ignored for a long time, so do the muscles and bones quickly gather aches, failures, and breakdowns when undeveloped.

Ultimate care for your muscles and bones involves exercising and building them up. Challenge and exert them to full power. Stretch, squeeze, and expand your muscles until they become well sculpted and rock-hard. This will in turn affect your ligaments to put your bones to greater works. You will be like metal hammered into form through flaming hot fire. Then your body will come out of the furnace shining like gold.

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Bodybuilding involves more than just lifting weights. It pays to have an understanding of human kinetics. How do muscles work?

Muscles develop by making them work. Muscles can only work when the body is in motion. They work extra when we are in full motion. Thus, to develop the muscles to the maximum, we must make them work to the best of our abilities. Hence, the bodybuilding principle of “No Pain, No Gain.”

You can’t grow your muscles by doing nothing. You have to move around a lot. The only thing that will grow in points of inertia, if you remain stationary, is your weight. If you want muscle growth and power, you must work your body methodically. Muscle training is called a workout.

Muscles can be toned (or conditioned) by regular activities like brisk walking, jogging, and doing other slightly heavy works. But toning muscles will not grow them in size and beauty. You have to do more —lots more — to have stunning muscles. You have to workout. By the very term “workout,” you can have a good idea of what it takes to grow muscles.

Bodybuilding procedures using weights and other heavy-duty activities are the best-known muscle growers so far. You have to devote your life into this if you want extra visible muscles on you. You also have to do away with vices like smoking, drinking liquor, eating junk foods, etc.

Muscles grow in size only when they are moving. Try to be still in front of a mirror and you’d see no sign of any bulking muscle taking shape. Now, clench your fist hard, and muscle evidence will show at least on your forearm.  This simple principle illustrates the potential of muscles being developed through repeated and graduated motions. As muscles are subjected to repeated exertions that gradually increase intensity, they grow and toughen.

The more intense the muscle activity, the better and faster the muscle is developed. Hence, a systematic muscle development program incorporating increased muscle stimulation builds more muscles effectively. If your exercise features no such system of increasing efforts and challenges to your muscle strength, your muscles can only grow so much. Some exercises do form muscles, but only to a certain extent. The muscles built only become regulating muscles that enable you to perform normal tasks effectively. But they cannot exceed in performing beyond such tasks.

On the contrary, a fully developed muscle does not only allow you to do normal tasks; it is calibrated to reach its full potentials — far beyond what regulating muscles can do. Bodybuilding helps you develop your muscles to the extreme.

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How often do children get bullied by other kids? It is hard to pinpoint a bullying incident at pre-school level. But oftentimes, it happens, though not as violently or intentionally inflicted as the ones at school age. It can be pushing a classmate to get in front of the line, getting a seat, or eating someone else’s snack.

Pre-schoolers, naïve as they are, don’t know that what they’re doing is wrong. Based on educator Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development, children ages 0 to 2 years old are in the Sensorimotor Period. In this phase, children are egocentric – everything is “I” based: “This is my ball.” Or, “that chair is mine.” Thus, meeting other children for the first time is a challenge for them, as well as learning big words: “Share” and “Wait”.

Response of Parents

Both the parents’ and educators’ active participation in preventing or solving bullying incidents is essential.

An educator must immediately reprimand a child when he/she is bullying a classmate. Small bullies might grow up to be big bullies and not correcting the child’s attitude will greatly affect how he or she will handle his or her interaction with peers as grown-ups. It is also helpful to tell stories about getting along with classmates and the importance of friends.

Isolating the baby bully is not an option. If the bully must learn how to properly interact with his or her classmates, the others kids must also learn how to deal with him or her.

Correct Your Child

If your child is a bully or shows some bully attitudes, he or she must be corrected as soon as possible. Mommy and Daddy must get the whole story and explain that what the kid did was wrong. Also, ask why he or she did such a thing.

Active parenting and close coordination with the teachers are the best ways to handle the incident. Spending quality time with your child provides a sense of security and helps him or her cope with the stress of going to school and being with other children. Pre-school is a new world for your child and being out there all alone will definitely be a shock.

Some bullying incidents would be very trivial to an adult’s eyes – what’s the big deal with grabbing and eating somebody else’s food, or laughing at other children’s mistakes? These seem to be petty and, well, they’re just kids. Grabbing someone else’s snack today may turn into a bank robbery in the future; or laughing now may be a character attack when he or she is of adult age.

Correcting small problems at age three would definitely prevent humongous troubles in mid-life. A parent must not panic if a child behaves so. It can still be controlled. Helping their children deal with this now would be a favor if they do it for themselves. If a parent does not correct a toddler, there is no way he or she can help his or her delinquent juvenile as an adolescent.

Hope For Parents

Parents and teachers must work together to help kids who bully other children. They must definitely be present to assist and guide their kids to be good and kind-hearted individuals. It is wrong to pass on the responsibility of taking care of your children to caregivers and teachers. They can only do so much to help – the kids are yours, not theirs.

Bullying is just one of the things a child must learn to deal with. Trying to solve this problem alone is a big task for your child. A toddler’s job is just to play and learn as much as he or she can. Other forms of stress like bullying and taking care of themselves are too much to ask of a child. Being there for him or her, therefore, is a must.

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We were all raised imperfectly and we will most definitely raise our children imperfectly, as well. Our imperfections come with the territory and we can ill afford to be obsessed about them. A parenting expert once quoted the French philosopher, Voltaire, “The best is the enemy of the good.” By that, it is assumed that he meant that we can be so focused on getting things perfect that we don’t get things right.

Whatever we do, it need not be ‘perfect’. We can never be perfect, but we do have to give our best effort or even any effort at all. Some parents are sterling role models, whose children just stand out in behavior, bearing, confidence, attitude, politeness, you name it. But when we really look into the matter, we all know this is too good to be true.

Our expectations from our children can make all the difference in their upbringing. If they see that we only care for low quality output, that is what they will deliver. It’s human nature. We adjust effort to expectations in our place of work. If the expectations are set low, then our effort and output are low, too.

A more important issue here is school and studies. We can also go the other extreme and say that school is all that matters, that grades are all that matter. Some children have even gone to the thinking that their parents’ love for them is dependent on how high their grades are.

Grades are numbers or letters that we use to keep score. They are, at best, indicators of something – maybe success, intelligence, effort, virtue, character, etc. Maybe they are like the other positive numbers in our life – assets, salary, ratios, stock portfolios, ROI, etc. They probably mean something, but, ultimately, they are numbers and things.

So when we tell our kids that we expect them to do well in their studies, we tell them the limits of grades. Grades are not everything, but they are not meaningless. We also set them up for success. We do not simply set expectations, then sit back and wait for them to deliver the goods. We have to equip them, support them, mentor them, and monitor them.

There are parents who do not want their children to have a tough life the way they did. This usually comes from parents who made something of themselves against all odds, especially a desperately poor background. The stories are real: walking to school and skipping meals because of lack of money, stretching what little they had and skimping on everything, making the best of a sub-quality education, which were all their parents could afford.

These parents lived what American writer William Faulkner spoke of when he said that the poor know the joy and despair of a penny found and a penny lost. They had no nest egg from their parents to start with upon graduation. They fixed their sights on what they could do rather than wallow in self-pity or embarrassment.

Parents in this predicament have lost sight of how hardship shaped their lives for the better and taught them to be tough, resilient, resourceful, hardworking, and demanding on themselves. The desire to spare their kids the bitterness is understandable, but misdirected.

These lessons packaged well can make a real mark on their children’s values. We all know the value of story-telling, but we can get carried away and sound boastful or we may give the impression that the lesson is a cudgel we bear to pummel our kids with on cue.

It is never too early to think about our children’s future. Good parents are aware that they are raising children to be adults. We have to keep our eyes on the target and not be distracted by noise nor by our own shortcomings.

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The home is a child’s first school. Children first learn to share by observing how their parents act. The environment where they grow up is a huge factor in determining how familiar they will be with situations that involve sharing.

Eventually, when children enter the big school, they are faced with more experiences of sharing. They realize that even though the teacher’s attention has to be shared with so many other kids, the teacher sees to it that all the children still get their fair share of attention. The young mind begins to see that teaching itself is an act of sharing.

How is sharing taught in school?

This value can be formally and directly incorporated in the lessons. It could appear in stories, math problems, or language exercises. Also, it may or may not be openly discussed, depending on time constraints. This value can also be learned from an actual school situation. Through verbal and non-verbal affirmations from the teacher, sharing can be shown as a valuable trait to possess.

Being highly visual learners, young children respond to a warm smile or an approving appreciative look. Sensitive and resourceful teachers know that learning is maximized when one knows how to utilize fully those opportune moments for teaching. Sometimes, when a child forgets to bring food for recess, the teacher would ask, “Who brought extra food? Would you like to share it with your classmate?” Some children offer, some don’t. But even if they don’t, they watch and they learn.

A child should never be forced to share. One is invited to. One is simply shown the joy that another feels because he or she shared. When a child shares a material possession, be it food, paper, or books, a transformation occurs: by going out of oneself, one discovers the self.

How does one guide the child to find the right balance between sharing and oversharing?

- Explain in simple terms what sharing means: “the owner granting to another partial use, enjoyment, or possession of something.”
- Be observant of situations where it is the same child who shares – or borrows – all the time. Speak to the child about it. Find out if there is an underlying reason behind it.
- Explain to the child that there are times when constant sharing with the same person will not help that person. Instead of preparing his school things as he should, that person can end up depending on the one who always shares.
- Assure children that it is all right to say “no”. Say “yes” if you want to say “yes”, and “no” if you want to say “no”. True sharing is an act done not because you fear someone, or you want to impress someone, but because you feel happy doing it.
- The food they bring to school has been prepared for them. If they have extra, they can share. They should not end up going hungry because they “shared”.

When teaching a child to share in school, we increase our level of effectiveness if we take the time to know the child well. This will help us respect the child’s personal rhythm, thus allowing the child to maximize his or her potential to the fullest – so that he or she may one day share more with others.

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Different people have different personalities. These personalities are often shown in the way people behave or react. People with pleasing personalities are those who act rationally and properly to the very end. It doesn’t mean that they are men pleasers. They may even act contrary to what people expect, yet they are still found to be attractive. They gently yet firmly speak their minds.

Beware of other personalities. They are plain manifestations of reactions, most likely negative ones. These personalities usually exist to please certain men. Let’s look at them and see whether we fall into any of these categories:

1. The Pretenders – People who are all talk but no action are pretenders. They want to be heard agreeing with the majority or with an influential person to get the feeling that they “belong.” They want to have the first and last word, but they don’t want to have anything to do with any action. They hate or fear being contrary to anything. Often, they are not who they say they are.

2. The Procrastinators – If you are all emotions, chances are that you will live on good feelings, but you will have no energy for staying power. You are a good starter, and you usually start on fire. But when hardships come and water down the fiery feeling, you quit and fade out from the picture completely. You ride on the pervading feeling or sentiment, whether pro or against. You want to be the first to shout “yes” and the first to quit.

3. The Robots – People who are “joiners” of other’s crusades just for the attendance are robots. They really do not believe in any cause because they live and behave contrary to the cause they have joined; they just want to be there because everybody’s there. The amazing thing about them is that they can keep doing this until the day they die. Like toy robots, their batteries keep them going…, going…, and going for useless long periods, until their batteries run out. How they can amuse their playful masters!

4. The Zombies – If robots operate to amuse their owners, zombies exist for no purpose at all. It doesn’t matter to them if what they do doesn’t feel good or is harmful to others. They persist on what they are doing because it makes them still alive.

These remind us of the four horsemen of Apocalypse who ride their horses well, look chivalrous, but actually bring trouble. If you happen to see yourself in one of them (or among them), there is still time to change.

Your hope is in empowering your mind to start having a pleasing personality — one that adheres to the right principles your practical mind has decided to live on. To a practical mind, nothing is impossible, as long as it will make you live a better life.

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World history is replete with records of conquest. Man wants to rule. If Biblical accounts are to be believed, the drive to reign supreme started with the first man. He wanted supreme knowledge so he could be like God. He knew that ruling has to do with mind power.

Ever since time began, all rulers born on the planet have pursued mind power by acquiring every bit of knowledge available to them. Before they had the military might to conquer lands, they were brilliant thinkers initially.

Man seems to have an unquenchable thirst for power. At the back of his mind is the certainty that he was made for power. He exists to rule over all. The Bible mentions of a Creator that assigned man to dominate. Thus, even today, the urge to be in charge of the topmost positions and hold the reigns of power are still driving forces in almost every endeavor.

The drive to rule, however, can be very destructive when commandeered by the emotions. The desire to rule is inherent in man and is designed for his good. If he pursues it with a sound mind, all will be well. However, the emotions can sometimes be very assertive and can wrest power from the mind. When this happens, the will to rule becomes an instrument of oppression rather than benevolence.

The power to command and be obeyed stirs up the emotions so much; it does wonders to the ego. When a mind is well trained to be practical, it can control the will and emotions to stay within tolerable levels of assertiveness. Such characteristics apply to a leader or ruler who is balanced, gentle, and levelheaded. At the same time, he is wielding tremendous powers. The more he is obeyed, the more he becomes cautious of the power given to him.

A mind with no assertive powers over the will and emotions is characteristic of a corrupt leader greedy for more power. The more he sees his commands being obeyed, the more he feels good about his power.

Most drives to rule and reign start as benevolent ambitions to help people. But as power is made available, they succumbed to the urges of the emotions. Instead of helping people, the emotions are amused at being able to wield the power at the slightest whim. The result is the abuse of power.

The race of procreative cells into the womb of a mother prior to delivery is really a race to rule. The one cell that reaches the womb first reigns supreme over the rest. Thus, it is said that everybody born into this world is already a winner. We are born to be rulers. When you find the urge in you to rule, remember that it’s your destiny. Use it well.

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The wise say the first enemy to defeat is the self. When the self rules, any form of success is devoid of meaning. Indeed, many success stories are spoiled by even the slightest show of bad behavior.

You may have the best product in the world, but if you sell it with arrogance, people would rather buy the next best product than buy from you. Many excellent executives miss company promotions brought about by behavioral considerations.

However, some have mastered the art of switching behaviors on short notice. They have trained themselves to change attitude as easy as switching the light on or off. Most of these people get to top positions when it comes to human relations. So how do they do it?

How easy is it really to change your facial expression? It’s relatively easier to turn your face from sweet to sour, than to turn it from sour to sweet. In other words, it’s easier to get angry than be happy. Simply put, it is easier to be unattractive than to be attractive. You’d rarely find people paying big sums in a parlor to be ugly.

Being able to switch off a bad mood and switch on a good one is very possible for anyone, but it takes practice to master. You have to give up a lot to make this thing work.

For instance, you have to give up self-importance. That’s a high price to pay. If you hold on to your self-importance, you will never switch off anything negative in you, or switch on anything positive in you, ever. For sure, your self-importance will always get in the way.

Self-importance, and any other hindrances to positive attitude switching, are conquered by mind training. If you train your mind to take over your whole personality, attitude switching will become a piece of cake.

The mind should realize that good manners and right conduct are not only proper — they give you a pleasant personality. They make you look beautiful. They make you look agreeable to be with. These are the traits of a winner. The mind must be fully convinced of this and be practical about this.

After the “indoctrination” comes the empowerment. This practical mind must be able to exercise tremendous power over the will and the emotions. When this is done repeatedly in true-to-life situations, then the mind is ready to switch things in your personality on or off. At just the turn of the “switch,” according to how the mind has decided at the spur of the moment, the will and emotions immediately obey, and the body acts accordingly. The moods, tempers, and actions change to make you look better. This process is reinforced by the operation of rewards and punishments. When you look and feel good so that everything turns out right, you are rewarded. When you look and feel bad so that everything turns to chaos, the punishment will give you a lesson to try better next time.

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Yes, you read it right – anyone can be a genius!

Though some may argue that geniuses are born, not made – some are indeed child prodigies – geniuses can actually be made. And yes, you too, can be a genius!

But before we go into that, let us first understand what genius really means. Yes, Einstein was a genius. Mozart was a genius. You can probably name a lot more – those you learned about in your history classes. And then there are those Mensa-type geniuses – or those who get astronomically high scores in IQ tests. But they are not the only geniuses.

Do you know people who are just very good or phenomenal at what they do? Great at their sport, great in relating with people, great at making money – well, you get the point. You just marvel at how well they do what they do – and how effortlessly they seem to pull it off. They are indeed geniuses.

But what do they have that you don’t have? It really is quite simple – they have the right attitude. They refuse to accept anything below average or mediocre of themselves. They expect success. They do not avoid problems, but rather thrive in solving them. With each problem solved, they become better. And, they never stop learning. They are never complacent with the knowledge or the skill they have right now. They continuously aim to improve themselves.

You too can be a genius. Start by thinking right. Erase all negative misconceptions about yourself. Rid yourself of all your emotional dramas and baggage – this may take some time, but when you finally do it, you will not only feel better but you will be more open to learning. Learn not only by reading or listening but by doing. Apply what you learn. Face problems head-on as they arise. And yes, never stop learning.

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