You Did That on Purpose: Understanding and Changing Children's Aggression

193 Pages·2008·0.35 MB·English

by  Professor Cynthia Hudley

You
Did
That
on Purpose
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YOU
DID
THAT
ON PURPOSE
Understanding and Changing
Children’s Aggression
Cynthia Hudley
Yale University Press
New Haven & London
Copyright ∫ 2008 by Cynthia Hudley.
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publishers.
Set in Minion Roman type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc., Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania.
Printed in the United States of America by Thomson-Shore, Inc., Dexter, Michigan.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hudley, Cynthia.
You did that on purpose : understanding and changing children’s aggression /
Cynthia Hudley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-300-11085-2 (alk. paper)
1. Aggressiveness in children. I. Title.
bf723.a35h83 2008
155.4%1247—dc22
2008003715
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This volume is dedicated to:
my mother, Cynthia Duke Cox Hudley,
an authentic phenomenal woman,
without whom I could never have achieved all that I have
my husband, James Robert Hodge Cook,
whose love, support, and patience have lifted me up
throughout this task
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Contents
Preface ix
chapter 1. A Look at Children’s Aggression 1
chapter 2. Understanding Intent: One Source of
Childhood Aggression 22
chapter 3. The BrainPower Program: A Strategy for
Changing Attributions 36
chapter 4. Research on the BrainPower Program:
How E√ective Is It? 54
chapter 5. Looking Beyond the Individual Child:
What Schools Can Do 83
chapter 6. Childhood Aggression in the Family and
the Community 104
chapter 7. Public Policy for Children’s Well-Being 129
References 153
Index 173
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Preface
This book derives from my enduring interest in children who have
what I once thought of as inexplicably aggressive responses in social
situations with other children. This interest emerged during my first
years, if not weeks, as a teacher in a middle school, referred to
euphemistically as an ‘‘opportunity school,’’ for children who were
having di≈culty in the regular classroom. Scenes of indignation or
outrage were an almost daily occurrence in our small learning com-
munity, and I, a novice teacher, struggled to make sense of what
these children were doing to one another to arouse such heated
aggression. My more experienced colleagues tended to chalk up the
intense emoting to hormones. However, we could reliably expect
any one of a relatively small, specific group of mostly boys to exhibit
such disruptive behavior with some frequency.
In the midst of an organized activity, whether it was a quiet,
sustained reading period or a lively, cooperative project, one of these
young people would invariably lash out at a peer. One of the sta√
would dutifully pull the child aside and ask what brought on the
aggressive, unhappy behavior. Just as dutifully, the child would reply,
‘‘He [or she] was ‘looking at me funny, like they were making fun of
me.’’’ Or perhaps, ‘‘I saw her [or him] look over at me and then start
whispering, and I know they were talking bad about me.’’ Or even,
‘‘Somebody bumped my desk [or book, or shoe]. And I know it