Project C.A.R.E.

Individual Counselling: Secondary School (Teacher Strategies)

Reactive Aggressor

Wai's case

During recess, some students were looking at photos of their trip and their excited discussion attracted Wai’s attention. When the class bell rang, the students lowered their voices and waited for the teacher. However, Wai thought they were discussing and laughing at a photo of him falling over, so he confronted them angrily. He shouted and attacked them, asking them to hand over the photo of him falling over, which confused his classmates.

Wai's considerations and actions
Cognition
Misinterprets the external cues: Wai does not consider all of the available information when receiving outside messages; he focuses on certain kinds of sensory information. He only sees his classmates speaking softly and laughing, but does not hear the class bell ring. Cognitive distortion: he thinks that his classmates are circulating a photo of him falling on the floor and are making fun of him. Hostile attributional bias: his classmates are sharing their happy memories of the school picnic, but he thinks they are mocking him. Poor-problem solving skills: when encountering interpersonal conflicts, he can only respond with accusations and aggression.
Emotion
Impulsive: Wai does not wait to find out what is actually happening before attacking his classmates. Agitated emotion: he is unable to control his emotions even in the presence of other classmates, and responds with aggressive behaviour.
Behaviour
Attacks everything in the surrounding area: he not only attacks his classmates, but also kicks the chairs around. Stubborn: he insists his classmates delete the photo and assumes they are acting maliciously.
Social network
Poor social and communication skills: Wai does not know how to express his own thoughts and feelings. Isolated and socially excluded: his agitated emotions and behaviour make his classmates wary of interacting with him.

Instant intervention (Help the students to calm down, and leave the scene)

Assist them to calm their agitated emotions and stop their impulsive behaviour.
Remove them from the stimulating environment.

As the emotional responses of reactive aggressors may be harmful to themselves and their classmates, teachers must first calm down the aggressors and remove them from the scene. The teacher should also ask other students to stand aside to avoid further upsetting the aggressors.

Intermediate intervention 1 (Understand the reasons behind their agitated emotion and anger, help them to take responsibilities)

Find out the causes of their impulsivity.
Try to understand their feelings.
Let the students know that aggression is not the only way to solve problems. Help them to take responsibility for their actions

Reactive aggressors tend to understand the external world in a cognitively distorted fashion, which leads to their agitated emotional responses to events. If teachers take time to understand reactive aggressors and try to determine the causes for their anger, reactive aggressors will feel respected and be more easily calmed down.

After an incident, teachers should help reactive aggressors to understand that their behaviour is not acceptable to others and help them take responsibility for their mistakes. For example, this could involve the imposition of appropriate punishments, according to the school rules.

Intermediate intervention 2 (Learn about anger management skills in order to reduce aggressive behaviour)

Explain to reactive aggressors how to calm down quickly when they have temper tantrums or similar agitated emotions.
Praise their successful achievements in anger management to reinforce their improvements.

Teachers should assist students to find the most suitable way to control emotions by sharing the emotional control skills they used in the past, or provide other ways to control emotions. For example, in this video demonstration, Wai had strong visual perception and rapidly concluded that his classmates were laughing at him when he noticed their behaviour. If he could instead change his focus to observing other aspects of the immediate situation, or simply leave the area, he may be able to control his anger. Using these ideas, the teacher and Wai could discuss the most suitable method for him to use to control his anger.

The most important thing is to practise and reflect on the results of one’s behaviour and response. However, teachers should understand that students become accustomed to using impulsive behaviour as their primary problem-solving mode, and thus students may still be driven by their emotion under specific situations. Therefore, teachers should continue applauding positive behaviour, and encouraging continual positive-behavioural practice and reflection.

Educating other students (Arrange group discussion about anger management skills)

Understand the causes of the impulsivity of reactive aggressors, and reduce other students’ hostility towards those aggressive students.
Encourage the students to help each other, and promote an anti-bullying culture in class.

To help reactive aggressors to improve their thoughts and behaviours and reintegrate successfully with their peers, their classmates need to accept and cooperate with them. Teachers should help other students to understand the reasons for and the solutions to the reactive aggressors’ agitated emotions. This will increase other students’ acceptance of reactive aggressors and their motivation to help reactive aggressors to calm down.

After experiencing empathy from classmates, reactive aggressors will be more likely to experience normal, non-aggressive social interactions and have more motivation to control their emotions.