Understanding and Addressing Girls’ Aggressive Behaviour Problems: A Focus on Relationships

Understanding and Addressing Girls’ Aggressive Behaviour Problems reflects a major shift in understanding children’s aggressive-behaviour problems. Researchers used to study what went wrong with a troubled child and needed to be fixed; we now aim to understand what is going wrong in children’s relationships that might create, exacerbate, and maintain aggressive-behaviour problems in childhood and adolescence. In this volume, leading researchers in the aggression field examine how problems develop for boys and girls in relationships and how we can help children to develop healthy relationships.

Individual chapters explore biological and social contexts, including physical health and relationship problems that might underlie the development of aggressive behaviour problems. The impact of relationships on girls’ development is illustrated to be particularly important for Aboriginal girls. Contributors discuss prevention and intervention strategies that help aggressive children build the requisite skills and relationship capacities and also shift dynamics within critical social contexts, such as the family, peer group, classroom, and school.

The support of healthy development not only of children but of their parents and other important adults in their lives, including teachers has been shown to be effective in reducing the burden of suffering associated with aggression among children and adolescents—for youth themselves as well as their families, peers, schools, communities, and society.

1

Different Paths to Aggression for Girls and Boys

Dale F. Hay, Lisa Mundy, and Kathryn Hudson

Hay and colleagues examine why some girls don’t follow the typical girls’ pathway and carry on using physical and verbal aggression into adolescence. They propose a model to explain why boys and girls become different, and suggest that girls who do not follow the normal girls’ pathway are at high risk for aggression and many other difficulties.   

2

Physical Health and Relationship Violence Among Girls with Behaviour Problems Grown Up

Candice L. Odgers

Odgers describes how girls develop antisocial behaviour and examines their poor physical health and relationship difficulties as they grow into adulthood. She raises the concern for the physical health of aggressive girls, more than for aggressive boys, higher rates of victimization in the family and the tendency for girls to be sensitive to stressful life events.

3

Commentary

M. Stouthamer-Loeber

In her commentary, Stouthamer-Loeber emphasizes the importance of studying antisocial girls, considering the harm that their antisocial behavior inflicts on society. She points to the need for future research to shed light on prevention and intervention strategies. 

4

Some Key Issues in the Early Development of Aggression in Girls

Rolf Loeber, Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, Alison E. Hipwell, Jeffrey D. Burke, and Deena R. Battista

Loeber and colleagues explore which comes first for girls: conduct problem or depression. They show that conduct problems precede depression in preadolescent girls, especially when girls exhibit oppositional behaviour. Increases in irritability and anger with age are related to depression with different patterns for girls and boys.

5

Webs of Strength and Resistance: Hearing Aboriginal Adolescent Girls Telling their Stories

Susan D. Dion

Dion considers girls’ aggression, not as an individual trait, but as a strategy that Aboriginal girls might use. Dion reflects on the girls’ stories not as experiences of violence and poverty, but as girls doing the work of adolescence, cultivating a sense of themselves in relationship with their families, friends, community and culture. 

6

Commentary: The Role of Anger in Aggression

Wendy M. Craig

Craig comments on two chapters that provide diverse perspectives.  Craig highlights three common themes that provide direction for intervention: 1) emotional regulation as a mechanism in the development of aggression; 2) relationships can act as protective or risk factors; and 3) anger and depression may have an important role in the development of aggressive behaviour.

7

Using Evidence to Reduce the Bullying Behaviour Experienced by Girls

Donna Cross, Therese Shaw, Helen Monks, Stacey Waters, and Leanne Lester

Cross and colleagues describe similarities and differences in girls’ bullying behaviour and consider how school-based interventions need to be tailored to address bullying problems for both girls and boys. Based on their interventions, they provide recommendations for school-based policy and practice to address girls’ bullying experiences and to promote positive action.

8

Matching the Prevention of Interpersonal Aggression to Critical Developmental and Contextual Transitions in Middle School

Bonnie Leadbeater

Leadbeater describes changes during early adolescence and relates these to aggressive behaviour problems. She lays out a framework for interventions for early adolescents to reduce peer aggression and victimization. She highlights the need to promote socially responsible and respectful behaviours across the many contexts in which youth live.

9

Commentary: School-Based Interventions: Discussant

Leena Augimeri and Margaret Walsh

Augimeri and Walsh highlight common themes in the chapters: promoting positive behaviour, considering the child as well as the child’s close and broad social contexts.  They note that schools are an ideal place to intervene and have adapted SNAP^® for school based settings, which is showing promising results in the classroom and on the playground.

10

Understanding Relational Aggression in Elementary School Girls: Implications for Intervention

Tina Daniels and Danielle Quigley

Daniels and Quigley review the elements and effectiveness of five programs designed to address girls’ social aggression promote girls’ use of prosocial behavioural strategies. They suggest that programs should start early, go long, include only girls, and include all girls rather than only those at risk, and consider peer mentors.

11

Reducing Risk of Adolescent Aggression and Violence: A Brief Attachment-Focused Treatment Program for Parents and Caregivers

Marlene M. Moretti and Ingrid Obsuth

Moretti and Obsuth discuss how parenting behaviours shape children’s attachment representations which in turn regulate children’s cognitive, affective and behavioural functioning, particularly in interpersonal contexts. They provide evidence of the effectiveness of focusing on parent-youth relationships from their innovative intervention program Connect, a brief program that supports parents and caregivers of high-risk teens. 

12

Commentary: Common and Unique Intervention Targets for Girls’ Aggression

Isabela Granic

Granic describes how the authors lead us from research considering the mechanisms that underlie the development of girls’ aggression to applying this to effective prevention and intervention strategies.  Granic calls for research on comprehensive interventions that take into account all the relationships that are central to girls’ lives, as well as their risk profiles.

Conclusion

The Capacity of Relationships and Capacity for Relationships

Debra Pepler & Bruce Ferguson

In their conclusion, Pepler and Ferguson reflect on the knowledge that authors shared about the development of girls’ aggression based on: the capacity (or lack thereof) of girls’ relationships to support their development; girls’ capacity (or lack thereof) for healthy relationships; and how through interventions that focus on relationships, we can provide relationship solutions to girls’ relationship problems.