25. Child’s Aggressive Behaviour

Every time he was provoked by his classmates,

10 year old Avinash would become aggressive, hit back and get into a fight. His teachers complained about his behavioral issues and because of this problem he wasn’t allowed to participate in any of the school competitions.

Avinash’s parents had separated about a year ago

and his mother worked to make ends meet. He was left alone for long periods after returning home from school and often had to fend for himself. He had an intelligent mind and was a precocious child.

Since art was one of his outstanding subjects

at school, I decided to use art therapy with him. Through his art what unfolded was that whenever his mother corrected or scolded him for his mistakes he would hurt deeply but instead of crying or expressing his feelings he would invariably suppress them.

In fact just a day ago his mother had shouted

at him for having burnt the omelette that he was cooking and he had silently retreated to his room, effectively suppressing his feelings that were now welling up in his beautiful doe shaped eyes even as we spoke and he shared his pain.

He continued to sketch his feelings as we talked    

and from that drawing it emerged that he usually dealt with his sadness and anger by playing with his toy bow and dart, shooting stick-on arrows onto the wall of his room. The orange color that he drew in his aura represented his anger and the brown was the feeling of sadness. The green thoughts told him he was mad and the blue represented his urge to run away from home.

Other ways of dealing with his pain included

watching television because it made him forget his feelings and distracted his mind. He explained that he did so only because he was lonely and had no friends or anyone to share his feelings with. Often when he switched on the TV he would cry till he felt better in an attempt to let go of the pain inside his heart.

His three big wishes from God were that

his mum should never scold him, that he should become so perfect that he never made a mistake, for then his mother would never be angry with him, and lastly, to somehow get hold of Arjuna’s bow. This was a curious request and on probing further I understood that he wanted to be just like Arjuna, the hero of the classic epic Mahabharata.

In his perception, having Arjuna’s bow

would endow him with the strength to be good like him. He would then be blessed to receive knowledge from his Gurus. This meant that he could imbibe wisdom from his teachers at school by behaving well and excelling at his studies thereby winning their approval, which he presently did not have.

He felt he was just about okay, but being okay

was not good enough for him. He dreamt of growing up and going to the UK to become a successful business man and being famous, only so he could be respected (mind you this is a 10 year old and most of the words shared here are verbatim what he said to me).

On digging deeper I found that

Avinash’s root issue was with his mother. When she would discipline or hit him, he would suppress his feeling and direct his anger at the children in school causing his behavior problems. In his words, I don’t like hitting the children but I have to take revenge if someone hits me because otherwise I feel that I am too weak, and being weak means, I am not capable of doing or achieving anything.

On asking whose opinion it was that

made him believe that he was not capable of achieving anything, he said it was his mother; and went on to add, that if I were to become perfect, mama would not scold me. This then was the root issue that needed to be healed.

I designed a personal belief map including

six key beliefs for healing Avinash and then using PSYCH K went on to reprogram his beliefs starting with the biggest and most important one that included forgiving his mother for scolding him. This belief took a fairly long time to balance particularly at two key phases in his timeline including the womb stage and the last two years, during which period his parents had separated.

Once this was addressed the other five beliefs

healed instantly in a domino effect and suddenly his life force energy which was testing weak at the start suddenly became strong.

I then asked him to close his eyes and think

about the burnt omelette episode of the previous day and in the calmest tone he said, it was just an ordinary incident that he felt completely at ease with now. Next I asked him to think about being provoked at school and he smiled and said he did not feel provoked anymore and just wanted to be friends with all.

The tearful dam that was bursting forth

and welling up in his eyes when he had started the session was now replaced with a calm confidence and a beautiful smile. We hit a few high fives as I told him that I had decided to henceforth address him as the Chota (little) Arjun and he held his head up proudly feeling delighted at being addressed in the namesake of that mythological hero.

Twenty days later…

Well his mother has great news to share with us after the belief change work done twenty days ago. Apparently Chota Arjun is getting rave reviews from his teachers at school who are amazed at his behavioral turnaround. His art teacher actually sent a note home saying his behavior has remarkably improved. All his notebooks are now decorated with smiley’s and stars for his outstanding work in class.

For a child who had no friends at all,

he has started receiving invites from many children in his neighborhood and class, and he actually visited two of them last week. His friend’s mothers have been sending What’s App messages to Chota Arjun’s mother offering to watch over him while she is at work.

He has started helping children in his class

and actually helped a classmate finish work she was struggling with in class, before completing his own, and happily faced the teacher’s wrath.

The kids he got into a fight with before

have become his badminton playmates now.

He returns home from school happier,

no longer watches TV and even the swelling on his face is gone.

I am delighted to see him transform. My Chota Arjun is a real rock star.