Someone once said that the youngsters we work with either repress their feelings and instincts and thus inflict great pain on themselves – or they fail altogether to control their feelings and instincts and thus inflict great pain on their peers and on society. It was common to classify children’s problems into these two broad categories, the under-reactors and the over-reactors; the inwardly hurting and the outwardly hurtful — the anxious and the aggressive — and we may find that these groupings generally still apply today.

But these are extremes. We should always be concerned when youth are too anxious or too aggressive. A rule of thumb is that anxiety and aggression are undesirable when they are incapacitating to a person’s general function — when they become roadblocks to our happiness or ability to relate positively to others. Under these circumstances there is nothing wrong in declaring these conditions to be problems which need help and attention.

However there can be "good" levels of anxiety and aggression. Anxiety serves to "warn" us when we are having trouble fitting our values with the real circumstances of our lives, when we need to make choices or be more sensitive and aware of our own needs and expectations in relation to those of our families, friends and loved ones. Similarly, aggression serves to stimulate us to action, to stand up for ourselves and attend to our own needs. Assertiveness, which is a form of aggression, is generally regarded as a positive in our society today, as a protection and motivator.

Our job as child and youth care workers is to distinguish between "good" and "bad" anxiety and aggression. We must recognise "bad" conditions. But when we are tempted to sweep away all anxiety and aggression, we may have lost sight of the subtleties and discrimination required of us and our thinking. We have to understand anxiety and help clients to interpret and tolerate it. We have to understand aggression and help clients to manage it positively and not destructively. These are two conditions which could be enemies and they could also be friends ...

Anxiety and aggression.