Dangerous Kids: Boys Town Approach for Helping Caregivers Treat Aggressive and Violent Youth

This guidebook outlines Girls and Boys Town’s approach to helping caregivers in diverse settings - foster and group homes, mental health centers, and schools - work with aggressive and violent youth whose anti-social and destructive behaviors are often a threat to themselves and others. In these pages, you’ll learn how to use strategies such as cool-down time, positive correction, reality statements, aggression logs, and other techniques to help children regain self-control. Discover how to help a youth stop aggressive behavior, calm down, anticipate and prevent future problems. Several chapters show you how to analyze behavior, understand what triggers aggression in a particular child, and how to integrate social skill instruction and self-control strategies into a Treatment Plan. Sample Treatment Plans for both reactive and proactive aggressive youth are offered. The book features guidelines related to 15 youth rights and an appendix that lists social skills appropriate for different kinds of aggressive behavior.