Anger is a normal and useful emotion. It can tell children
that things are not fair or right. But watch out for children's behaviour
becoming out of control or aggressive because of anger.
Helping your child learn to deal with anger healthily has many benefits. In the short term it stops anger from causing your child and your family distress. In the longer term, it helps them learn to solve problems and cope with emotions.
Identify the early warning signs
Helping Children Deal With Their Anger
Don’t be afraid to explore the causes of angry emotions.
Helping your child learn to deal with anger healthily has many benefits. In the short term it stops anger from causing your child and your family distress. In the longer term, it helps them learn to solve problems and cope with emotions.
Do not judge children for their Anger
Team
up with your child to help them deal with their anger. This way, you
let your child know that the anger is the problem, not them.With
younger children this can be fun and creative. Give anger a name and try
drawing it. For example, anger can be a volcano that eventually explodes.
How
you respond to anger can influence how your child responds to anger. Making it
something you do together can help you both.
Identify the early warning signs
Work
together to try to find out what triggers the anger. You'll learn to recognize
the early warning signs that anger is starting to rise.
Talk
together about strategies you and your child can use against anger. You could
encourage your child to count to 10 or walk away from the situation.
When you
see the early warning signs, give your child a gentle reminder that anger
may be trying to sneak up. This gives them the chance to try their strategies.
Have a specific
goal
Have an
agreed goal to work towards, with a way of recognising what you’re achieving
together. You could have a star chart on the wall and reward your child with
stickers for keeping anger away for a whole hour, then gradually move to half a
day, then a day and so on.
Praise your child
Positive
feedback is important. Praise your child’s efforts and your own efforts,
no matter how small. This will build your child’s confidence in the battle
against anger. It will also help them feel that you're both learning together.
The more
time you spend on praising their efforts, the less time there is for punishment
for failing.
How to recognise
anger in children
Changes
in your child’s thoughts and feelings will lead to changes in their body
language and their behaviour. These could include:
·
clenched
fists
·
tightness
or tenseness in their body
·
verbal
outbursts
·
a
particular facial expression
·
hitting
out
When
anger takes over, it can come in different forms, from a verbal outburst
to being physically aggressive and causing damage to furniture.
Anger can
sometimes make children act in a way that's harmful to themselves or
others. For example, punching walls or hitting out. Try to make the surrounding
environment as safe as possible if this happens.
If you’re
concerned that anger is taking over your child and your family, don’t hesitate
to talk to a GP, health visitor, school nurse or psychologist.
Helping Children Deal With Their Anger
Anger is like the mercury in a thermometer. When left
unchecked the intensity of the emotion increases from frustration to anger and
then to other things like rage and bitterness. As the intensity builds, people
shut themselves off from others and relationships close down. Having a plan to
deal with anger can limit the intensity and prevent much of the destruction
anger tends to cause.
Most families don’t have a plan for anger. They somehow
just continue on, hoping things will get better. Many families don’t resolve
their anger, but just keep trying to start over. Starting over may be helpful
at times, but it tends to ignore the problem rather than address it. Here are
some ideas for dealing with anger in your family.
1. Anger is good for
identifying problems but not good for solving them.
One
of the problems people face is the guilt they feel
after they've gotten angry. This further complicates the situation.
God created us as emotional beings and emotions are helpful for giving us cues
about our environment. Anger, in particular, points out problems. It reveals
things that are wrong. Some of those things are inside of us and require
adjustments to expectations or demands. Other problems are outside of us and
need to be addressed in a constructive way. Helping children understand that
anger is good for identifying problems but not good for solving them is the
first step toward a healthy anger management plan.
2. Identify the early
warning signs of anger.
Children often don’t recognize anger. In fact, many times they act
out before they realize what happened. Identifying early warning signs helps
children become more aware of their feelings, which in turn gives them more
opportunity to control their responses to these feelings. How can
you tell when you’re getting frustrated? How can your children identify
frustration before it gets out of control?
Here are some common cues in children which indicate that they are
becoming angry and may be about to lose control:
• tensed body
• clenched teeth
• increased intensity of speech or behavior
• unkind words or the tone of voice changes to whining or yelling
• restlessness, withdrawal, unresponsiveness, or being easily
provoked
• noises with the mouth like growls or deep breathing
• pouting
• squinting, rolling the eyes, or other facial expressions
Learn to
recognize the cues that your child is beginning to get frustrated. Look for
signs that come before the eruption. Once you know the cues, begin to point
them out to your child. Make observations and teach your child to recognize
those signs. Eventually children will be able to see their own frustration and
anger and choose appropriate responses before it’s too late. They’ll be able to
move from the emotion to the right actions, but first they must be able to
recognize the cues that anger is intensifying.
3. Step Back.
Teach your child to take a break from the difficult situation and
to get alone for a few minutes. One of the healthiest responses to anger at any
of its stages is to step back. During that time the child can rethink the
situation, calm down and determine what to do next. Frustrations can easily
build, rage can be destructive, and bitterness is always damaging to the one
who is angry. Stepping back can help the child stop the progression and
determine to respond differently.
The size of the break is determined by the intensity of the
emotion. A child who is simply frustrated may just take a deep breath. The
child who is enraged probably needs to leave the room and settle down.
4.Choose a better
response.
After the child has stepped back and settled down, then it’s time
to decide on a more appropriate response to the situation. But what should they
do? Parents who address anger in their children often respond negatively,
pointing out the wrong without suggesting alternatives.
There are three positive choices: talk about it, get help, or slow
down and persevere. Simplifying the choices makes the decision process easier.
Even young children can learn to respond constructively to frustration when
they know there are three choices. These choices are actually skills
to be learned. Children often misuse them or overly rely on just one. Take time
to teach your children these skills and practice them as responses to angry
feelings.
5.Never try to reason
with a child who is enraged.
Sometimes children become enraged. The primary way to tell when
children are enraged is that they can no longer think rationally and their
anger is now controlling them. Unfortunately, many parents try to talk their
children out of anger, often leading to more intensity. The child who is
enraged has lost control. You may see clenched fists, squinting eyes or a host
of venting behaviors. Anger is one of those emotions that can grab you before
you know what’s happening. The intensity can build from frustration to anger to
rage before anyone realizes it.
Whether it’s the two-year-old temper tantrum or the 14 year-old
ranting and raving, don’t get sucked into dialog. It only escalates the
problem. Talking about it is important but wait until after the child has
settled down.
6.When emotions get
out of control, take a break from the dialog.
Sometimes parents and children are having a discussion about
something and tempers flare. Mean words often push buttons which motivate more
mean words and anger escalates. Stop the process, take a break and resume the
dialog after people have settled down.
7.Be proactive in
teaching children about frustration management, anger control, rage reduction and releasing bitterness.
Model, discuss, read and teach your children about anger. There
are several good books on this subject available, which are written for
children at various age levels. Talk about examples of frustration and anger
seen in children's videos. Talk about appropriate responses. Work together as a
family to identify anger and choose constructive solutions.
8.When anger problems
seem out of control or you just don’t know what to do, get help.
Sometimes a third party can provide the helpful suggestions and
guidelines to motivate your family to deal with anger in a more helpful way.
Children can begin to develop bitterness and resentment in their lives and may
need help to deal with it. Unresolved anger can create problems in
relationships later on. Children do not grow out of bitterness, they grow into
it. Professional help may be needed
How to deal with Child Anger?
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