anger management 2

Anger often relates to a child feeling misunderstood, falsely accused, unfairly treated or insecure. It’s common for anger to conceal other more vulnerable feelings, and angry outbursts often reflect more than just what has happened in the immediate situation. The analogy of a volcano captures the way in which difficult feelings (frustration, hurt and injustice) can build up inside over time, with pressure accumulating to the point that a minor annoyance can easily trigger your child to ‘erupt’ and ‘blow their top’.

Tip 1: Increase Emotional Awareness

The Principle

- The more you can encourage your child to express difficult feelings, the less emotions will build up and overflow into angry explosions.

What to Do

- To be able to express emotion, children first need to be aware of their feelings. You can improve your child’s ‘emotional literacy’ by beginning to increase the amount you talk about anger and other feelings.

- As frequently as possible try to refer to your own and other people’s feelings and guess at, reflect back & question your child’s feelings:

• “That man on TV looks annoyed”
• “Your sister is ‘stupid’? I wonder if you’re feeling cross that she interrupted our special time together”

Tip 2: Stay Calm

The Principle

- Children are like barometers for the emotional climate around them: if you’re stressed, they will be too, if you’re relaxed, so will they be.

What to Do

- Schedule in relaxing time for yourself on a regular basis. If it’s difficult to get time alone, club together with other parents and set up a babysitting rota. If you get to recuperate once in a while, it will be much easier for you to respond calmly to your child’s meltdowns. Calm responses will help contain your child’s anger whilst angry ones will make your child more enraged.

Remember that the way you manage your own angry feelings will impact on how your little one deals with his.

 If your child hears you hurling abuse at the driver that just cut you up, don’t be surprised if you hear a stream of insults when his sister has grabbed his favourite toy!

- If you’re feeling really wound up, don’t forget that time out is useful for adults as well. Make sure your child is safe and remove yourself for the situation. Breathe deeply and slowly and tell yourself: “keep calm!”

Tip 3: Accept Feelings and Redirect Angry Actions

The Principle

- Dismissing difficult feelings (e.g. “hey it’s not a big deal, calm down”) can be counterproductive; your child will be left simmering about both the original source of frustration as well as not being understood.

- The secret is to: i) accept and acknowledge your child’s angry feelings and ii) direct her towards an appropriate outlet for expressing her intense emotion. When feelings are accepted, your child will feel more understood, less in need of trying to convince you of their standpoint and therefore calmer. When feelings are expressed, the build of emotion inside is avoided and so explosions become less likely.

What to Do

- Identify and name the feeling that is behind your child’s rage

• “Wow Jamie, that made you upset”
• “You’re disappointed we have to leave now?”

- Show understanding by guessing at your child’s wishes

• “You’d like it if your brother asked you before borrowing your stuff?
• “Wouldn’t it be great if we could stay longer?”

- Encourage appropriate expression of feelings or problem solving

• “Show me how you’re feeling by... using words / drawing a picture / hitting this cushion / ripping up this scrap paper”
• “What would be a better way to solve this problem?”

Tip 4: Use Clear and Consistent Consequences To Limit Aggressive Behaviour

The Principle

- Your child needs to learn that although anger is ok, aggressive behaviour is not.

What to Do

- Get down to your child’s level and, using a calm, low but firm tone which indicates displeasure, clearly tell him what he has done wrong. Try not to shout as this suggests you have lost control.

• “Katie, it is not ok to hit your brother”

- If your child stops behaving aggressively, give her lots of praise. If, however, she continues her inappropriate behaviour after you’ve given a warning, impose a clear consequence, such as the naughty step or withdrawing privileges.

If you are worried about the escalating nature of your child’s anger and nothing works over a period of weeks or months, there may be underlying issues which require professional help. Within the NHS, your GP would be your first port of call. 

Dr Victoria Samuel

anger management

Anger Management for Children

Anger management for the child is about helping the child to deal with their anger. Anger management in children poses a great challenge for the teachers and parents. Making headway in this issue involves understanding the components of the children’s anger, guiding them when they are angry and dealing with them effectively enough to channel their anger creatively and constructively.
The first component of the children’s anger is the emotional state of anger, or the affective and arousal state.
It occurs when the child feels that his or her goals are being blocked, or his or her needs are being thwarted. Anger-provoking situations in the classroom may involve conflict over possessions (e.g. books, toys and space); physical assault like hitting, punching or pushing; rejection due to being ignored or not being allowed to play with classmates; or instructions, like washing hands, that the child does not wish to follow.
The second component is the expression of anger which some children resort to by making faces, crying, sulking, talking, shouting and so on.
There may be another category of children who resort to violence against the provocateur. Some children try to escape or avoid the situation by seeking the assistance of their teachers or elders.
The third component is to understand, interpret and evaluate the anger of the child.
Understanding the anger helps teachers and parents to regulate the expression of anger. Since the children are too young to understand, analyze and control their anger, they need guidance from their teachers and parents.
The best course for the teachers and parents is to develop strategies to direct the energy from anger into socially constructive ways such as:

• social interaction in their families,
• participation in community programs and services,
• playing video games on creative issues
• and reading books.

The thrust of the strategy should be to acknowledge the arousal of angry feelings and express them in positive and effective ways.
Teachers and parents should talk about emotions to enable the children to understand them. They can be made to identify and label various types of emotions and feelings including the expressions of anger such as ‘annoyed’, ‘mad’, and ‘irritated’.
This can be done by encouraging children to draw and paint the figures depicting these emotions. The charts can be displayed on the walls of the classroom. The children quite often get embroiled in angry interaction with each other in the classroom. The teacher should allow the children to express their emotions of anger without judging, evaluating and instructing them to feel differently
Children should be trained in

• self regulation and control of impulses,
• tolerance of frustration
• and postponement of urges for immediate gratification.

They should be encouraged to understand and manage their angry feelings in direct and non-aggressive ways. The adults should set up examples in anger management by acknowledging, accepting and taking responsibility for their own angry feelings, and expressing them non-aggressively.
The teachers should read out stories and anecdotes about anger to help the children to understand and manage their anger better. It must be noted that some stories teach irresponsible anger management.
For example, a minor mistake in behavior being meted out with severe punishment is an example of wrong management of anger.
Shouting, swearing, abusing and blabbering incoherently is a wrong way to express anger. The teacher should clarify these states of anger whenever such expressions occur in the stories. Children should also be made to realize the stressful consequences of acting rashly and aggressively. Anger management articles should be included in the newsletters sent to the parents to enlist their support by understanding and providing positive direction to the angry feeling of the children.
Above all the teachers and parents should become role models in anger control and management.

If you would like some anger management counselling for yourself or your child with our trained psychologist please call 1300 300 579