Powerful Parenting: Anger Management Tips for Children
Anger occurs when a person of any age is feeling overwhelmed and overpowered. It is our way to say “No, stop it! I don’t like it. It is unfair. I can’t handle it,” and so on. Since children have many rules to learn and follow daily, they are likely to feel challenged and frustrated often. Therefore, parents should not be surprised that children question and challenge boundaries. Anger is natural. It is about our sense of feeling wronged and attempts at boundary setting. It does not have to be toxic and abusive, but it might escalate to that level. It happens when people don’t know how to express and handle it appropriately. It is important to allow children to express their anger and teach them how to go about it.
Research identifies that there are six basic emotions that all humans experience, regardless of age and culture. These are: happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger. Some people are not comfortable admitting that they get angry and don’t know how to express their frustration appropriately. They may say that they “never get angry.” This is simply not true, as anger is a basic universal emotion. Not allowing children to express anger is unhealthy. Allowing children to escalate in anger and see adults chiming in is another unhealthy extreme that promotes a familial pattern of rage and no resolve.
When children are allowed to express anger and know how to handle it, they bring this healthy attitude into adult life. They become “assertive,” capable of communicating their frustrated feelings clearly and appropriately, preferring to seek solutions and capable of compromise. As adults, they can move through their anger quickly and can resolve conflicts. Children who are made to feel that their anger is not okay — that it is wrong to express it, and maybe they should’t even feel it — have a difficult time dealing with anger as adults. They are likely to resort to extremes of either withholding anger, acting passive or passive-aggressive, or they become easily angered and rage prone adults.
Anger has three components: physical, cognitive, and behavioral. Physical reactions start with a rush of adrenaline and responses such as an increased heart rate, blood pressure, and tightening muscles. This is often known as the “fight or flight” response. The cognitive experience of anger is about how we perceive and think about what is making us angry. For example, we might think that what has happened to us is wrong, unfair and undeserved. It generates emotions that intensify anger: feeling betrayed, overwhelmed and mistreated. Behavioral response is how we express our anger. We may look and sound angry, turn red, raise our voice, clam up, slam doors, storm away, or otherwise signal to others that we are angry. We may say that we are angry and explain why, ask for a time-out, request an apology or for something to change.
When parents learn about anger management, they need to be ready to help their children with all three of these areas: calming down and relaxing, identifying and expressing feelings, and teaching to generate healthy behavioral responses and solutions. Here are some strategies for parents to teach children to express and handle angry feelings:
- Label feelings and behaviors. It is the first step in teaching children how to express distress without acting inappropriately. Make statements that help children rephrase, express, explain their feelings driving their frustration. “You don’t like it when I correct you. I can see that you are getting really mad at me. This is why you are shouting and stomping your feet.”
- Ask to make “feelings statements.” Ask them to complete these statements: “I wan’t”, “I feel …”, “I am acting this way because …” Listen to their answers. Do the same for your child: explain your stance in a similar way. Then ask your child: “How can we resolve it so that we are both happy about it?” Teach your child the word “compromise” early on.
- Repeat your decisions and requests like a broken record. When talking about feelings does not end the argument, keep it simple and consistent: “Regardless, we have …” and then walk away.
- Postpone discussing the issues and seeking solutions till feeling calmer. You may say: “I am too upset for talking right now. We are going to talk more about it when we are both feeling calm. Lets talk in one hour.”
- Curb temper tantrums and explosions. When anger escalates, discussion are not productive. Ignore the tantrum as though it is not happening and try not say anything. Place your child in another room or leave the room yourself. Withhold privileges until the issue is resolved. Call the authorities or solicit help of a neighbor if older children get violent, hit, or destroy property. Explain to your child, that they they escalate to this extreme, they are asking for outside intervention.
It is difficult to lay a path to healthy boundaries. You are likely to encounter some resistance and will have to expend some energy being consistent and staying on course. Some parents don’t set boundaries with their children precisely for this reason: it requires lots of effort to discipline properly and teach them to behave. However, you will find out that if you stay on course, eventually your children will develop more respect of your boundaries at home and more understanding of how to follow the steps of expressing, negotiating and resolving their frustrations.