Anger Management in Children

Understanding the source:

• Conflict:
  • Verbal: rejection, miscommunication, having an authority figure instruct a task for the child to do that the child doesn't want to do, frustration from inability to communicate a want or need, or to understand what is being communicated to them. Verbal conflict can fall under a wide range of causes, and those listed above are intended to help categorize and and simplify the majority of the causes.
  • Physical: a possession is taken, the child is pushed, hit, bitten, etc...

Significance of Anger Management:

• Teaching children from a young age how to manage anger and conflict in a healthy, constructive, and appropriate way will help to set them up for life.
• As children grow older, their memory improves significantly, allowing them to draw on previous incidences of anger and how they handled those situations.
• Because of their increasing ability to draw on the memories of how incidences of anger were handled in the past, it is that much more important that children receive positive reinforcement when they handle their anger in a constructive way, and receive calm and patient guidance when they do not.
• There may even be times when a child reverts to using a non-constructive method for dealing with their anger. All this means is that the child needs to be reminded why this is a non-constructive way to handle their anger, and how they can better handle the situation in the future.

How to Manage:

• First try talking things out with the child.. See if you can get them to express what is causing their anger and encourage them to think it through.
• If talking out the anger doesn't work, because say the child is having a hard time articulating what is causing it to begin with, take the child to a quiet area away from stimulation and give them some paper and pencil, and ask them to draw their anger. Part of working through anger is the ability to articulate and understand what caused it to begin with.
• Energy comes along with anger, as well as stress. To relieve these feelings and return the child to a state of calm, offer the child some options for a physical activity to help release the anger.
  • Pillow fights
  • Jump rope
  • Running (have them do some laps if they're out doors and the space permits)
  • Ride a bike (go with them!)
  • Play soccer
  • If they'll accept it, tickle them. Laughter is a great way to get a child to turn around.

Other Tips to Help Children Manage Their Anger:

• Explain to children that anger is a normal, healthy emotion, so long that it is expressed in an appropriate way.
• Stories and books are helpful tools to teach children how to deal with their anger. Be sure to review such materials prior to allowing the child to read them, as some may teach a non-constructive way of dealing with anger.
• Help children to label their feelings of anger so they may better understand them.