Anger Management For Children

As adults, we are usually very proud of our anger. We pamper it and nurture it better than we nurture our own children. We think it is our anger that brings out the best in us, when it is actually the absence of anger that brings out the best. We flaunt it around like a fashion accessory, when we should actually be ashamed of it. We love to say “You see, I am rather short tempered”, more as a means to warn others not to invite your ire than to admit your mistake. If we find it so hard to channelize our anger better, imagine how hard it would be for a child, who is learning about himself, just as much as he is learning about the world. Since we are ourselves unaware about how to manage anger, we are unable to teach our children, how to cope with it. If you are one of those parents who is also at wit’s end about how to help your child deal with anger better, read on to know how to teach anger management to children.

 

Helping Children Deal With Anger 

Start From You
The best way to teach your child to channelise his/her anger better is to internalize the process first, i.e. by managing your own anger first. If you keep your cool, there is every possibility that your child will forget his/her anger faster and will become his/her normal, chirpy self again.

How? Where? When?
The next thing, that a parent must learn, as well as teach his/her child to do is to identify the situations, people, and responses that trigger such angry outbursts. Maybe a certain classmate at school, perhaps the class bully, makes your child flare up in anger. Or, it could be a certain way you respond to his requests. When you ask a child to identify and let you know what makes him/her angry, listen carefully and attentively without moralizing or patronising. It will make you child feel that he/she is validated. 

Symptoms
Adults are adept at camouflaging their anger under the garb of control and self-restraint; children cannot; which is precisely why it is easier to predict the onset of an angry outburst. You can use this use this knowledge to help your child identify them too so that he can control it better – it could range from his face turning red to his muscles tightening and turning tense. 

Once the child has identified the symptoms and can predict when a bout of anger sets in, the next thing he needs to learn is how to channelise that anger in a way that hurts no one. Teach him to do any of the following:

Unconditional Love
After your child had channelized his anger better, reward him with love and attention. Take him in your arms and sooth him, watch cartoons with him, so you both can have a good laugh. At this stage, it would be rewarding, if you explained to your child the fact that he is not alone in his anger – that everyone, even you, gets angry, but also make sure he knows that it is up to him to channelize his anger constructively.