Anger Management for Kids Kendal
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By Dr Victoria Samuel The Parent Support Service Supernanny Expert 28/08/2007
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 c...