Teach children to manage anger
Tuesday, October 02, 2018

It is okay to be angry, but when you start to hurt yourself, others and property, then that’s beyond. All living creatures experience aggravation, it is completely normal and natural to get angry; however, it’s what we do with our anger that counts.  Frustration and anger can hastily turn into rebelliousness, disrespect, violence, and temper tantrums if kids don’t know how to deal with their emotions.

If a child is unable to explain feelings when upset, finds trouble calming down when bothered, resorts to using physical aggression such as hitting, fighting, kicking, shouting, spitting, swearing, or doesn’t accept responsibility for the aggression; blames others, acts without thinking, behaves recklessly, holds in feelings, and acts violently towards others, these are all signs of anger that needs to be addressed. This is how you should control anger;

Self-control. When some kids are mad, they react differently, but encourage them to walk away from whoever has annoyed them, or resort to doing something else like drawing or even taking a nap. By the time they are done, the anger will have gone. You can talk about feelings often; your child will learn to recognise feelings better and they will know what puts them off and how to handle it.

Teach healthy coping skills.Kids need to know proper ways to deal with their anger. Instead of telling them not to hit or fight others, just explain to them why fighting is not good, encourage them to love one another, train them to walk away whenever they feel like hurting anyone, until they feel better.

Physical exercise.Physical plans such as engaging in sports, exercise, mindfulness, and yoga are proven effective in helping young people learn to calm their brains and gain greater control over their choices in healthy behaviours.

No shouting.When kids are frustrated, they might not be able to give you attention or even bother listening to your advice towards their action or behaviour; this is not a moment to lecture them about how rude their behaviour is. Your goal is to get them through this rough moment. This is a situation and you should tell them that, however much they are mad, you are standing with them until they are better. You can encourage them in any other way possible; this will calm them down, and eventually, they will feel better.

Identify the cause. Chat with your child to know what makes them angry. Help them identify those triggers, so that you can solve them together, it might be math calculations, get a teacher to coach them, solve any problem that worries or nags them into anger.

Read books about anger together.You can buy story books about controlling anger, read them with a child, encourage them to draw lessons and make summaries from such books. However, you can decide to also watch movies still on the anger topic. Somehow, kids will know the outcomes of anger and why they need to avoid it. All in all, you have to get yourself calm before you can help your child.