Acceptable ways to express anger in your home?

[Aubergine68]

I have toddler and preschool aged boys in my home and we are working on anger management. I have always had a little trouble being around angry people, but I know that it is important to teach these little guys that it is ok to feel angry.

There are behaviors that, for me, are not acceptable ways to show anger, including hitting/hurting others, throwing/breaking things, and saying hurtful things. I also can't have door slamming -- our doors are old and cheaply made and literally cannot take it. And I've had some trouble with little fingers getting pinched.

Using words to explain what you want and why you're angry is the goal, and we're working on that, but these children are not (yet) really verbal. They need to express strong emotions with their bodies somehow.

I have a couple of preschoolers who just yell rather incoherently when they are angry, but that really scares one of the toddlers who starts to wail in fright. So I explained the problem and asked the older boys to go to another room or out on the porch to wail if they must. But am I banishing or isolating the child who is angry and upset this way?

So what does that leave me? I found myself saying "It is ok to stomp around and make grumpy faces." Is that enough?

What do others do? I'm looking for something effective and maybe funny/distracting.

ETA maybe some kind of expletive that little boys would enjoy saying that isn't generally offensive? This is a home childcare setting -- I can't exactly teach kids that something like swearing is ok,

[dani76]

It is just DD here, but she is totally allowed to be angry. But we do not hit or kick. She used to growl when she was a toddler. Now she screams as loud as she can. Sometimes I will pick her up and sit on her bed with her. She will usually just cry on me and then I ask if she needs a hug. I have friends who have kids that hit and pinch, but I don't know how they deal with it.

[joy_seeker]

We have taught our dc to practice deep breathing, remove ourselves from the situation, hit pillows, and to draw pictures of or write about their feelings. Hitting, kicking, door slamming, throwing things, saying hurtful things and yelling are not acceptable. I used to allow yelling but it became an issue when ds would be angry in public and screaming in the middle of the frozen foods aisle. It was hard for him to understand why it was okay sometimes but not others.

The deep breathing exercises have been, by far, the best thing we've done for anger management strategies. They use this strategy to calm themselves down so we can then discuss what was upsetting.

[Mama.Pajama]

Originally Posted by joy_seeker

The deep breathing exercises have been, by far, the best thing we've done for anger management strategies.

We do something a bit like deep-breathing exercises, I suppose.
Sometimes when my son is very angry (usually when I have removed him from something potentially dangerous that he was really set on doing/playing with), I get in my "mantra." My fingers in the yogic position, I say "OOOOOOOOOHHMMMMM." Yes, this is a half-silly exercise, but effective nonetheless! Sometimes he looks at me like I am the oddest thing he's ever laid eyes on- pretty soon though, I get a smile. Other times it's not quite enough to curb the anger, and I have to think of something else- usually an extremely convincing distraction, like playing outside, going for a walk, or even going to see the monkeys at the zoo, which does require follow-through on my part. But the "mantra" tactic is simply one notable mention of many in my own personal bag of tricks.

[momasana]

A friend of mine had a son who would get really worked up in anger and always ended up being distructive. She got a him a box called the "angry box" and filled it with a bunch of koosh-type balls, bean bags, balls of yarn, etc. When he was angry he would go to the box, take the stuff out and throw it on the floor. When he got it all out of his system he had to pick everything up and put it back in the box. It sounds a little crazy but this kid really felt his anger physically and HAD to have an outlet so as not to get distructive with things in the home or other people. Having the box gave him a safer way to express it. Now he's "tween" aged and plays baseball. When he gets angry he goes outside and plays ball. It was a successful idea for this particular child.

[SunshineJ]

For physical expressions of anger we have a couple things that tend to work well. The first one we taught DS was that is was much more acceptable to go punch a pillow or couch cusion rather than his little sister! We did that when he was around 2-3 yrs old, and on very rare occasion I may still see him do this if he gets overwhelmed and words fail him (he's almost seven). The other thing we did was sports related. We'd take him outside and pitch balls to him to hit with a bad (he always had great accuracy) or have him kick a ball back and forth with us. That seemed to take a lot of the wind out of his sails and calm him back down pretty fast.

[LuxPerpetua]

Originally Posted by momasana

A friend of mine had a son who would get really worked up in anger and always ended up being distructive. She got a him a box called the "angry box" and filled it with a bunch of koosh-type balls, bean bags, balls of yarn, etc. When he was angry he would go to the box, take the stuff out and throw it on the floor. When he got it all out of his system he had to pick everything up and put it back in the box. It sounds a little crazy but this kid really felt his anger physically and HAD to have an outlet so as not to get distructive with things in the home or other people. Having the box gave him a safer way to express it. Now he's "tween" aged and plays baseball. When he gets angry he goes outside and plays ball. It was a successful idea for this particular child.

I was just about to suggest this same thing. I also remember another mother posting here one time that in her angry box she had a jar with marbles and water in it for shaking hard (the lid was glued on). I thought that sounded like a good idea.

[Aubergine68]

Thanks for the ideas!

I should work more with deep breathing as an anger-calming strategy.

Redirection into sports activities is a good idea too, because they are a sporty bunch for sure. I am a little afraid to teach the children to punch a pillow when they are angry, though, because I'm worried they may generalize to "I punch anything (or anyone) handy when I am angry and don't have a pillow." Has anyone had this happen, ever?

Maybe I could have them go to our large motor area and jump on pillows?

Never heard of an angry box. That sounds very promising. I could get the boys to help me create the box.

I asked them for ideas today on how to show you're angry safely and one boy suggested "We could do an angry dance!" I'm curious to see what that would look like!

[A Mom's Love]

I told DD I'd make her a target to hang on the wall that she can throw bean bags at when she's angry. We're working on the cardboard target today. She is happy about the idea. Cute that she recognizes the need for such a thing.

[theretohere]

I'm working on this a lot right now with DD1 (who is 5). Things that we're encouraging- deep breathing, removing herself from what is making her angry, and she has some squishy stuff she can mash and throw in her room. I let her scream if she goes outside and I'm really trying to positively encourage the idea that it's ok to feel angry and disappointed- and it's OK to let it out in safe ways.

[umsami]

We've been working on that a lot with my two boys, 5 and 3.

One thing we've done is encouraged them to say, "I'm angry... " "I'm frustrated..."


We work with deep breathing. We also have one of those punching clowns, well Spiderman (not sure what it's called... but you inflate it, put water in the bottom...and then you kick it/hit it and it bounces back)... so we say if you must hit/kick, go hit Spiderman.

[frontierpsych]

pillows are great for that. Punch the pillow or scream into it. Once that's out of your system, you'll be able to calm down much better. Sometimes even adults get so angry or upset they need to let it out in a physical way, this works for grown ups, too!

[ccohenou]

I don't mean to down whatever really works for you, but I found it interesting to learn that research on the subject has tended to find that "letting it all out" (screaming, venting, punching stuff) is more likely to leave people feeling madder than they were before, than to help them feel better.

I tell my kids that if they really need to scream, they need to do it in their bedroom with the door closed. What I encourage is taking a break, using words, and solving the problem that brought up the angry feelings. But with very young preverbal children, simple distraction/redirection works the best for us.

[Polliwog]

A block of real clay (not playdough) is wonderful for getting the anger out. Plus, it just feels and smells so good.

[prothyraia]

Originally Posted by ccohenou

I don't mean to down whatever really works for you, but I found it interesting to learn that research on the subject has tended to find that "letting it all out" (screaming, venting, punching stuff) is more likely to leave people feeling madder than they were before, than to help them feel better.

I'd be interested to see those studies, actually.

I know that if I'm just a little upset acting out tends to escalate my feelings. But if I'm REEEEEALLY angry yelling/getting physical helps diffuse the feelings for me. I have a hard time thinking of a way to design a study to look at people who are really enraged because it's difficult (and probably unethical) to get folks to that point.

So, if I was in a study and someone cheated at cards and they told me to hit a pillow, hitting the pillow would make me more angry. Whereas when my toddler dumped cayenne pepper into his baby brother's face, hitting a pillow would have helped calm me down (okay, in that situation I was in the shower with the baby obviously, it's just my most recent rage example, hah!).

[umsami]

Originally Posted by momasana

A friend of mine had a son who would get really worked up in anger and always ended up being distructive. She got a him a box called the "angry box" and filled it with a bunch of koosh-type balls, bean bags, balls of yarn, etc. When he was angry he would go to the box, take the stuff out and throw it on the floor. When he got it all out of his system he had to pick everything up and put it back in the box. It sounds a little crazy but this kid really felt his anger physically and HAD to have an outlet so as not to get distructive with things in the home or other people. Having the box gave him a safer way to express it. Now he's "tween" aged and plays baseball. When he gets angry he goes outside and plays ball. It was a successful idea for this particular child.

Oh, I like this idea. I may try it with DS1!! Thanks!