How do you teach your kids to deal with anger?

[mama2cal&darby]

I am just wondering how other parents teach their LOs to express their anger. I have recently realized that I don't really know what is considered a healthy way of expressing anger. I have read in some parenting books to give a child a pillow to hit, but someone in a recent post commented that their parents allowed them to express anger physically and they continue to struggle with this as an adult.

I'd love to hear what you do and why.

[jtbuko]

We have used a number of different angles on anger over the years:

hit a pillow, verbalize feelings, remove self from situation,find a way to laugh about the issue etc.

Recently we bought a Lori Lite book called Angry Octopus that does a good job describing the feeling of anger taking over and teaches kids a relaxation technique. I find the expression of anger in the book and the way it shows that the angry actions were not productive to be more helpful than the actual relaxation technique with my kids, but that is enough that it was worth it for us.

[hakeber]

We do deep breaths, counting to ten, then verbalizing emotions.  We found trying to communicate through anger just too frustrating and really it is hard for me to be coherent when I am really angry, and I have a vocabulary well beyond his to pull from so it makes sense he would lose it and get even more freaked out (as he does).  We started taking ten deep breaths and then trying to talk about 6 months ago and it has REALLY helped to get his temper under control and help the oxygen get back into his brain so he can find the words he need to verbalize his frustration.  Sometimes he walks away and seeks out his own space for a while.  Sometimes he writes his feelings in a letter (this is horrible to say but they are the cutest dang things ever because afterall he is 5 and he started doing this around 4.5 or so and it's just so adorable.  It's hard not to laugh at the end results and he has handed you a letter that says "MAhmI, PLEz sToP BeYg MuD End LIsIn TWo Mee.  I Wat ChiKiN EnD cHiPs FOuR DeNneR!  PLEEZ!" 

I think if your LO can begin to write it is an excellent outlet (so long as you can control yourself from laughing at them when they hand it to you like they are delivering the ten commandments to your door.)

We also do scream therapy into our couch cushions which almost invariably leads to uncontrollable giggles as we try to out do one another.

I also think distraction can work well depending on the level or the mood...this is tricky because it can set DS off, but sometimes, if I catch it just before the point where it becomes connected to his sense of pride and personhood, I can defuse by offering a fun activity together and he suddenly forget what he was angry about.

[MJoKirk]

I am subbing to get some more idea, and remember to come back!

[NellieKatz]

Lately when my DS (7) is angry, I've been using the ideas presented by Haim Ginott in his various books, and it helps defuse the situation and my son's anger doesn't escalate. The basic idea is acknowledge what you see and understand, like

Parent: You look really mad.
Child: Yes, I AM! YOU made me mad!!!

Parent: You're angry about something I did.

Child: Yes, I wanted to watch more TV, not do my homework.

Parent: You were having fun watching TV and homework isn't as much fun?

Child: Homework is boring. Maybe I can watch the TV again after my homework is done?

Parent: Sure.

====

This is opposed to how I would have handled it before, which is some sort of sermonizing or lecturing, or solving it for him or something. He wouldn't feel heard and it would just escalate. Maybe something like "You need to do your homework. Everyone has to do work sometimes. We can't play all the time" or "You just need to listen to me."  But by not judging, and just hearing the child....the anger can dissipate naturally. So I'd look at what happens when the child gets angry. Is he shut down or lectured? Or is he really heard.

I found that when my son is angry or frustrated in a way that makes me feel rattled, I would often try and solve his problem or make suggestions. I heard his outburst as a request for help. This, of course, would just make him even more furious, but he couldn't articulate why. The Ginott books are really helpful with this. He really helps us to see the effect that our reactions have on our kids.

I know this isn't exactly what you were asking....you wanted to know how to teach the child to handle or express the anger better, but I am going at it from a different angle.....the one that says that getting angry is not always a bad thing, and if he is treated with respect I think the anger is less likely to blow up and get crazy and loud. Another book that helped was "How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk" or something like that. These have really really helped us, and angry outbursts had been a problem for us much more frequently before I started to implement some of these ideas that I learned.

[GuildJenn]

Originally Posted by NellieKatz 

I know this isn't exactly what you were asking....you wanted to know how to teach the child to handle or express the anger better, but I am going at it from a different angle.....the one that says that getting angry is not always a bad thing, and if he is treated with respect I think the anger is less likely to blow up and get crazy and loud. Another book that helped was "How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk" or something like that. These have really really helped us, and angry outbursts had been a problem for us much more frequently before I started to implement some of these ideas that I learned.

We use this book too and it can help de-escalate at certain levels/stages of anger.

My son is 5 and has started being more physical in his anger (again; he did when he was a tot too as most do).  However at this age we pretty much stop everything at that point to set boundaries and help him learn to do other things, like use his words, jump up and down, etc. We also allow the phrase "I need some space right now," which I find helps a lot. Like if he's upset about something, he has permission to walk away for a few minutes which helps us all de-escalate (except the times he does, like in a parking lot ). For example this morning he wanted to eat breakfast outside, and it's cold, and he was about to pitch a fit and instead he went in his room - and I let his eggs get cold and didn't insist he sit at the table right away. He came back and apparently cold eggs don't bother him at all.

We don't allow hitting or trashing of things at all, even if it means physically intervening. He also takes martial arts at school which I think does help with discipline overall. We also encourage identification of other negative feelings - frustration, disappointment and so on.

We do have a punching bag in the basement that helped him a lot when he had a deep source of rage (he had a VERY emergency appendectomy last winter and a post-op infection, so a lot of violation of body integrity, a lot of pain and fear).  He would go down and pound on it for 10 minutes at a time. I know some people think that escalates the anger, and I suppose it's possible it did but at the time my gut instinct really was that having something to pound BEFORE he lost it at some other minor body thing like brushing teeth did help a lot.

[sewchris2642]

Along with taking deep breaths, removing from the source of anger, verbalizing and validating emotions (both theirs and mine), I also use hyperbole/exaggeration which really works for Dylan.  And I get really quiet when I need my kids to listen to me when they are yelling at me.  It doesn't help if when they are mad and yelling at me for  me to out shout them and talk over their emotions.  But by lowering my voice, they have to calm down to hear me.  If I stay calm, then at least one person is in control and they can then calm down to get back into self-control.

[limboland la la]

We've started doing the hug yourself and deep breaths with our 2 year and 2 month year old.  When she feels angry I'll repeat her feelings and then ask her what we do when we're angry. And she answers "Hug, hug." So then she hugs herself and takes some deep breaths.  And then I hug her. So, I try to give her a tool on how to handle the emotions. Whenever she sees me or her father irritated she'll say "Hug! Hug! Hug!" So, I stop whatever conversation (* argument) give myself a hug and breathe. And what do you know, it's helping me out too. Good luck!

[greenbeanmama]

Originally Posted by MJoKirk 

I am subbing to get some more idea, and remember to come back!

Same here!

[Dancerchic1981]

When DD1 was younger, she had a lot of anger issues. Especially when DD2 came around. Over the years, we've tried many different things. What has worked when they were younger and their vocab was still pretty limited I would help them verbalize. If they were clearly angry, I would say ''(child's name) is angry''. It was like i was validating their feelings.

Now, at the age of 8 and 5, i expect them to verbalize how they feel. If they throw something out of anger, i tell them i will give them one chance. If they pick it up and then verbalize their anger, they don't get in trouble. If they don't pick it up, they are sent to their room to scream into their pillow until they are ready to verbalize in a way i can understand and help.

We try not to make anger a big deal here. It is just like any other emotion and deserves no special attention. We don't put on a show with it.

[jake&zaxmom]

I've been playing this for my boys lately even though it is intended for much younger kids.

http://pbskids.org/rogers/songLyricsWhatDoYouDo.html

I love the message that self control is the child's power over the situation and that just because you've begun something "wrong" or started to do something that you shouldn't, that you can always stop and get it back to good.

[Petie1104]

I can't remember specifically where I read this but here goes.....

There was a study that had a bunch of college kids put into two groups.  They had a really rude person that made fun of them (the kids didn't know what was going on) and when they went into a room, 1/2 were given a pillow to punch for 5 minutes, and half were just made to sit there with some magazines.  The 1/2 that were punching the pillows were still angry after 10 minutes, whereas the 1/2 that were allowed to sit for that time were calm and feeling better.  So, this study showed that it is better to teach reflection, breathing, writing, or other methods but that teaching to hit a pillow only lengthened the amount of time they were angry.

Some things we've done, since that study doesn't make it any easier....

Make mad faces (we start this at about 12 mo. or so I think) encourage them to make their mad face, and you make your funniest mad face and make a game out of it.

Validate their feelings "I know you're angry.  I get angry too when it rains and I can't go outside.  Hey, maybe we could........"

Give choices "So, I know you don't want to use the green fork, so do you want the red fork or the blue fork?"

Teach words, "Honey, are you mad? are you angry? are you sad? etc etc"  Give them the words to express their feelings and then show approval when they do.  "Honey, I understand you are angry, can you explain why you are angry?"

For older children, "Take a walk and cool down".  Literally that is what we say, and we mean it literally.  Even if it's just around the house, they need to take a walk away from whatever is bothering them.

Also for olders give them a journal and have them write out their feelings, but make sure they KNOW that this is SACRED you will NOT be looking in it.  This also works for pre-readers if you get them a plain pad of paper and decorate the outside, they can draw their feelings.

Give them an MP3 or play the radio on music they can dance to, happy fun stuff.  It's awful hard to stay mad listening to "don't worry, be happy"  The opposite also works, for some reason it helps dd to hear "Bad Day" when she's having one.  I guess she relates to the song so it makes her feel better.

Those are our main methods, I'm sure there's more depending on each situation, but these are the ones I can think of right off the top of my head.