Managing Your Anger and Helping Your Child to Do the Same
We all get angry sometimes. You might be stuck in traffic, maybe you miss a promotion at work, or your child misbehaves. It’s natural for parents and children to get stressed out, frustrated or just plain mad at someone or something from time to time…
Find out what triggers the anger.
The first step in handling anger is to understand why you get angry in the first place. Pay attention to the causes of your anger.
Triggers for adults can include a child’s misbehaviour, frustrating events like a traffic jam, stress caused by work.
Triggers for children bare often similar traits and can include conflict with another child, not getting their way, rejection by peers, being bullied, being punished or scolded, ad sickness or fatigue.
What really matters is how we choose to handle anger!
Try one of these tips to calm down before immediately to reacting to anger. Teach your children these tips and ask them to use one when they get angry:
Take a time-out
Count to 10
Take 5 slow, deep breath
Express the anger in a healthy calm way.
Anger is natural, if you try to ignore it, suppress it or cover it up, it can lead to more problems. There are ways to effectively express anger. AFTER your or your child calms down, try to:
Talk about the anger. Speak with another adult about your feeing’s. Help your child does the same by asking him questions.
Write or draw about the anger. This is sometimes easier than talking out loud, especially for children.
Exercise and get plenty of sleep. Be sure your children do the same. A healthy body is often able to better handle emotional stress. Get outside to take a walk.
Parents: You Model Your Anger Management!
Once you work on your own anger management skills, take time to explain them (and show them!) to your children, from time to time but you CAN learn to manage your anger, which will help your your anger, which will help your children develop the valuable ability to do the same.
