How to control children's anger: 6 useful keys

The human feelings They allow us to adapt to different situations. Therefore, all emotions are necessary, including negative ones, such as sadness or sadness. gonna.

Anger is something that plays a very important role in life, since it is an emotion that motivates us to defend ourselves from attacks or situations that we consider unfair. However, uncontrolled anger can be very harmful, both for us and for those around us.

This basic emotion is especially delicate when it occurs in children, who have not yet acquired all the social rules that make them regulate this feeling. Therefore, emotional education focused on anger can become an important tool.

Let's see some strategies to deal with and control anger in children., promoting their emotional intelligence and providing them with tools so that they can develop as future adapted adults.

Anger: a basic emotion

If human beings did not feel anger, many of the unjust situations such as slavery, oppression towards ethnic minorities and the denial of women's rights would not have been overcome. Anger allows us to move towards what we consider to be wrong and show our discontent, either by arguing about it or fighting to prevent it from happening again.

The factors that cause this emotion to occur in children can be very varied.. They could be classified into two types: the internal ones, which would be the child's own, for example, being upset because he has not taken good grades, and external ones, which would be due to a factor beyond his control, such as if he had fallen and hurt himself or if a classmate had hurt him. glued.

The bad thing about this emotion is not the fact that it occurs in children. It is something natural and adaptive that allows us to face a situation that we consider unfair or in which we have been harmed. However, although it is a basic emotion, it has repercussions on a physiological level, such as changes in blood pressure and heart rate. Furthermore, given the child's still premature socialization and culturalization, he does not know how to behave and may react by attacking and insulting other people.

How to control children's anger?

Humans, by instinct, tend to react aggressively, however, doing so in each of the situations that generate anger in us is neither healthy nor adaptive.

It can cause problems with friends, at school or with one's own family, being a very harmful feeling for the correct development of the child, having repercussions on the emotional sphere. This is why it is so important to teach children how to manage this emotion..

1. Develop empathy

It involves making the child understand that other people also have feelings, and try to get them to put themselves in each other's shoes.

To encourage the empathic thinking, situations can be presented to the child, such as that a classmate has been hit or that someone has hurt, and ask him how he thinks he would feel in that situation, what he thinks he could do whoever angry...

2. Recognize and express anger

When the child is immersed in an angry episode, it is more difficult to negotiate with him. He doesn't listen to us, especially if he is making a lot of noise slamming doors, hitting us, or even breaking dishes.

The best thing to do in these cases is to wait for the storm to subside. Talk to him when he has calmed down to make him see what he has done or why he got angry. You understand things better when you are calmer.

As we have already said, the instinctive thing is to act aggressively when one gets angry. This usually leads to violent actions that can end up being very destructive.

A very interesting option is to give the child tools that do the opposite, that are constructive and promote creativity. Some of them are painting, drawing or writing on paper how you feel and, while doing them, saying what what you are painting or writing means.

3. Breathing exercises

Although it may seem cliché, Taking a deep breath before doing something you might regret is a good way to reduce anger., although it is not a panacea.

While doing this, you can tell them to think of a beautiful place, such as a forest, a field with flowers, or a store full of candy.

These pleasant images, along with deep breathing, help you relax and think more clearly.

4. Self-control techniques

Children must learn that any feeling is valid, but not any behavior. They must see that they have the right to feel offended when someone does something to them that they did not like, but they have the obligation to respond to it in a non-violent way.

Kicking, hitting, grabbing hair, spitting and insulting are behaviors that we cannot tolerate in children, and we must reproach them for doing it. If they have done it several times and in a very violent way, punishment is a necessary measure.

But the best way to avoid having to punish them is to teach them techniques to use when they are getting angry.

One of the techniques that can be used to start promoting self control It is the traffic light technique. With some paper cards you make a traffic light, which has three colored lights: one green, one red and one yellow.

With the red light we tell you that you should stop doing what you are doing, because you are not controlling your anger. With yellow, we indicate that he should meditate on what he is doing and why he feels that way. With the green one we tell him to express what he feels.

5. Release tensions

Children who do physically demanding activities, such as soccer or swimming, come home relaxed. Sport produces endorphins that contribute to a general state of relaxation and well-being.

In addition, it acts as a self-control technique, since it allows them to handle anger in a more calm way.

Additionally, soccer and other sports coaches often have techniques for teaching children to behave safely. sportsmanship in the game, without getting angry because they received a yellow card or a teammate elbowed them accidental.

The coaches' techniques are not only useful on the playing field, they also have a positive impact in other places for the child such as home or school.

6. Do not react to their anger

Whether a child behaves well or misbehaves does not depend solely on his personality.. Education is a key factor for a child to become an adapted person as an adult.

The first educational environment in which the child is immersed is her own home. Parents who do not know how to respond appropriately to their child's episodes of anger are like throwing gasoline on a chimney.

If parents are yelled at, scolded very loudly, or, in the most serious and dysfunctional cases, physically assault their own children, we should not expect them to magically behave well.

If the child does not behave as he should, parents should not pay attention to him. On many occasions they seek to be the center of attention for any reason. If you listen to them, they win and continue behaving badly knowing that by doing so they get what they want.

Although it may seem like they have a lot of energy, children end up getting tired and if they see that what they are doing is not achieving what they want, they will most likely stop doing it.

When should you look for a professional?

Normally, children learn how to manage anger, whether due to the discipline offered by parents and teachers or by receiving the influences of the culture with which they have contact.

However, sometimes there are children who do not acquire sufficient self-control, even though everything possible has been done so that the child can act appropriately in the face of an angry episode.

Before parents blame themselves for thinking that they are not good educators or believing that their child has no solution, there is a need to go to a mental health professional, to make sure that the problem is not really due to a behavioral or developmental disorder.

The professional will analyze what triggers the child's anger, whether it is due to family factors or whether the child suffers from some type of problem that makes it difficult for him to control himself.

In addition to having the therapeutic tools to promote correct development in the child, it is also will take into account the age in which you are, in order to apply the most appropriate treatment according to your stage evolutionary.

Bibliographic references:

• Harris, W., Schoenfeld, C. D., Gwynne, P. W., Weissler, A. M. (1964) Circulatory and mood responses to fear and anger. The Physiologist, 7, 155.
• Di Giuseppe, R.; Raymond Chip Tafrate, Understanding Anger Disorders Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 133-159.