Anger Management In Teens: How Parents Can Help To Overcome It?

Anger. It can be a powerful emotion. For teens, it can often be hard to control anger and understand why they are feeling angry in the first place.

In this blog post, we will explore some anger management techniques for teens that can help them deal with their anger in a healthy way. We’ll dive deep and dissect what anger management for teens really is.

What Anger Management Issues Look Like in Teens?

Teens, like any other age group, can experience anger over many situations. Psychologists encourage healthy anger which is caused by valid concerns, for example, a teacher grading you badly as punishment for something you have not done.

Feeling angry and frustrated can be a necessary tool to express emotions and lighten the burden that you may be feeling. Anger can also help you try to channel your energy to find a logical solution to your problem.

However, some teenagers are susceptible to extreme anger which can be toxic and unhealthy. Their rage gets triggered even if the issue they are facing is trivial, and they resort to aggressive behaviors. This not only harms their own mental health but also worries the people close to them and can have a negative impact on their relationships.

Anger management for teens requires parents to understand their children’s behaviors and be able to identify when they might need help, support, and guidance.

Some ways in which teens tend to behave when they are suffering from anger management issues are through violence, verbal abuse, self-harm, excessive arguing, emotional outbursts, shouting, mood swings, and irritability.

Parents must also realize that their children are usually going through something which is why they have difficulty keeping their temper in check.

What are the Causes of Teenage Anger?

Unhealthy anger can manifest itself in teenagers due to multiple reasons. If you feel like your child is exhibiting one or multiple of the behaviors that are associated with anger management issues you must try to get to the root cause of their problem.

Here are some causes of teenage anger:

• Unresolved trauma
• Anxiety and depression
• Substance abuse
• Family conflict
• Peer pressure or being bullied at school
• Problems with friends
• Imbalance of hormones such as estrogen and testosterone
• Mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder, Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD)

What Problems Anger Management Issues Can Lead to Teens?

If your teen is having anger management issues, it can lead to a number of problems. They may have difficulty maintaining friendships, struggle in school, and get into legal trouble.

Additionally, teens with anger management issues are at an increased risk for developing mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.

 Here are some effects of teenage anger issues:

• Poor relationships with family and friends
• Poor concentration and memory
• Sleeplessness
• Feelings of guilt
• Eating disorders
• Headaches and dizziness
• Nausea

6 Ways Parents Can Help Teenagers to Reduce Their Anger

1. Develop a Parent-Child Relationship
2. Encourage Your Child to Get Enough Sleep
3. Encourage Your Child to Think Before Taking an Action
4. Encourage Them to Understand the Situation First
5. Encourage Your Child to Adopt Assertiveness
6. Be Your Child’s Role Model

Here are some anger management techniques for parents through which they can help their teenage children control their temper and avoid aggressive behavior:

1. Develop a Parent-Child Relationship

Parents must bridge the communication gap between themselves and their children. They must be willing to listen to their child’s problems and be understanding of what they are going through. This does not mean that they should push their child to talk when he/she doesn’t want to.

Instead, they must reassure them that they will be available to offer their help and support when their child is emotionally ready. Being pushy can lead teenagers to further close themselves off and this can make it difficult for parents to understand the problem.

2. Encourage Your Child to Get Enough Sleep

Sleep plays a very important role in restoring peace of mind. Oftentimes, teenagers are not able to get enough sleep either due to the pressure to meet deadlines or staying out till late. They also suffer from sleeplessness due to anxiety.

Lack of sleep does not allow their minds to function clearly and rationally and can result in mood swings and anger issues. Thus, an adequate amount of sleep is essential for anger management.

3. Encourage Your Child to Think Before Taking an Action

Teenagers often tend to make impulsive decisions that can go wrong and trigger their anger and frustration. Therefore, a necessary anger management skill that teens should acquire is logical thinking before taking an action.

Carefully weighing the pros and cons of an action allows teenagers to reconsider what they might initially have thought of as a good decision and hence avoid negative consequences. Thinking rationally will also allow them to better control their temper.

4. Encourage Them to Understand the Situation First

As mentioned above, teenagers are often quick to take action rather than give them proper thought and understand the situation first. It is possible that once they take a more rational approach, they will realize that the matter that is upsetting them is in fact very trivial, can be dealt with easily, and is not worth getting so angry over. This will also help teens in reducing their anger.

5. Encourage Your Child to Adopt Assertiveness

Assertiveness rather than aggressiveness should be adopted by teenagers as a means of communicating. Being assertive would entail social interaction where he/she will be able to defend his/her point in an argument with confidence rather than resorting to verbally abusive behavior and violence. This will help in reducing anger.

6. Be Your Child’s Role Model

It is imperative for parents to realize that they must set a positive example for their teens from childhood and be their role models. From a young age, children pick up their parents’ habits and behaviors and make them a part of their personality.

For example, if they see their parents being violent and abusive they can adopt the same traits. Parents must adopt a positive behavior and try to manage their own anger so that their teenage kids are influenced by them and can start controlling their own temper.

Being their children’s role models is also important so that these teenagers feel comfortable enough to open up in front of their parents, knowing that their problems will be understood without judgment.

How to Identify your Teen Has Anger Problem?

It is extremely important for parents to be mindful of the behavior of their teens. They must be able to identify that their child is suffering from a condition that must be dealt with promptly rather than ignoring their symptoms as “just a phase”, immaturity, and “overreaction”. They must then seek methods of anger management for teens.

When teenagers suffer from anger management issues, they exhibit aggressive behavior and have a tendency of losing their temper even upon small matters.

As a parent, if you notice that your child is frequently getting into arguments, gets irritated often and on trivial matters, resorts to acts of violence such as throwing things around, or gets loud and verbally abusive, then you must seek to understand what they are going through and seek help.

Inability to comprehend the suffering of your child and not providing them with guidance and support can affect them both physically and mentally, compromise their future and affect your family life.

How to Help Teens in Overcoming Anger?

There are multiple ways in which parents can help their teens manage their anger. At home, they can work on improving their own relationship with their children and bridge communication gaps that may exist in order to encourage comfortable and open conversations where their children don’t hesitate to share their concerns with them.

Parents can also approach counselors and therapists who specialize in anger management for teens. These professionals can guide their children and help them better manage their anger through various exercises. With multiple resources now available via the internet, parents can also enroll their children in 12-hour teen anger management course online that is specially designed to help individuals learn how to control their anger.

Anger management classes are designed to teach people the tools and techniques they need to manage their anger effectively. More than 10000+ customers have already taken our anger management courses.