8 Ways to Deal with Children’s Anger

Every parent wishes that their child becomes an independent, smart, kind, and understanding human. They learn every skill out there and they are never dependent on anyone else. People like them and say great things about them.

Sometimes anger comes in the way of achieving this greatness. Just like some elders get more easily angered than others, some kids have a shorter temperament than others. They lose their calm over small things. They cry, yell, and break things too.

As a parent, what should you do in such a situation? How to handle a child with anger issues, and how to deal with a child with anger issues? Read along to find the answer to these questions and learn some ways to help kids handle anger.

Why Parents Should Teach Their Child About Emotions?

When something goes against a child’s wishes, he feels upset but is not able to understand the emotion or express it in words. This lack of understanding and expression translates into a “fit of anger,” “a tantrum,” “uncontrollable crying” or something else to get attention.

Therefore, parents must teach their kids the names of emotions so that they understand and vocalise what they are feeling. Start with short words that describe common emotions such as “mad” or “upset”, “happy,” and “sad.” Use these words in sentences like “mama is feeling sad because her mom is unwell,” or “it seems that you are mad because your friend broke your toy.”

When your kids learn these words, you can go on to teach them bigger words like “scared,” “angry,” “lonely,” and “excited.”

How to Recognize the Signs of Anger Issues in Teens?

Parents of teenagers complain that something has gotten into their “sweet obedient child.” They have gone from being understanding and docile to always being grumpy and agitated.

Sometimes the change in attitude and behaviour is sudden, but that is not the common case. Often, the change is too gradual for parents to notice. It is when the signs of anger issues become too obvious that the parents pay heed to the matter.

Therefore, helping kids with anger requires parents to notice even the slight changes in their kids’ behavior at the earliest. See if they get easily agitated. Notice if they have a sour mood most of the time. If you observe these things, it is time for you to learn how to teach children to control anger.

8 Ways to Help Kids Control Anger

The following are the activities Kids should do often to manage their anger:

1. Do Some Coloring
2. Read a Book
3. Deep Breaths
4. Go for a Quick Walk
5. Do Counting from 0 to 100
6. Take an Online Anger Management Course
7. Help Your Kids Spot Signs of Anger
8. Talk to the Person they Trust

1 – Do Some Coloring

Coloring is relaxing. Today, coloring books are made for adults as well so that they can color and destress and relax their minds.

So, of course, coloring would work on a child to get their minds diverted. It helps divert their attention from feeling negative emotions to doing something productive. Colors also help in uplifting the mood.

2 – Read a Book

Reading does wonders. If you need any other benefit to get your child involved in reading, it is this: reading helps you take your mind from unwanted thoughts and emotions. It is a great way to change your mood from being sour and frustrated to being excited and happy.

If you notice your child is playing games that involve a lot of violence, which is affecting them, restrict the timing of playing that game. Give them books of genres that they will enjoy. If your child is too young, read to and with them. It is never too early to start.

3 – Deep Breaths

Deep breathing and meditation have several benefits. Apart from its health benefits, it helps with angry outbursts. If you notice an angry outburst in a child, ask them to just take ten deep breaths. This is one of the best ways to manage anger if you are wondering how to help a child with anger issues.

Ask them to inhale deeply from their nose, count to 5 and then exhale through their mouths. It is the easiest way to help an angry child calm down.

4 – Go for a Quick Walk

You don’t need a reason to take a quick stroll with your child. But it gets all the more important if they are having a fit of anger. If you are wondering how to handle an angry aggressive child: here is the answer: tell them you are going to get something from the store and take them out.

Being out and about has a drastic positive impact on our mood. Kids especially get so excited that they even forget what they were upset about.

If you have a teenage child, you can ask them to go for a run on their own. Maybe tell them that you urgently need an errand done, if they are willing to help.

5 – Do Counting from 0 to 100

How to help an angry child calm down? The easiest way it to tell them to count from 0 to 100. This literally takes zero time and effort. Yet, it is so effective that it is one of our most recommended ways how to help a child with anger. Anyone can do this, regardless of their age.

So, even if your kid is 5 or 15, tell them to start counting loudly from 0 to 100. This helps to divert attention. Once you are done counting, you realize that your anger is not as intense as it was before.

6 – Take an Online Anger Management Course

Sometimes, a stranger can help your child more than you can. Sometimes, your child is more willing to listen to a stranger than to you. All is well when this stranger is an expert who has designed online anger management courses especially for teenagers.

All those teenagers who get riled up in a matter of seconds should take this course. If you feel you get uncontrollably angry over petty things and want to learn how to express your anger appropriately, you may sign up for this course. Depending on your convenience, you can either opt for an 8-hour course, a 12-hour course, or the 52-hour course.

7 – Help Your Kids Spot Signs of Anger

National Health Service suggests that you should talk to your kid and tell them that it is normal to feel angry. Anger is an emotion you feel similar to how being happy is an emotion you feel.

However, this emotion becomes negative if it gets out of hand, and you are not able to control your behavior under its influence.

Therefore, teach your kids to spot signs of anger. These could be:

• Your heart beats faster
• Your jaw clench
• Your muscles tense
• You feel a fire rising in your stomach.

When a child learns to recognize these spots, they are able to understand faster that they are getting riled up. Hence, they can be more efficient in finding distractions to calm themselves down. This tip can even help in anger management for 5-year-olds or even younger kids.

8 – Talk to the Person they Trust

Sometimes, kids’ anger is justified. They may feel angry because they feel disrespected, they might have seen their parents or other family members arguing with each other, they are having problems maintaining friendships, and they are struggling with anything. It could be anything. It is just that we do not realize that children have their sets of issues.

So, communicate to them that whenever they feel stuck in such a situation where they feel agitated, stressed, and angry, they should choose to talk to an elder-any person they trust. It could be their parent, an elder sibling, or an aunt. And it is the elder’s responsibility to control anger with kids, understand the child’s issue, come down to their level of maturity, and then suggest a piece of advice.

Often, kids do not even need solutions. Just letting them vent and motivating them does more than needed. Once they have let out the frustration from their system, they automatically feel better.

Key Takeaways

Kids often throw tantrums and yell when they are angry because they do not know how to express their anger in any other way. As adults and as parents, we often struggle with how to deal with children’s anger.

In this article, we shared a number of practical tips and techniques that could help your child to understand and manage anger better. Some of these tips are to take deep breaths, do coloring, read, count loudly from 0 to 100, take a walk outside, or talk to a trusted elder.

Teenagers who are undergoing puberty and a lot of hormonal changes and are struggling with keeping their calm can also take online anger management courses designed while keeping their needs in mind.

Hopefully, these tips will help you deal with your child’s anger issues and keep them calm.