5 Ways to Teach Your Child Anger Management Skills

Nowadays, patience is something that many people lack. In today’s fast paced world, everyone has little tolerance for delays or mistakes; people just end up blowing their cap off. In other words, people happen to find it difficult to manage their anger or short temperedness. This greatly affects their relationships and contributes to an unhealthy lifestyle. In depth research has revealed that for most people, their short temperedness is rooted into their childhood. In other words, children display short temperedness and this manifest as they grow. Their lack of anger control can be attributed towards lack of parental intervention in the matter while they are young.
In their young age, children are exposed to various societal and environmental influences. They tend to learn from these experiences and are unaware of the long-term consequences that these possess. What’s more? They do not know when to express anger and how to properly express the emotion, thus generalizing it unconsciously. This results in them developing a short-tempered personality. Anger itself is not a wrong emotion but it is important to have restraints and proper know how/when to properly express it. Teaching your child anger management skills during their young age prepares them for learning about assertiveness as they grow older. This article is here to tell you about

5 Ways to Teach Your Child Anger Management Skills

1. Let the child know about feelings

It is important that you teach your child the meaning of each feeling. Young children may find it difficult to understand their feelings and use words to properly express it. With regard to anger, this ignorance may result in them lashing out and breaking things. It is important that parents take time to educate to their child what emotion they are going through and why it is wrong; that it is not okay to be physical while expressing anger.

2. Set a positive example

It is important that parents set a positive example to their parents. Children learn the most from observing their parents’ behavior. In short, children tend to reflect how their parents behave. Hence parents need to be very vigilant and careful with how they behave in front of their children.

3. Avoid exposing them to violent media

The next greatest source of children learning aggressive behavior is from violent media. It is important that parents censor what their children watch. They should make sure that the media content that their children are watching has minimal to zero violence; as this influences child to role model based on the aggressive media.

4. Teach workable anger management techniques

Teach your child anger management techniques like: counting paired with breathing exercise, drinking water, teaching them to express their emotions verbally, screaming into a pillow and closed eyes meditation.

5. Implement consequences for aggressive behavior

It is important that parents emphasize and implement consequences for aggressive behavior of their children. Parents should not resort to hitting their children but they need to use strategies such as grounding, temporary removal of privileges, sending children to bed early, doing household chores to repay for damage, and the like.

Anger Management activities for your child

Here are the top 5 anger management activities that you can teach your child so as to help them manage anger in a healthy manner.

Fun Workout

Exercising is a great way for your child to let loose of all the stress and aggression that might have built up inside of them. The kinds of exercise that they could do include performing wall push ups or jumping jacks or some stretches. This way your child can directly channel all of that aggressive energy into productive physical activity. Thus ironically, stress and aggression ends up benefiting the body physically as it indirectly motivates the child to exercise.

Colorful Stress Ball

Another very famous way to manage anger is by squeezing a stress ball. Squeezing a stress ball is probably the most famous and widely followed technique in all age groups. What’s more? It is handy to carry around and it offers healthy distraction.  Let the child pick a stress ball of their favorite color.

Talk It Out

The best way to resolve anger within a child instead of mere distraction or sublimation is to talk about it. Talking about what irks them can help them release all the anger inside of them in the form of words. Thus they can communicate their feelings, explain the cause for anger, and in the end experience catharsis.

Pop Bubble Wrap

Just like a stress ball, another handy and portable anger management tool is the bubble wrap. Most people like popping bubble wrap and it is very distracting. Give your child a small sheet of bubble wrap so that they can pop it when they experience anger. It’s both fun and a healthy means of managing anger.

Deep Breathing

Finally, if you feel that you wish to teach anger management to an older child, who may think that bubble wraps and squeeze balls are ‘uncool’; then deep breathing is the best anger management technique for them. It also allows them to effectively conceal their anger and regulate their breathing, so that they do not hyperventilate.

Sometimes, it is difficult for the child to express their feelings and they end up showing anger. Be compassionate to your child and be a pillar of their support when the need the most.