It can be difficult dealing with an angry child. As a parent, it’s not just dealing with the anger, but also providing a way to change the behavior. If your child’s anger is disrupting their education or is detrimental to home life, it may be time to try different things to help curb the behavior.
Is it a simple attitude adjustment, or something bigger
Here are some ways you can help your child if the anger is out of control.
Understand normal anger
Children experience anger sometimes. It’s a natural reaction to things that are:
However, while every child may display anger occasionally, it may become too much if it turns to aggression. Once it becomes aggressive, it’s dangerous. If it’s turned dangerous, it impacts all aspects of their lives, including their studies. Normal anger should be infrequent, and parents should be able to calm them relatively easily. If outbursts are more common, the anger they display may not be considered normal for their developmental age.
Use positive reinforcement
Children naturally get attention when upset and angry. Instead, when you catch them doing good behavior, give attention for the good behavior. Ignore them when their angry to attempt to curb their angry outbursts. It shows the child they don’t need to throw a tantrum just to get attention. Good behavior gets them more attention, teaching them to be calm, even when annoyed, frustrated, or confused.
Instead of the only option when angry is to become difficult and aggressive, you might find providing different outlets works well. There are a lot of creative ways to help children deal with and express anger. Alternatives to anger can be physical, such as enrolling them in martial arts classes like karate or taking them to the park to get excess energy out on a playground. Emotionally calming activities like learning to play an instrument or creating art projects can also help.
See a behavioral specialist
A behavioral specialist can help to pinpoint why the child is angry and why they feel lashing out is the best option. A behavioral specialist should have a master’s in applied behavior analysis so they have the abilities to reach out to your child and help them. If you’ve tried other techniques to calm them but are seeing no changes in their behavior, a specialist can help.
It’s important to mention not all techniques to help calm an angry child will work on every kid. You will have to learn what helps, and what doesn’t, by simple trial and error. If your child’s anger issues lead to violence, you may need to have him or her go to the hospital and be seen by a psychiatric nurse and other such professionals. Hopefully, the above tips will help prevent needing to take such a measure.
Author bio: Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer and mother of two from Sacramento, CA. She enjoys kayaking and reading books by the lake.