Managing Your Child’s Anger: Triggers And Solutions For Coping

Has your child thrown a tantrum lately, thrown
toys across the room or hit a sibling? Odds are
that s/he has!

Children’s anger can be exacerbating for parents.
After all, many adults still struggle with healthy
expression of anger, so dealing with a child’s
anger can be doubly frustrating.

When your child gets angry, take a step back and
try to figure out what may have triggered the angry
outburst? Many times, believe it or not, there may
be a good explanation.

Listed below are nine common triggers for a child’s
anger outbursts and possible solutions to help your
child calm down. The solutions may also provide
ways to prevent the next meltdown.

1. Time of Day- Many children express more anger
between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m., right when you get home
from work and want to make dinner. Document what
time of day is most troubling for your child.

Parenting Advice: Take 15 minutes to sit down with
your child and talk over his/her day before you begin
making dinner. Give your child something relaxing to
do while you make dinner. A healthy snack may also
tide them over until dinner.

2. Abrupt Changes- Children crave routine and structure.
They don’t like curve balls.

Parenting Advice: At the start of the day, outline the
day’s
activities. Five to ten minutes before a change of activity

will take place, tell the child what the change will be.
Ie.“In five minutes, you’ll need to put the toys away and
go take a bath.” When it’s time to leave you can take them
by the hand to get to the next activity.

3.Too much stimulation- Children may get over-stimulated
from too many activities in one day or too much of one
activity at a time.

Parenting Advice: Try not to over-schedule. Plan down-time
in every day. Avoid certain activities if your child is
sensitive to stimulation.

4.Overtired- Most children need 10-12 hours of sleep a day
to function best.

Parenting Advice: Make sure your child is getting enough
sleep. Develop a bedtime routine to prepare the child for bed.
Allow for quiet times, even if your child doesn’t sleep.

5.Hurt Feelings

Parenting Advice: Help the child identify the feelings and
talk with you or another person about them. Teach the child
to ask for what they need from other people.

6.Jealous Feelings

Parenting Advice: Acknowledge that feeling jealous sometimes
is perfectly normal and show your understanding. Try to
focus on the strengths your child has and never compare
siblings. Try to spend some time alone every day (or week)
with each child.

7.Child Doesn’t Get Own Way

Parenting Advice: Pick your battles. If it’s important to
you (or to your child’s safety), stick to your guns. Apply
a consequence if your child doesn’t comply and follow
through.

You can also allow the child two choices s/he can select
from. This allows the child to feel some sense of control.
If it’s not that important to you, let the child have what
they want sometimes. You’re demonstrating to the child
that s/he is a responsible person whom you can trust.

Not Sharing- This is a skill that takes years to master.
Hang in there!

Parenting Advice: Have your child put his/her favorite toy
somewhere that others can’t reach, thereby avoiding
arguments. Assigning an equal amount of time that each
child can play with a toy can help, too. Giving the toy
a time out so that neither child can play with it if they
argue, can also work.

9.Too much energy

Parenting Advice: Allow your child time each day to run and
jump and let off steam in a positive way.

Remember that expressing anger is healthy and normal, even
for children. You can’t shield them from hurt feelings, but
you can help by finding predictable patterns in your child’s
outbursts and making adjustments that will cause fewer
outbursts.