Anger is one of the basic human emotions. All emotions have a function, we have them for something. They are innate, universal, and adaptive. Emotions allow us to survive, avoid dangers and know how to react. The problem comes when it gets out of hand, and instead of being adaptive it turns against us. Children have little management with their emotions, that is why the elderly must help children manage anger.
Anger in children
Anger is one of the most explosive emotions we have. On this article you can see the functions of the 6 basic emotions. We feel anger when we cannot get what we want, we feel attacked or we see / live an unfair situation. Surely you have felt it, a ball of fury that rises through your body like a pressure cooker and that is difficult to control. Anger sweeps wherever it goes, it makes us explode in the worst way if we do not know how to control it and it can create many problems for us.
Children also feel this emotion. When they feel threatened or see obstacles to getting what they want they get frustrated and anger comes. When they want a toy and we don't buy it, when they want to go to the park but we don't have time ... Not all children express it in the same way: some throw tantrums, others get angry and remain silent, others yell, insult ...
Children already have problems not knowing how to express well in words what they feel, which makes it even more difficult for them to manage emotionally. How much before we teach them emotional intelligence, that is, let's teach them to manage their emotions the better it will be for your emotional maturation.
Tips to Help Children Manage Anger
To manage any emotion there are some common steps that will help us both to learn as adults and to teach children to manage anger. Now the study of emotional intelligence is taken into account but in our time that did not happen so many parents do not know how to do it. It is a good time to learn with your children the best way to control anger.
- Keep calm. This is a tip for parents. In an outburst of anger from your child, you may lose your patience and make things worse. But you must breatheRemember that he is a child who does not know how to handle his emotions and is simply reacting. You are an adult, who can express yourself well and handle your emotions. If you see that the situation is over you, you can leave for a moment to breathe and enter when you are calmer.
- Recognize the emotion. The first step in managing an emotion is knowing how to recognize it. Feel the effects it does on our body and detect it. When it is happening it is almost impossible to do it. Our body is activated to respond to a threat, not to listen to reasoning. After the outburst of anger has passed, talk with him about the cause of his anger and how he has felt. He / she will not know how to name it so you will have to help him / her, he / she may not even know why. ("It is normal to feel sad when your favorite toy breaks", "I understand that you are angry because you wanted to go to the park"). Show him that feeling like this is not bad and what his role is.
- Avoid destructive actions. We must put limits children, especially if they are destructive actions. We must avoid at all costs that he channels his anger in aggressive ways towards his friends, family and teachers. As parents we must teach our children that although emotion is normal to feel, You can never hurt others or break things.
- Help him find solutions. The ideal is to help you find alternatives so that the next times you know how to channel your anger in a more constructive way. If he has the urge to break things or hit someone, give him something to do where he can vent those impulses like sports or drawing.
- Develop self-control strategies. Children are very visual so we can use visual anger level scales to help them express themselves. The traffic light technique is very suitable for anger management. You can see an article about this technique here. There are also breathing exercises and the bottle of calm that you can read here.
Because remember ... anger is a necessary emotion that you have to know how to manage so that it does not get out of hand.