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

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

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

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

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

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

Parenting Advice: Take 15 minutes to sit down with nyour child and talk over his/her day before you begin nmaking dinner. Give your child something relaxing to ndo while you make dinner. A healthy snack may alson 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 nday’s nactivities. Five to ten minutes before a change of activity n nwill take place, tell the child what the change will be.
Ie.“In five minutes, you’ll need to put the toys away and ngo take a bath.” When it’s time to leave you can take them nby the hand to get to the next activity.

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

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

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

Parenting Advice: Make sure your child is getting enough nsleep. 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 ntalk with you or another person about them. Teach the child nto ask for what they need from other people.

6.Jealous Feelings

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

7.Child Doesn’t Get Own Way

Parenting Advice: Pick your battles. If it’s important to nyou (or to your child’s safety), stick to your guns. Apply na consequence if your child doesn’t comply and follow nthrough. n
You can also allow the child two choices s/he can select nfrom. This allows the child to feel some sense of control.
If it’s not that important to you, let the child have what nthey want sometimes. You’re demonstrating to the child nthat 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 nsomewhere that others can’t reach, thereby avoiding narguments. Assigning an equal amount of time that each nchild can play with a toy can help, too. Giving the toy na time out so that neither child can play with it if they nargue, can also work.

9.Too much energy

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

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