When Your Child is Seeing Red

Ever been so mad that you “saw red”? As an adult, you have learned the skills to cope with and control your anger. While you try to be a good example for your child, you can't be with him or her every hour of every day. And children are bombarded with images from televisions, games and movies that aren't sending the good messages about anger control. While you can't shield them from these images, you can teach them appropriate ways to manager their actions when they're is seeing red.

Five Easy Steps to Anger Management

Although your child's life seems carefree from your point of view, in fact s/he has a lot of things to be angry about, particularly the lack of control over many decisions. Is it any wonder that frustration grows into outright anger? To help them deal with these strong feelings, show them healthy ways to control anger.

Step one―Stop

Get away from other people who may be the cause of focus of the anger. Take some deep breaths to help calm down.

Step two―Figure out what is causing the anger

If it is too hard to verbalize, let them draw a picture.

Step three―Think about what they want to do

Simply talking about it can help diffuse the anger. If they want to lash out at someone, ask them to think about how that will make the other person feel.

Step four―Redirect the energy

Have a pillow fight. Give him/her a punch doll to take out his anger on. Go for a walk around the neighborhood or to the park. Work off his anger with physical activity.

Step five―Reward control

Give them a hug, tell them how proud you are and spend some special time with them. Congratulations for good behavior will work better than scolding for being mad. Such negative actions can serve to escalate his anger and loss of control.

Make sure your child understands that anger is a valid emotion that everyone experience. The control learned as a child will carry over into adulthood.

photo by J Miller