How to help my angry child

It hurts so deeply when we hear our beloved child saying: -“I HATE YOU”-. At such a young age, our children may come up to us with painful and scary phrases like: “I don’t want you to be my mom”, “I wish you were dead”, and some may even come up with: -“I want to kill you”-. And as Parents, we tend to feel so disappointed, terrified, and so very sad, and angry too. It is heartbreaking to hear those words when you are doing your best to become a better parent every day. We feel our children should either show some gratitude or, at least, a little respect and kindness for us.

The plain truth is that it is going to take many years for our children to realize and praise our efforts at Parenting. You are doing the right thing, and you are doing your best, but your children are still very far away from appreciating it because children don’t see the world through your grown up eyes. 

Your Top One response to those disturbing phrases should start by acknowledging you need to stay calm.

These outbursts of rage among children are merely a signal from an underlying cause. They don’t metabolize their emotions as we do. Those explosions may be caused by sadness, frustration, or anxiety. Children who seem angry and defiant often have severe, and unrecognized, anxiety. When children have anxiety, especially if they are hiding it, they may have a hard time coping with situations that cause the distress, and they may lash out when someone puts pressure on them that they can't handle. Furthermore, children struggle to understand what they are feeling and don’t know how to cope with it. Their outbursts are a clear call for your help.

After conducting a thorough research on the subject and consulting many authors and specialists, these four steps came up as the Most Positive Approach to help children manage their anger:

1) As soon as your child gets “possessed” by rage and anger, take a very deep breath and don’t react. Don’t say a word until you are in full control of yourself.

2) Use your body language, posture, volume, and tone of your voice to show your child you are very calmed: “I will leave the room now. Please let me know when you calm down”. Don’t raise your voice, don’t take privileges away from your children and don’t punish them. Remember you are trying them how to stay in control of your mind and body, and to express and communicate their feelings in an assertive and positive way. 

3) Wait until your child has calmed down completely, even if you must wait an hour until his or her breathing gets back to normal. As soon as your child enters a “peaceful” state engage into “Connection” time: Use 20 minutes of exclusive play time to connect with him or her and try to see the world through your child’s eyes. Let your child show you what is bothering him or her. 

Children express themselves nicely through play or simple words when you give them the time and confidence they need. Instead of asking questions, while playing, you can tell your child simple real stories about yourself just to inspire them to express their feelings: - “Yesterday I was very mad at my boss because he forgot my birthday. It made me very sad too” -.

4) When you feel angry or sad or anxious, let your child know how you feel and model the behavior to manage those emotions: practice belly-breathing together, teach them how to punch a cushion or go out and take a walk together to get some fresh air. When you have calmed down, use simple words to tell your children, in the shortest possible phrase, what made you upset.

I read this tweet today: “Love is not what you feel. Love is what you do”. It inspired me to write this post for you. Very often, we all need to remind ourselves: loving our children is accepting and supporting them unconditionally, for them to know they can always trust us, to nurture their self-confidence by showing them we will love them no matter what. And when we feel wounded by their “mean words”, we need to keep in mind they are cues intended to let us know our children are in pain and need our help. 

It is our responsibility to show our children how to achieve a peaceful state of mind, stay calmed and successfully manage their emotions, but we can not teach that with words because this is taught by example.  

If you try this approach for a month and your child still comes up with violent phrases like: “I want to kill you” or “I wish you were dead”, my advice is for you to ask for some professional help from a Psychologist.  

How to help my child express his or her feelings

You may have noticed your child is a little reluctant to talk about his or her feelings, and this may be especially common among children who were born with this “generous-and-kind” nature. I am talking about children like my daughter, who always says "please" and "thank you", helps around the house, and acts concerned about other people's feelings and looks just a little shy. 

Perhaps you have realized too, that your child tends to please others even at the expense of postponing his or her own needs and, you are a worried because you have seen other preschoolers “taking advantage” of your child’s kindness. 

I call this “Need of Assertiveness”. That is, the ability to stick up for their rights and feelings, with self-confidence.

Good news: There are little changes you can do that will bring great results within days, while the effect will last for a lifetime. 

Assertiveness is a huge asset. If your child wasn’t born with it, you still can help him or she has it. In the classroom, assertiveness puts children at an advantage because it makes them feel comfortable commanding the teacher's attention, raising their hand if they know the answer, and asking for extra help if they are lost. It also helps them have an easier time making friends since they won't hesitate to say: "Hey, can I play too?"

These are my 7 Tips. They work in tandem: they help your child talk about his or her feelings and, they help you nurture your child’s assertiveness:

1) Share your own feelings with your child. Please DO turn OFF your phone

When we are having dinner, I play this little game I made up for my child. I call it One-by-One. I say: “Me first: I will tell you one thing I like about my job and one thing I don’t like about it. Then, it is your turn: you tell me one thing you like about today and one thing you don’t like about it”. Be honest when you talk about your feelings. For example: “I liked a new trick I learn on the computer, I felt happy. I didn’t like my boss forgot to say hello to me. I felt sad and mad”.  

2) Be ready to help when your child shares his or her feelings

Your child needs to feel you are on his or her side to help. So, you must do something with the information your child is sharing with you. Sometimes, children will need only some advice, a rewarding pat on their back or your arms to cuddle in. But there will be other times in which your ACTION will be needed. For example: When we were playing One-by-One, my daughter said: “I liked playing in the snow with my friends at Pre-K. I don’t like a girl who took away the phone from me. I was playing”. I was thinking about what to say to her, and then she added: “Mommy, I don’t know how to defend myself. Can you teach me?”. I replied right away: “Of course I will”.

In case you’re wondering, I spent hours awake at night thinking about how to help her. The morning was just a few hours away and I honestly had no idea on how to teach my child how to defend herself. The answers I found on the web were just not good enough. So, I ended up making a specially tailored self-defense plan training for my daughter who, by the way, does not speak English.   

3) Make it a Top Priority for your family

In our case, Language is a barrier that needs to be tackled right away. So, for the time being, I just threw away my expectations and plans for her to be a Bilingual Child. We are practicing self-defense phrases at home and talking mostly in English to help her. For us, her need to learn to defend herself, her need for assertiveness is more important that our need for her to be bilingual. So, please revise your Top Priorities Checklist and adjust accordingly.

4) Become a Role Model on Assertiveness

“How to stick up for your rights” or “How to defend yourself” is something we learn at home, from imitating our parents, caregivers and/or older brothers and sisters. What are you teaching your child by example? How do you defend yourself? Watch your body language, the tone and volume of your voice, your words, your “attitude” and your overall reaction when someone tries to take advantage of your own kindness. Your child will imitate “your style”. I felt very bad when I realized I was “submissive”. But I decided to work on it, to evolve, for my child. And it is working. Now I can’t help feeling overly proud of both us.  

5) Leverage on Role Playing

You are responsible for giving your child “resources” to defend him or herself. Practice at home with your child, taking turns. First, your child tries to take the remote control away from you. Teach-through-play. Use simple phrases and make the moves your child can copy to defend himself from others like: “Hey, it is my turn to use this. When I am done playing, I’ll give it you” or “I am not giving it to you because you haven’t said Please”. Then, let your child have the remote control and you try to take it away from him or her. Help your child develop his or her own “memorized-until-spontaneous reactions”, depending on your child’s motor skills, strengths, and weaknesses as well.

6) Show you child the Power of Awareness

“If you share your feelings with me, I will help you. If you don't tell me, how can I know if you need any help?”

7) Get the Teacher involved

Depending on their age, children may need their teachers’ intervention. In Hope’s case, it was more than necessary because of her age and the language barrier. While Hope develops her ability to talk in English, she lets her know her Teacher who is bothering her just by pointing her finger.

Please share with me your thoughts. What else can we do to nurture our child's assertiveness and help them talk about their feelings with confidence?