Are You Raising One of the Next Generation of Hoodlums: Appropriate Responses to Anger

Parents: please be aware that your child will learn how to respond to anger by observing how you respond to your anger. When you become angry, how do you react? Do you become cynical and overreact? Do you yell? Do you hit your children? Think about how your parents responded to their anger when you were a child. Perhaps you have a hard time dealing with anger because your parents didn’t know how to deal appropriately with it.

We all become angry at times. Anger is a natural human emotion, one of the numerous responses we can express when we are frustrated and prevented from doing something we want to do. Anger is a universal emotion and there is nothing wrong with feeling angry. But it becomes a problem when we deal with feelings of anger in ineffective and/or destructive ways.

Childhood experiences and your inborn temperament will influence the way parents express anger and teach their children to manage anger. It is imperative to recognize anger as a signal, an indication that a goal or outcome is being blocked and that frustration is building. How you, the parent, learn to respond to this signal will determine ultimately whether you manage your anger or whether your anger manages you. The same holds true for your child.

In response to anger, some blame others for the source of their problem. Is this you? If you do this, your child will probably do this. Some use anger as fuel to drive and justify what they view as a necessary response. Is this you? Again, if this is you, this will also be your child’s way of dealing with his or her anger. Recall that anger response is learned behavior, and since our children learn by observing what we do, it is a natural expectation that your child will model your anger responses.

Anger is best viewed as a signal to take action rather than a sign of unfair treatment. Since anger begins as an emotion of varying intensity, it can be experienced as a mild irritation or as an unbearable frustration. Children can be both impulsive and inflexible, and at the extreme end, anger often leads to fury and rage. As with other emotions, anger is accompanied by physical and biological changes in the body: increase in heart rate and blood pressure. Levels of some hormones increase, such as adrenaline. This leads to other physical changes in the body.

Some researchers have suggested that aggression in response to anger may be instinctual. They believe that anger may be a natural adaptive response to stress, allowing people to respond to a perceived threat and defend themselves. Consequently, a certain amount of anger is likely necessary for survival, even in our complex, civilized society. But when defense occurs in the absence of true provocation, anger becomes a liability.

Some children are born more likely to be irritable and easily angered, and these symptoms are usually observed at an early age. Other children behave this way because they live in households in which the models to whom they are exposed are models of poor anger management. Some children experience both risks, leading to a significant probability that they will struggle to learn to manage anger effectively.

Your primary goal as a parent is to help your child express anger in an assertive rather than an aggressive manner. This means he is neither to be pushy or demanding, but learn to be a respectful advocate for himself. This also means that he learns to cope with, not simply suppress his anger. There are steps parents can take to help their children deal more comfortably, effectively and adaptively with anger, and the first step is to serve as appropriate models for your own children.

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