As a good and responsible parent, you try to instill good values in your child. Doing this would also help the child grow up to be a good, responsible and well-mannered adult. You may also have to teach your child how to deal with different emotions that they may be experiencing for the first time and their need to understand why they have such feelings. One of these emotions is anger and you must be able to teach your child how to deal with it as soon as you feel that signs are showing on them.

Try to explain to your child that anger is a natural emotion and that everyone else feels it. The thing to emphasize on them is on how to control the anger when they start to feel it. Try to explain it to the level that your child can understand you.

The best way to teach your child to deal with anger is by example. Start with you and how you handle anger. If your child sees you shouting, yelling and throwing things around every time you are angry, your child, no matter how young would be able to follow through from your actions. So, always remember to stay calm and talk in a soft voice. Do not overreact or raise your voice when you are angry.

Try to help your child identify anger signs. Knowing and dealing with these things would help control anger. If your child tells you that something in school made them upset so they feel angry, let them talk about it. Ask the child to share their feelings and help them recognize those feelings so that you can give advices and teach your child to do them each time they feel angry.

One of the best techniques to teach your child on how to deal with anger is to teach them how to breathe slowly to a count of ten. When you see your child is about to get angry remind them of the breathing technique so that the anger may somehow subside. It takes practice and doing so would help.

Encourage your child to express anger in words by saying it. This way, the emotion can been let out and then you can help your child by calmly listening to what your child has to say. Give them time to cool down and then both of you can talk about solutions to deal with the problem.

Even if you let your child get angry let them know the limits to their anger. Explain to them never to combine anger with anything physical to harm anyone. Let them know that there are other ways to handle anger; that is by leaving the room, doing deep breathing and counting and taking a walk outside.

It would be good if you help encourage good behavior in your child. Try to give praises or rewards and reinforce the positive traits of your child. If your child learns to deal with anger by adopting your methods, acknowledge this by telling them so or giving them small tokens they can appreciate. Helping them to accept anger as an emotion and teaching them how to deal with it assures your child of a good life ahead of them.

James Madhok

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