Why Does My Child or Teen Seem So Angry?

One of the most common reasons for parents to bring their child or teen to see me is because of strong emotional reactions they have, often related to not getting their own way. There are a couple of times in a child’s development where this occurs more frequently. Around the age of seven, and when a child enters their teenage years. For children around the age of seven, their developing brain can lead to stronger emotional reactions as they start to truly understand the concept of “fair”. For adolescents, the emotional reactions are often a combination of a strong drive for independence in decision making, neurological changes, and hormonal changes. Even though many of these stronger emotional reactions are developmentally “normal”, they can be frustrating for parents, and scary for children.

There are a few good ways parents can help their children navigate these strong emotional responses.

Model Appropriate Anger Management

Adults who are calm are able to help children calm. Adults who are emotionally escalated are unable to help children calm. Model taking a few deep breaths before you speak if you are angry. Talk out loud about your emotions when your children are around. Take responsibility for your behaviour when you over-react. Apologize to your children- try something like: “I’m sorry that I yelled earlier when I was mad. I should have taken some time to calm down first.”

Teach Anger as a Secondary Emotion

Anger is almost always caused by other factors. If you can figure out the other factors, you can address or even prevent the anger. In therapy, I often spend time teaching children and parents about the anger iceberg.

Teach the Difference Between Feelings and Behaviours

This is a technique from cognitive behavioural therapy, something I offer when working with children. Children need to learn to name their feelings- naming them can actually make them a little more manageable as well as suggest a way to manage them. We also need children to know that just feeling an emotion doesn’t mean you need to behave in a certain way

Have Rules for Anger

Different families have different tolerances for outward expressions of anger, yelling, slamming doors etc. Decide on what behaviours are and are not acceptable in your household and stick to them. In general, we want to teach children to be respectful of other people. So yelling at people might be ok, but it also might not be. Name calling and physical aggression should definitely be unacceptable.

Teach Coping Skills

Teaching children ways to cope with big emotions is a great way to help them regulate and manage them. Deep breathing exercises are an excellent way, as is a short amount of time alone to calm down. In general, they need to practice the coping skills when they are calm, so they are better able to use them later. for older children, journaling is an excellent way to build coping skills. As is positive self-talk. For younger kids, colouring or drawing is a good calming strategy.

Have Firm Boundaries

Offering positive consequences when they follow the rules you have set and negative consequences when they break rules can be very effective. Positive consequences should include praise, spending extra time with your child doing an activity they enjoy, or even using a reward system. Effective negative consequences can include time out, loss of privileges like screen time or internet. and restitution such as making up to the person hurt, or doing extra chores.

Read Books About Anger

A couple of great books that teach children about anger are:

The Angry Octopus- a story that teaches deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation as a coping strategy.

Train Your Anger Dragon- a cute book that helps children manage their anger.

Try Not to Talk to Children When They are Angry

Children, just like adults need time to cool off before we try to teach them anything. Talking to children while they are angry often prevents them from calming down, and may make them more emotional.

In Closing

It’s very normal for children and teens to struggle to manage their anger. With parent guidance, their skills to manage strong emotions should improve over time. If your child is struggling to get their emotions under control, reach out and I’ll see if I can help.