A child's anger - Part 1

It is widely accepted and a part of our culture that children have absolutely no right to be angry where an adult is concerned. It is alright if they are angry with other kids and even then, they have to be careful it is not someone older. The adult's say is final and children learn to deal with it with reluctant respect and acceptance.

"Are you mad?" the mother thundered, bewildered that her young son could be so rude. She shook uncontrollably, unable to articulate what she felt. She felt a failure at that moment.

She had failed to bring up her son properly and this was the result - an insolent and rude child.

While this may be a tad irrational if this was an isolated incident, the mother reasoned that this was beginning to be a frequent occurrence and so required urgent attention. Her first response was to be authoritative - asking young Tobe how dare he speak like that. When Tobe did not respond, she resorted to the delayed threat stance - "Wait till your father comes home, you will see yourself." Tobe stuck his lips out, unrepentant and Mother knew there was trouble. The child was not showing any remorse and Mother was losing control.

Many parents will know what this feels like and many of us will admit to resorting to physical punishment to curb a child's rude display.

Understanding anger

Anger is an emotion that is felt by everybody; it is a response to an underlying feeling. In our daily lives, we get angry when we are cut off in traffic, lose an important document, are frustrated by superiors at work, amongst other reasons. It is not wrong to feel angry; what could be wrong is the way anger is handled. Even as adults, we sometimes fail to handle anger in the appropriate manner, mostly because we have not learnt how to. If we then as role models have failed to exhibit a maturity in anger management, how can the children around us learn?

A child copies everything s/he sees and it is no surprise when s/he shows similar behaviour to the parents. On the other hand, a child may do the exact opposite of what s/he sees a role model doing.

In every situation, a child should be allowed to express anger and taught how to handle the emotion. When we tell a child not to behave in that way, the trouble with that approach is the child then bottles up the emotion, thinking that feeling angry is wrong. Emotion must be expressed and if children are under the pressure to bottle up anger, then it becomes expressed another way - passive-aggressive behaviour. Examples of this are bed-wetting, dawdling when responding to parents, making low grades even when capable of doing better. These are all examples of intentional inefficiency.

Dealing with your child's anger

A child responds with anger because s/he feels frustrated at being unable to fully understand the underlying emotion which could be loneliness, embarrassment, hurt and isolation.

Here are tips on how to deal with a child's anger:

Praise when the going is good: When I tell my 6 year old, "Thank you for being quiet while I was on the phone", I find she is more understanding of my position and feels good about herself and it is easier for her to differentiate when she has been good from when she has been bad. If, however, a child is constantly reprimanded and is hardly praised, it should come as no surprise when the child behaves in a passive-aggressive manner.

Give attention and interest to the child's activities: These days, we have allowed games and TV to take the place of communication in the home. This alienates the child from the parents and fosters an empty relationship that makes the child unresponsive to and detached from her parents, so that when she feels anger, she is unable to express it correctly.

Use NO appropriately: Sometimes, we parents operate on auto-pilot saying ‘no' to everything. Boundaries should be drawn. "When we visit your cousin Lilian, and it is time to come back home, if you throw a tantrum, you will not be allowed to visit again." The child will understand that s/he can visit ONLY IF s/he is well-behaved while there and when it is time to leave.

Some parents are also guilty of saying ‘yes' all the time. Beware that this does not come back to bite you on the day that ‘Yes' is not appropriate or possible and you are unable to explain why. It is possible that the child will be confused and resort to an angry outburst of tears.

Learning to manage anger is a skill for the present as well as for the future and it takes time to master. Do not give up so soon and label a child. Give it time and you will be rewarded.

To be concluded in Part 2.