How To Manage Your Child Angry Outburst

Picture this: imagine you are at home and your child is playing a game. Suddenly, something happens that makes them upset (like their Lego tower falling or losing in a game), and they have a huge anger outburst. They begin to shout and completely lose their cool.

Or perhaps, you have a smaller child that throws tantrums every time they do not get what they want or things do not go their way.

And despite your best efforts to tell them to calm down or not to act that way, they continue having outbursts of anger.

If you are in public or have someone over, you might even feel mortified and embarrassed that your child is acting that way.

So, what can you do?

Here are 7 Tips that have worked for me and my kids and I hope they will work for you too.

1. Stay Calm

Before you can help them, first you must be calm to not be swept in anger too. This will help you be in a good frame of mind. Sometimes, this is going to be challenging (and even difficult), and that’s ok, just make sure to do your best to stay calm.

It’s kinda like the safety instructions you receive aboard a plane. You have to put your oxygen mask on first, before you can help your child or the person next to you.

Stay level headed and figure out what is the best way to handle the current outburst.

2. Help them calm down

Your next step is to help them calm down. When they are very agitated, it might not be easy for them to calm down completely. This is why you have to help them get down the figurative ladder, one step at a time.

Here are 4 things you can try:

• Breathing exercises – Have your child inhale deeply, hold it, and then release it. Do this a few times. These exercises help clear the mind and calm you down.
• Shake it off! – This may seem a little silly, but it’s great at releasing the pent-up energy that is brewing inside of them. Have your child shake their arms and hands. Do this for a few seconds or a minute (whatever feels right for them).
• Scream into a pillow – Sometimes we just need to shout and let it out. Kids are no different. Just grab a pillow and let them scream into it.
• Rip paper – Do you have any scrap paper around? Give it to them to rip apart. This will also help them release anger and frustration in a healthy and safe way.

3. Talk it through

Now that they have calmed down, talk it through. Ask them what happened that made them so angry. It might be something small or it might be a big problem that they are having and are just frustrated with the whole thing.

Whatever the case may be, you can help them navigate through the situation and resolve it. Make sure to listen to them and let them express themselves. That way, you’ll be able to better grasp the situation.

4. Teach them the tools to regulate anger

There is nothing wrong in helping them, however, you need to teach them how to control their emotions and calm down on their own. This is called Self-Regulation.

 The Child Mind Institute defines Self-Regulation as “ the ability to manage your emotions and behavior in accordance with the demands of the situation. It includes being able to resist highly emotional reactions to upsetting stimuli, to calm yourself down when you get upset, to adjust to a change in expectations, and to handle frustration without an outburst. It is a set of skills that enables children, as they mature, to direct their own behavior towards a goal, despite the unpredictability of the world and our own feelings. ”

As you can see, it is very important for a child to be able to self-regulate. This is a skill they are going to need for the rest of their lives; Keep in mind that you are not always going to be around to help them, nor should it be that way.

You can teach them different exercises and encourage them to try those when they are feeling angry.

If you have a smaller child, they will probably not be able to do any of this on their own yet. They are going to need your help. But as your child gets older, it’s good to encourage and help them achieve regulation on their own.

5. Don’t tell them to suppress it

When I was growing up, we were taught to repress our feelings of anger, no matter the reason. We were always expected not to show our frustrations and many times, not even to voice it or talk about it.

Even though this wasn’t meant to cause harm, it sent a negative message. It said that it was wrong to feel anger.

But here’s the thing, anger is a normal and natural emotion. It protects and helps us stand up for ourselves when we feel that we have been wronged or something is annoying us. It is a much better approach to teach our children healthy ways to manage it, because in the long run, it will do more harm than good if they are forced to bury it down and suppress it.

6. Encourage them to work on self-regulation

Even though anger is a normal emotion, it can turn bad if we just let it run wild. Therefore, you should always continue to encourage your child to work on it. Never shaming them for losing their cool in a particular situation but making sure that their reactions are proportionate to the situation as well as balanced.

 This is not always going to be easy, as it requires ongoing work. It might be a great idea to share with them your own stories of your childhood and how you have learned to handle situations that upset you. Reassure them that they are not bad kids just because they had an outburst or felt very angry at something that happened. That this is just a part of life and that we all had to learn how to react to uncomfortable things. Tell them that, even as adults, we always still continue to work on it ourselves.

7. Do not be embarrassed

Yeah, I know this is definitely one of those things that are easier said than done. If an outburst or tantrum happens while you are in a public place or in front of family and/or friends, it can be a little embarrassing. You might feel judged by people around you while your child is acting out. But you know what? Don’t allow those thoughts in your head. No matter how great any child is, at some point or another, they are bound to have a meltdown of some sort (in private or in public).

So, don’t sweat it. Your child is just being a child.

This part of parenting is definitely not easy work. Some parents might find themselves with a little bit of a bigger challenge than others. However, regardless of the level of difficulty you might experience, just keep at it. You will eventually reap the fruits of your labor.

Always remember that you are raising little humans that are trying to make sense of the whole world, a world that you have had many years to understand and learn to navigate through. They just need some time to catch up. So, just be patient and hang in there.

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