If your child is easily angered or frustrated, here are a few tips to help you handle your irritated youngster and help them stay calm and collected.
Keep Your Cool
Be in charge of your own emotions first. As a mother, I understand how difficult that is, especially when your child is involved. However, it’s crucial to learn how to do it.
When you react emotionally strongly to your child’s crises, things frequently get worse. In situations like this, how you respond determines how the rest of this critical moment will go. In other words, if you want to assist your youngster in calming down, you should maintain your own calmness.
You don’t want to adjust the home’s temperature based on how your youngster is acting. As a parent, you want to create a peaceful atmosphere by establishing a calm tone for the home. Following are some ideas to help you relax:
- Use Self-Talk to Calm Yourself Down
Here are some words and phrases to consider while you’re dealing with your angry child:
“THEY’RE GOING THROUGH ROUGH TIME, NOT GIVING ME ROUGH TIME”
“I HAVE TO SHARE MY CALMNESS WITH THEM, NOT TO JOIN THEIR NERVOUSNESS”
“I HAVE TO KEEP MY CALMNESS REGARDLESS OF HOW MY CHILD BEHAVES AND ACTS”
“EVERY FEELING IS OKAY. MY JOB IS TO ASSIST MY CHILD IN MANAGING THEM”
“I CAN MAINTAIN CALMNESS AND SET A POSITIVE EXAMPLE FOR MY CHILD”
- Breathe Deeply
Once you feel you’re about to lose your temper, make sure to take several deep breaths before taking any action. Yes, I’m aware that it may sound cliché, but it actually works. Whenever you are stressed, your body can shift into fight, flight or freeze mode, whereas in moments like these, you’ll definitely want to stay in rest mode. Hence, as soon as you breathe deeply, you signal your body to switch to rest mode. Thus, all you have to do is to expand your belly while inhaling, and contract it while exhaling.
- Make Use of Grounding Techniques
Sometimes, the best thing you can do in order to settle yourself down when you’re overwhelmed is to apply a grounding exercise. as an example, you can:
- Say the letters and numerals aloud (A-1, B-2, C-3, and so on)
- Use a stress ball
- Drink some ice-cold water
- Count by 6’s
Outride the Storm
- Keep Your Talk Minimal
When a child’s body is in fight, flight or freeze mode, it becomes much harder for them to acquire knowledge and perform tasks as well as when it is in rest mode. At this time, it’s better to keep your talk minimal since they become unable to absorb any information then. Your mission is to help them get through this hard moment. Keep your conversations with them brief and repetitive. Because they aren’t processing information as normally as they should, repeating it can help them hear it.
- Have Them Go to a Safe, Calm Area
Sometimes children resort to violent actions such as smashing objects, breaking toys, tearing books or even hitting themselves or those around them with anything their hands might touch just to express the strong emotions they are experiencing. If that applies to your child, it might be a good idea for you to create a place where kids can go to when they feel angry. However, make sure to remove anything that can be destroyed or that can cause injury or property damage out of that area. Create a secure area on each level of your home in case you have more than one.
In case you aren’t in the safe area while your kid is experiencing strong emotions, move potentially dangerous items out of the way and try your best to bring the kid there.
Consider making your child’s room a safe haven as well. That is, keep only safe items in it and remove harmful ones to another room where they can still have access to them.
Return these items only after the child becomes more able to control their emotions.
- Discuss, after the Storm Is Over
The storm will pass, and your youngster will eventually settle down. When it’s all over, take a moment to discuss what happened. Use some simple straightforward questions in your conversation with your child such as “What do you remember?”, “What greatly helped?”, ” What didn’t?”. This discussion does not have to take place immediately after the incident. It could happen later that night, perhaps before bed or even the following day.
In case your other children were involved, take a few moments to check in with them as well. Allow them to communicate their feelings and discuss what they could do the next time something similar occurs.
Discuss the situation with other adults in the house as well. It’s critical to try to agree on how to handle a child’s major emotions. Kids react differently to different people, so it’s important to start observing these patterns and what works for them.
Take Precautionary Measures
One of the most important things you can do is to teach your kids coping skills before situations get out of hand. The secret is to practice while they are calm and comfortable, rather than when they are upset.
- Discuss It
Begin by discussing what is causing them to be irritated or angry. Assist them in identifying those triggers so that you can both avoid them the next time. Is it a specific subject that irritates them? Are there any particular sounds or locations that irritate them? Or maybe they’re just hungry or thirsty?
- Where in Your Body Do You Feel It?
Children may not realize they are upset till after the storm has occurred. What you have to do is to help them recognize clues in their bodies that indicate frustration. By recognizing those physical clues, they become more able to start recognizing those feeling and take action by using a coping skill sooner.
- Recognize and Apply Coping Skills
Now that they are aware of what triggers them and how to spot those triggers, help your child to come up with safe and healthy strategies to deal with their strong emotions. Go over the coping skills checklist with your child and have them tick down the strategies that work for them, check off the ones that don’t, and circle the ones they wish to try.
Spend a few moments each week to have your kids practice a coping skill that they might use next time. For instance, if they want to use shapes for deep breathing or wall push-ups, make sure you train them before so they can get a sense of how it feels when they are calm and relaxed.
Using coping techniques to deal with strong emotions will not always be successful. Learning to control one’s rage is a continual process. With practice and patience, children will gradually improve. Make sure to praise them when they make safe and responsible decisions. When they don’t, keep working with them to figure out better methods to follow the next time.
It’s your turn now, leave a comment below telling us about the strategies you use with your angry child during study time. And never forget to share this post with your friends and family
