Good morning!

Here is what over 2,000 parents said about anger in a recent poll at the University of Michigan:

• Around two-thirds of parents feel uncertain about how to help their child manage their anger.

• Over half of parents say they probably set a bad example for their kids when they became angry.

When you think about those numbers, where do you find yourself? It’s worth acknowledging that we don’t always know how to handle our child’s anger and aren’t always happy with how we handle it ourselves.

There is no doubt that our kids often take their cues from us when they are trying to figure out how to react to situations. Our kids might copy our good habits and also our bad ones.

For example, when our daughter, Lucy, was in preschool, she would take a deep breath and slowly breathe out her nose when frustrated or angry. This was a behavior that she copied from my wife, Krista, who also recalls a time when Lucy hit her in anger.

Krista responded by telling Lucy it was okay to be angry, but not okay to hit, and asked Lucy to show how angry she was by doing an “angry dance.”

Lucy balled up her fists, screwed up her face, and stamped her feet viciously. Then, after about a minute of this, she brightened and announced, “Now I’m going to do a happy dance!”

Is the solution much easier than we think?

When I started thinking about solutions for managing our anger and our child’s anger, I had to laugh. They’re the same.

Keep in mind that anger is a normal human emotion. Anger itself is neither good nor bad. It’s just that there are healthy and unhealthy expressions of that emotion. And it’s common to struggle with anger.

If our kids are going to copy our good and bad habits, then we can just practice the same habits we use with our kids. We’ll want to figure out our proactive strategies as well as our reactive ones.

Examples of proactive approaches to reducing how easily anger is triggered include:

• Ensuring good sleep

• Getting enough physical activity

• Avoiding overscheduling

• Pursuing professional help for excessive anxiety, sadness, anger, or substance use

Examples of reactive strategies for responding to anger are:

• Naming the emotion and finding an acceptable way of expressing it

• Switching to activities that invite a lower energy level, such as reading, listening to calm music, or going for a walk

• Practicing some deep breathing for a few minutes

• Taking a short break from other people

The thread that ties together your approach to helping your child with their anger and managing your own is to show compassion. Nobody is perfect, and learning healthy expressions of anger takes practice.

As you get better at expressing anger in a healthy way, don’t be surprised if your kids do, too!

Warmest regards,

Len

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