10 Things To Do When You Are Angry With Your Child

I attended a very interesting talk by a child psychologist about things parents should do and not when they are angry with a child; most parents get angry when children do not behave. It is best that parents realize that getting angry more often only created immunity for anger in your children. Parents need to be role model for children and not yell and shout always when they are angry with our children.

He enumerated 10 things you should do when angry with your child.

 

1) Set rules and remind yourself of the rules when angry: Set limits and teach your child about the do’s and don’ts. You would be more effective by reminding your child when the limits are crossed without yelling or shouting at him/her. 

 

2) Master the art of keeping calm and happy: Being calm and happy can be best done by taking deep breaths, laughing and finding ways to change your mood with music, dance or counting alphabets in the reverse order. It also pays to force oneself to laugh and throw the tension away. 

3) Analyze and learn from your anger: It is futile to yell and hit; analyze the reason for your getting angry. It could also be due to reasons like having had a bad day with your boss or fighting with one’s spouse. 

4) Abstain from expressing your anger: Expressing anger on your child only show that you are right and he/she is wrong, with hurt leading to a rift in the relationship. It is best to find the reason for anger and work on it calmly.

5) Take your own time to recover: Tell your child that you cannot talk then and need time to recover; this would send across the message to him/her that the behavior should not be repeated.  

6) Avoid spanking: Spanking would have a negative impact on the child’s development stage that could encourage your child to deadly violence in future; find other ways like deep breathing or counting to 10 to overcome the tendency. 

7) Take time to act on your anger: Analyze the reason for the anger and tell your child that he/she has done wrong. Then fix a time to discuss it later; this would help keep yelling and screaming at bay. 

8) Keep up the threat you make to your child: Keeping a threat like not allowing your child to watch TV for a week conveys the message that you mean what you say and your authority cannot be undermined.

9) Abstain from using abusive words and swearing: Be a role model to your child by not using abusive words or swearing; use simple and calculated words that convey the message that they should abstain from doing the wrong and undesirable. 

10) Select your approach: It depends purely on you as a parent whether to want to put your relationship with your child at a stake by getting angry unnecessarily or you want to make your child understand by calmly explaining to him/her.

Finally you would set the right example for your child to not react when angry, but control the emotion called anger and express it constructively.  

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