Grow Up Happy -- Manage Anger
Just like other emotions, anger is neither entirely bad nor entirely good. It's simply a part of life. How your child reacts to the emotion is what determines positive or negative outcomes.
Research suggests that a child's anger-management habits tend to stay with him into adulthood. That's why it's so important to help your child develop control over his anger at an early age.
Show him how to recognize and understand feelings of anger and work with him on ways to respond to it in a direct, nonaggressive way. When he gets angry, help him identify what went wrong, or why he's feeling what he feels. Keep in mind that he may need your help to label his feelings. Explain that anger can be triggered by frustration, embarrassment, loneliness, isolation, anxiety, and hurt.
Let him know that responding to these emotions with aggression or hostility can lead to physical violence and can contribute to major health problems down the road, such as an increased risk of heart disease.
Without a productive outlet, anger can build up over time and become a source of not only emotional problems, such as depression, but also physical problems, such as headaches and stomach ailments.
By developing healthy responses to his anger, your child is less likely to suffer the serious physical, social, and emotional problems later on in life that are associated with inappropriate responses to anger.
RealAge Projection: Learning how to take care of their emotional health and well-being will benefit kids indefinitely. If they keep it up in adulthood, at 50 they could look and feel closer to 34.
