Anger Management In Toddlers: How To Handle It?

Anger is a powerful and natural emotion. It is completely normal and acceptable for children to feel angry from time to time. Uncontrolled anger can lead to aggression. Aggression first begins in the toddler years. This is when children are naturally more aggressive than any other age group. If you do not pay attention to aggression then it can lead to academic problems, peer rejections, and poor mental health in adulthood.

Anger management in toddler: Why is your child angry?

As your toddler grows up, he will be able to understand the environment around him better. He will also understand the difference between right and wrong. Anger often relates to a child’s misunderstood feelings, false accusations, unfairly treatment or insecurity. When your toddler is angry, he may find something incorrect.

While anger is a normal human emotion, it can be a challenge to tackle it skillfully while keeping your calm. Your child may turn aggressive or violent. He may resort to vent out his anger on others, which can get difficult to handle later if you do not check it now.

Your toddler’s inability to talk may be one reason of his aggression. Sometimes, temper tantrums can be a result of hunger, even though your toddler may not realize it. 

Anger management in toddlers: Signs of anger

It is your responsibility as a parent to look for various signs of displeasure that your toddler commonly shows. Here are a few common signs you can watch out for:

• There will be a range of emotions on your toddler’s face like anger, sadness, discomfort, loneliness or confusion.

• Your child may suddenly start speaking very fast, often not making any sense.

• He refuses to do what he is told to do and shows stubborn behavior.

• He may start complaining about everything and gets into a fight with others with no reason.

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Anger management in toddlers: How to teach your toddler?

Anger can quickly turn into disrespect, aggression and temper tantrums if your child does not know how to deal with his emotions. It can be difficult for you to handle your angry toddler, especially if you are outside and amidst people. You have to make sure you keep your cool and do not resort to shouting or scolding. So it is very important that your child needs to learn how to control his anger and emotions. Anger management helps a child develop better ways to cope with angry feelings.

1. Make your child understand the difference between an angry feeling and an aggressive behavior. Teach your child to label his feelings, so he can verbalize feelings of anger, frustration and disappointment. 

2. The best way to teach your child how to deal with anger is by showing him how you deal with your emotions when you feel angry. If he sees you cope with your feelings in a healthy and gentle way, he’ll pick up on that too. You are a role model for your child, so it is important to show him how you handle angry feelings.

3. Many kids display anger because they simply don’t know how to express their frustration any other way. Kicking, screaming, hitting, or throwing things may be the only way they know how to show their feelings. Asking the kid to ‘Tell me how you feel’ is unrealistic, because he may not have learned the words to tell you how he feels. To help him express his anger, create a feeling word poster together saying, "Let's think of all the words we could use that tell others we're really angry," then list his ideas.

4. You can control his anger by teaching him exercises which are helpful to control the anger like taking deep breaths, spending time with family, walking outdoors, martial arts, yoga or other form of exercise.

5. Speak to your child softly while looking in his eyes.  Keep telling him that “It is okay” and “I love you” in a soft voice. If he allows you then give him a warm hug. Ask him questions like what do you want, and what happened. It will help your toddler communicate better and you will know what is the problem that is making him upset.

6. Explain to your child that we all have little signs that warn us when we are getting angry. We should listen to them because they can help us stay out of trouble. Help your child recognize what warning signs, he may have that tells him, he is starting to get upset such as, "I talk faster, my cheeks get flushed, I start biting my hands, etc,. Once he is aware of them, start pointing them out to him whenever he first starts getting frustrated. "Looks like you're starting to get out of control" or "You are biting your hands. Do you feel yourself starting to get angry?" This way he will be able to calm himself down in the initial phase.

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