It's always hard to see a child when they are angry. It's hard to know what to
do. And I think there are many parents who just hope it will just go away or
somehow work itself out. But a person does actually need to learn how to calm
themselves down when they're angry. It's a skill. And if you never learn the skill,
then you end up feeling entitled to be angry. And that's a dangerous thing. By
the end of this video, you'll know exactly what to do to help your child
calm down when they're angry.
One time one of my foster daughters got really frustrated with me. She was
getting angry and I said, 'It seems like we're getting angry right now. We need to
get calm so that we can talk about it." And she just got more angry. And she's
like, "Why are you doing this to me? It's you that's making me angry." And I
said, "I can tell you want to talk about your anger. We need to talk about that.
But we've got to get calm first then we can talk about it." Because I have a rule
that I won't ever talk about a person's anger or the problem and help them solve
the problem until we're first at a place of calmness. So, she was convinced that it
was me that was making her angry. And then she said to me, "You know what? I just
have to get angry. You can't stop me from getting angry. if I don't get angry then
I'll just explode." Which is funny because she was exploding actually at that time
when she was talking to me. But she felt somehow that she had to that she was
entitled to get angry. Because she felt it had to come out. Well she was new at
our home and she hadn't learned all of her skills for self-government yet and
perfected them. One of the skills for self-government that she absolutely
needed to learn was how to give herself a no answer about that anger that she
felt like she was entitled to have. A person needs skills in order to conquer
some of their own negative behavior. Anger is a troubling behavior. And you
know what happens? The people that are really angry at first instead of
conquering it when they get older and more mature. They just pull the anger
deeper inside. And then they become passive-aggressive. Instead of full-on
aggressive. That's what people do if they don't know how to conquer their anger,
they don't have the skills they need. So, what skills do we need then? I already
mentioned that we need to know how to give ourselves a no answer. To accept a
no answer from a person you need to look at the person, keep a calm face voice and
body. Say okay or ask to disagree appropriately. And then drop the subject.
Well, what does that look like when you give yourself a no answer?
What you do is you recognize, "Okay, I'm feeling something. There's that trigger
that I've identified before." Because hopefully we made a plan. If you're going to
conquer anything about yourself, you have to make a plan first. So, then you would
say, "There's that trigger that I recognize within myself. Now, I'm going to
stop myself from following that trigger. And I'm going to ask myself what skill I
have that I could use right here?" So, if it's accepting a no answer which is one
of those four basic skills for self-government success then that means I'm
going to look at the situation, I'm going to keep a calm face voice and body and I'm
going to say, "Okay, this is a situation I can't change perhaps." And then I'm going
to drop this subject which means I'm not going to think about it anymore. If a
person learns the 4 basic self government skills which are following
instructions, accepting no answers, accepting consequences and disagreeing
appropriately, then those people are more prepared to stop themselves from being
angry. In fact, they don't even need to get angry in the first place. If they
know those skills, why would they point any emotion at another person? If you can
disagree appropriately with somebody, why do you need to be angry? There's no point
then if you have another skill, right? So, a key thing that you want to do to help
your children stop having a habit of getting angry is pre-teach those 4
basic skills. And then also pre teach what you will do when they choose not to
utilize the 4 basic skills, how you'll correct the problems. And if they go
completely out of control, what you'll do at that point as well? If a child has a
problem going completely out of control and they are yelling and screaming and
stuff like that, it's going to be wise for you to be sure you teach them
exactly how you will help them get calm if that problem occurs. So, let's talk
about getting calm. If a person wants to get calm, they can calm down in five
minutes. That's not very much. 5 minutes. If you think of it. If you want
to get calm. So, that's a good number to keep in mind when you're
helping a person get calm. And tell them not too. Empower them by giving them that
piece of information. There's 2 different ways that we help a person
who's going out of control get calm with the teaching self-government parenting
model. If the child is over the age of maybe 6 or 7, then we use something
called the rule of 3 which is a series of pre-teaches, instructions and
corrections that we do in a certain order that appeals to the logic of the
child so that they can choose to have calmness and then be understood. But if
they're younger... Then say, age 5 or 6 or so and there may be toddler age even,
then we're going to have a calm down place. This is not the same as a timeout.
This is a trigger spot where they get to go to to choose to be calm. And this is
all pre-taught ahead of time. The children know every word that will be
said. They know where the calm down place is. They know that we go to the calm down
place to get calm. But the second we are calm, then mom will come and praise us
and we get to get out of the calm down place and just talk about it. Now, when we
use the calm down place, that's not a negative consequence. It's just a trigger
spot. So, after a person has calmed down and been praised for that, then they're
corrected and they get the opportunity to earn a negative consequence for a
young child that is usually an extra chore. Those are the 2 methods that we
use. And both of them are methods that lead toward the child doing lots of
self-assessment. So, pre-teach. These are the skills you need to get your way
including things like disagree appropriately. Second, teach them exactly
what you will say when you're going to correct a problem. So, that everything is
predictable. And teach them what you will say at the end as well the praise and
everything so that they know how you'll handle it when they go completely out of
control. So, you've got to have those methods in place for solving that fully
out-of-control behavior. And then third it's a good idea to use motivators or
positive things for the children. As part of the planning time with the child, when
you're discussing their behaviors that calm and but they're not very
comfortable with, make a plan for a short time. Maybe one or 2 weeks of some
positive things that they can earn when they choose not to go out of control but
choose calmness instead. Some examples of those choices might be they could earn
to have some special time with mom. They could play a game, they could earn a
little treat. They could have some extra time doing an activity that they enjoy
or something like that. Positive motivators help a person stay
the course with the plan that they have for conquering their difficult habit.
Anger is a hard habit to conquer because it's wired so deeply inside our brains,
In that oldest part of the brain that we have that emotional center of the brain.
And they've been using those emotional reactions since they were babies. So, we
have to create a new path which requires skill development. If we teach our
children the skills that they need, they'll find the calmness that even they
are craving. I've shared with you a few tools for calmness. But I have even more.
And you can have him for free. I have a Calm Parenting Toolkit on my site that
will provide even more tools for you so that you can conquer your own anger and
find more calmness. And your children can too. If you go down to the description
below this video, you'll see that there's a link there to the Calm Parenting
Toolkit. Go ahead and take a look. It's free, it's for you.