Kids don't get angry do they? Do they? Oh yeah, they do. How to calm an angry child?
Kids get angry all the time. It's developmentally appropriate. As we
get started on this discussion today about how to calm an angry child, I would
invite you to review some of the principles of positive parenting and
especially click on this one right up here where we talked about three stages
of moral development, that will give a really great context to what we're
talking about here today. And so, I won't review all of that in this video, you can
look at it in that video. Let's get right into the anger mode. I'm going to share
with you five don'ts and five do's so we'll follow up the don'ts with the do's.
I'm going to tell you what you can do and not just what you shouldn't do. First,
don't. Don't tell them to calm down. This kind of goes against what you're
inclined to do because when your kid is angry you want to tell "Hey, calm down."
Developmentally speaking, it's not even a very useful concept. They don't have the
level of emotional regulation that we as adults have. Now, of course this depends
on the development of your child. How old they, are how mature they are and some
we're going to handle it better than others. But as a general rule, you don't
say, "Calm down". In fact, that sometimes works against you
because it causes some resistance. What can you do instead? Do stay calm yourself.
You remain as emotionally calm as you possibly can because this will model for
your child what you're looking for. So that leads us right into "don't" number
2. Don't lose control yourself. Probably the worst thing
can happen as your child is angry and you get angry on top of that and then
everybody's angry and we got fireworks that are probably going to go in a bad
direction. So do model appropriate emotional regulation. Model appropriate
emotional regulation. Remember this is something your kids are still
developmentally coming into, learning, starting to develop skills around. So,
they don't have all of the skills yet. Model that for them. Here's a few
examples of how that can work, "Hey buddy, when you're talking to me, like I'm
talking to you, we can have this conversation." See, that implies that
you're talking to him in a calm way. Here's another one, "Sweetheart, when your
voice sounds more like mine, we can work this out." And you're modeling a calm
voice. I love the way Nicholene Peck puts this, "Calm voice, calm face, calm body." You
model that emotional regulation for your kids were not yet in that developmental
stage. Powerful learning opportunity. Okay, let's roll with don't number 3. Don't
tell them they should or shouldn't feel whatever they're feeling. Don't tell them
they shouldn't be angry, they've got a lot of great reasons for being angry
especially from their little developmental perspective. So, we're not
going to go that direction. Instead, what I want you to do is buy some time. What I
mean by that is, tell them that you're going to allow a little space of time
here for them to feel whatever they're going to feel. You can do that by saying
something like this, "You know what sweetie, I'm going to give you a minute to
feel that and we can talk." And then going back to do number two model for them the
appropriate emotional regulation, when you're talking to me, like I'm talking to
you. We can work this out. So, you buy some time.
I'm going to give you a minute to work this through.I think you need a moment here
to feel this, okay? I have a friend who actually did it this way. His son was
just having a meltdown in the back seat of the minivan and he's probably 6,
7 years old at the time and he's just going off, right? And my friend Craig
turned around to him and said, "Aaron, how long do you need for this tantrum?"
Interesting, right? And he's modeling appropriate emotional regulation at the
time but that was question, how long do you need? Kid in the back seat he's so
mad and he says, "Just give me a minute." Don't tell them it's their own darn
fault or they deserved what they got. This is not the time for I-told-you-so's.
That will just alienate you from your child. Instead, do practice empathy and
reflective listening. This is a chance for you as a parent to do some teaching
and remember, you're maintaining your own emotional regulation at this point,
you're not losing control, you're good, you're modeling for them what they can
do, so you get to go to a place of empathy. That's where you understand and
care how someone else feels. Particularly your child right now because they are
angry, right? Angry is usually secondary emotion and it
follows something like loss or disappointment or sadness. Some of the
things that are a little harder to deal with or articulate? Anger is easy. You
just blow up, act out, hit something, hurt something.
Anger is such an active emotion that we don't want to go to those primary
emotions because we're not sure what to do with those, we turn it into anger. When
you practice empathy, you can help to get to some of those primary emotions, "Oh
buddy, you're really disappointed about how the game turned out, aren't you?" Okay,
now if you're accurate, that can be very effective, if you're way off, then it'll
be like, "No, it's not that" or whatever, right? But
trying to connect with very emphatically where your child is coming from and what
might have triggered that anger to start with, that's powerful. And then reflective
listening. Reflective listening is where it's like you're holding up a mirror to
them so that they can see what they're giving you, "Oh, I can see that you're
really upset right now, aren't you?" Well duh, right? But it's a reflection,
it's simply a mirror of what you're observing with them. So, empathy and
reflective listening. Let's do one more. don't number 5. Don't kick into I-told-you-so
mode. This is not the time for you as a parent to get on your high horse
and say, "Well, if you just listen to me, we wouldn't have these kinds of problems,
you wouldn't feel upset like this. I told you, you should have done this. You
know, why didn't you do that?" And that's not very helpful either, why didn't you
do that? You're not really interested as a parent. I mean, be real. You don't care
why they did it, you're upset that it happened, right? So, don't kick into
i-told-you-so mode instead, do use this experience as a learning opportunity. And
it will be. It will be a powerful learning opportunity because of the
intense emotion that they're feeling that tends to solidify learning in our
mind, it works with you too as an adult. You're going to use it as a learning
opportunity. Now, be patient. Because you might not
want to jump in right now while the fire is hot.
Let them accomplish the emotional regulation, the calming, the soothing so
that they give back into a more cognitive state where you can actually
have a conversation with them. So, I think of this as a dig briefing step after the
fact, after things are resolved, when it's passed, you can bring it up as a learning
opportunity. "Wow buddy, that was kind of tough, wasn't it? What did you learn from
all that?" And then just be quiet and listen because usually
there's some really cool things that your kids are going to come up with in an
opportunity to calmly debrief a situation that's already past. Honestly, I
am so flattered that you are here. Our parenting community is growing and it's
strong. Thank you for sharing these videos with other conscious parents.