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.