Understanding anger in children
As you can imagine, I am on quite a few groups for mums who as for help with anxious children and teens. I help where I can because obviously these aren’t platforms for promoting what I do and I wouldn’t want to be kicked out of these group because they are a good way for me to hear voices from mums who need help. It enables me to better understand where they’re coming from, what they face every day and inform my writing of blog posts, articles, books and so on.
Just lately I’ve been ready a lot of stories about angry children, hitting out at parents and siblings, teachers, other children in the class. These children are usually quite young and are in families with younger children.
There are a few points I’d like to make about this.
1) Children under the age of 6yrs do not have the cognitive or emotional skills to understand that when mummy and daddy shout at them it does not mean they don’t love them.
2) Because they are tuned for survival, they are the centre of their universe so whatever happens it will always be about them. It will be their fault and they are not good enough, not loved, not seen, not heard etc
3) Their world is very very small, basically just you. Any changes will be very difficult for them. They are connected to you energetically as well as physically so when you’re sad they will pic that up and it will seem like a threat to survival. Of course you will have times when you are sad but use this as an opportunity to say that it’s ok to cry and it’s ok to sometimes not be ok and that it will pass.
4) The arrival of another child is a huge threat to survival before the age of 4yrs because it’s like being replaced. “Why does mummy need another me?” They soon see that they are less important because of course a baby has more practical needs and they make a lot of noise!
Threats to survival create panic, fear, confusion and they cannot express what they feel because they don’t even know how they feel. So what can they do to get your attention so they know they are still safe and loved? They shout and scream, kick and do whatever they can to get you to notice them and pay them attention because even your angry attention is better than the fear of abandonment.
So what can you do?
Focus on what you’d like to see in your child’s behaviour. Close your eyes and visualise - what would you like to see, picture them and add colour.
What would you like to hear, what would you like to hear them say, maybe you want more quiet and calm, what would that sound like?
What would you like to feel about them, imagine that feeling inside you and make it grow bigger and bigger.
Now imagine you are a detective looking for signs of these things. Focus on every moment and as soon as you see a sign of something you want to see, hear or feel, imagine ticking a box. Some mums keep a journal and note there. What you focus on is what you get more of.
Get in touch and tell me how it’s going.
If you’re interested to learn more, here are a couple of books that might be of interest.
‘Understanding Children and Teens - a practical guide for parents, teachers and coaches’ Judy Bartkowiak
‘Engaging NLP for Parents‘ Judy Bartkowiak
