Understanding Anger
Jean Beck RN; ACNP.
These are comments and thoughts about anger that may assist you to understand and parent your child. In some situations you may want to
seek brief professional help to process some of the more difficult situations that are not responding to your parenting.
1. Anger often covers hurt and pain.
2. It is easy to become absorbed in the angry acting out behavior because it is hard to see the hurt.
3. Many children stuff hurt upon hurt to a point they don’t know what upsets them. They become distanced from feelings and believe nothing is
bothering them. Their unclaimed hurt seeps through when they become upset, blowing up out of proportion to what appeared to be a very minor
event.
4. Teenage depression may be covered by angry, irritable behavior.
5. Boys who have been physically abused when young often act out their anger without knowing where it is coming from. As they grow older the
abuse stops so the child figures it is in the past, over. The physical hurt has stopped but not the emotional hurt. It is important to help a
child process their perception of what occurred, how they internalized
blame and how to rebalance the past in relation to the present. This usually requires some professional assistance but can be very helpful.
6. It is important to identify any sources of hurt and anger that a child clings to as they grow older. The reprocessing of a child’s
perspective can be more fully understood once they are adolescents.
7. Once a teenager understands his past and what really occurred they are usually able to regroup and develop skills to manage and make
healthy self-worth choices.
8. Young children think concretely. They are not able to abstractly understand all the facets of what may have occurred in a situation. The
child is unable to understand why others would want to hurt them so they often assume they must have done something to cause their hurt. They
blame themselves which ultimately effects their self-esteem and belief in themselves. Once events are re-clarified, a teen can re-evaluate the
part this event played in their low self-esteem and begin to see their real self-worth.
9. Anger is normal, healthy if it protects self-worth and is used appropriately to assert oneself versus acting out anger aggressively or
hurting others.
10. Angry voices can be scary to kids. Children have super radar and know when parents are fighting or not getting along. Expression of anger
and resolution of conflict is healthy and teaches a child how to deal with anger. If the child only hears the fighting they often are secretly
afraid.
11. As a parent when you are angry allow time to defuse. When everyone is calm, re-discuss the situation with input from all about how it could
have been handled better. This is not to say parents can not set limits and not all events need discussing.
12. As a parent, how you manage your anger will be a model for your child.
Jean
Beck is an Advanced Clinical Nurse Practitioner with expertise in
working with psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents.
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