CHILDREN WHO GET ANGRY: IS THIS HEALTHY AND NORMAL?
Peter Andrew Sacco, Ph.D.
February 17, 2007
Not an anger management seminar, class, lecture, consultation or media interview passes me by where I am not asked if anger is normal in children. Is it? Yes!
The next question I am quickly ambushed with, usually by parents and teachers is, “why”? Why are children angry? Why should they be angry? Quickly pulling the Socratic art of questioning from my mental utility belt, I ask them, “Why not?” Why shouldn’t children ever get angry? Adults, teens and seniors get angry, so why shouldn’t children share this same natural birthright?
Why should kids get angry when they have nothing to get angry about? They are suppose to be having fun and not have a worry in the world. Well, that’s at least what most of these parents and teachers tell me. I can only offer honest, proven reasons for why children get angry. Firstly, anger is a normal emotion. Just as one gets happy, sad or surprised, one also gets angry. Second, many children learn via the “monkey see, monkey do” cycle of learning. They look to their primary role models for guidance on how to think, feel and act in certain situations. Guess who their primary role models are? If you are a parent, that would be you. You, parent, are the primary agent for your child’s socialization process early on. If they see you angry often or all of the time then you have shown them that anger is a highly acceptable emotion useful for any and all situations. Basically, you have taught them that one size fits all! How does that fit you?
So many times parents come to me and ask me how I can fix their child’s anger management problem. The first thing I ask the parents is if they themselves have an anger management problem. After the initial denials and them reminding me that they are not the issue, many usually give in to admitting they might possess just a teeny weenie problem. After I mentally and psychologically twist their arm some more and make them cry uncle, I get the truth out of them. Many have a full blown anger management problem. By the way, I really don’t use the Gestapo arm-twisting approach. Okay, maybe just a bit!
Most children between 4 and 10 years of age are starting to test and express their emotions. Learning emotions and how to express them appropriately are often times very contagious during this period of their lives. According to expert in developmental psychology Jean Piaget and his assertions regarding cognitive development, it is during this time children are making the shift from “preoperational” learning where children learn symbolically to “concrete operational” where children learn in absolute polarized thinking, i.e. right versus wrong, good versus bad, etc. You see, in the former children learn through visuals and symbols as their intelligence and vocabulary are just developing. Hence viewing anger and feeling the feeling of anger is accepted readily by them as they cannot discern the many facets of anger. Furthermore, most don’t know how to use their anger effectively, properly and when it becomes an anger management problem, many can’t shut it off.
On the continuum as kids move into the concrete operational stage, they perceive things in absolutes with only one approach also known as polarized thinking. They are too young to mentally scrutinize and challenge their feelings. They are not intellectually developed enough to think logically in abstract ways. Basically, they cannot see the whole picture and how their emotions work. One plus one always equals two. In mathematics this makes sense but in the socialization process we know things don’t always add up. There are proper and appropriate times to be angry and use anger, however when you are caught up in the polarized thinking mode, you tend to get trapped and stereotype all situations as being the same through overgeneralizations. If children see their parents mad a lot or applying anger to remedy situations they begin to learn anger is the best means to an end!
There are so many great books which teach and help parents deal with their children’s anger. When I wrote my popular selling book “What’s Your Anger Type?” I referred to many of these wonderful sources to compliment what I had to say. I can’t reiterate enough, and I do in my book that no matter how much help you try to get for your child’s anger problem, it won’t be beneficial unless you first deal with your own. To learn more about my book, you can visit my website at www.petersacco.com. The methods I teach in my book work and are helping people change their lives quickly and helping them so their children don’t fall into the same traps.
The next question I am quickly ambushed with, usually by parents and teachers is, “why”? Why are children angry? Why should they be angry? Quickly pulling the Socratic art of questioning from my mental utility belt, I ask them, “Why not?” Why shouldn’t children ever get angry? Adults, teens and seniors get angry, so why shouldn’t children share this same natural birthright?
Why should kids get angry when they have nothing to get angry about? They are suppose to be having fun and not have a worry in the world. Well, that’s at least what most of these parents and teachers tell me. I can only offer honest, proven reasons for why children get angry. Firstly, anger is a normal emotion. Just as one gets happy, sad or surprised, one also gets angry. Second, many children learn via the “monkey see, monkey do” cycle of learning. They look to their primary role models for guidance on how to think, feel and act in certain situations. Guess who their primary role models are? If you are a parent, that would be you. You, parent, are the primary agent for your child’s socialization process early on. If they see you angry often or all of the time then you have shown them that anger is a highly acceptable emotion useful for any and all situations. Basically, you have taught them that one size fits all! How does that fit you?
So many times parents come to me and ask me how I can fix their child’s anger management problem. The first thing I ask the parents is if they themselves have an anger management problem. After the initial denials and them reminding me that they are not the issue, many usually give in to admitting they might possess just a teeny weenie problem. After I mentally and psychologically twist their arm some more and make them cry uncle, I get the truth out of them. Many have a full blown anger management problem. By the way, I really don’t use the Gestapo arm-twisting approach. Okay, maybe just a bit!
Most children between 4 and 10 years of age are starting to test and express their emotions. Learning emotions and how to express them appropriately are often times very contagious during this period of their lives. According to expert in developmental psychology Jean Piaget and his assertions regarding cognitive development, it is during this time children are making the shift from “preoperational” learning where children learn symbolically to “concrete operational” where children learn in absolute polarized thinking, i.e. right versus wrong, good versus bad, etc. You see, in the former children learn through visuals and symbols as their intelligence and vocabulary are just developing. Hence viewing anger and feeling the feeling of anger is accepted readily by them as they cannot discern the many facets of anger. Furthermore, most don’t know how to use their anger effectively, properly and when it becomes an anger management problem, many can’t shut it off.
On the continuum as kids move into the concrete operational stage, they perceive things in absolutes with only one approach also known as polarized thinking. They are too young to mentally scrutinize and challenge their feelings. They are not intellectually developed enough to think logically in abstract ways. Basically, they cannot see the whole picture and how their emotions work. One plus one always equals two. In mathematics this makes sense but in the socialization process we know things don’t always add up. There are proper and appropriate times to be angry and use anger, however when you are caught up in the polarized thinking mode, you tend to get trapped and stereotype all situations as being the same through overgeneralizations. If children see their parents mad a lot or applying anger to remedy situations they begin to learn anger is the best means to an end!
There are so many great books which teach and help parents deal with their children’s anger. When I wrote my popular selling book “What’s Your Anger Type?” I referred to many of these wonderful sources to compliment what I had to say. I can’t reiterate enough, and I do in my book that no matter how much help you try to get for your child’s anger problem, it won’t be beneficial unless you first deal with your own. To learn more about my book, you can visit my website at www.petersacco.com. The methods I teach in my book work and are helping people change their lives quickly and helping them so their children don’t fall into the same traps.
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