Anger Management for Parents

Most families have unpredictable and challenging situations arise regularly. Angry feelings rise up in all of us (parents and kids). Regardless of your parenting abilities and skills, or how amazing your kids are, you cannot be completely free from these normal human family situations.

Learning to identify where your anger comes from, you can teach yourself anger management techniques to modify your reactions, as well as teach your children how to better react when they are feeling angry.

What are your triggers? Whether it is always running late, whinging and temper tantrums, sibling rivalry, oppositional behaviour or a host of other upsetting behaviours, you need to identify them and address them one by one. (mostly in the big picture of your life, on their own they are insignificant, but accumulatively, they can ruin your most enjoyable memories and unnecessarily get in the way of your loving relationships.

Are there times of the day when you experience frustration and anger more? When we or our children are hungry, tired or stressed, we are more vulnerable to angry reactions. Certain activities such as supermarket shopping, school drop-off, family visits, play dates etc can be triggers for some of us. Anger management for parents can start off with something as simple as avoiding or circumventing triggers.

Plan a new way of handling these situations If how you are doing things is not working for you then it is logical to adopt some anger management and parenting techniques so as to not continue in the same way.
For example, if morning routines and school drop off are intensely rushed and stressful, or regularly result in angry outbursts, prepare as much as you can the night before, including clothes and shoes laid out, lunch boxes half or almost ready. If your kids are old enough, write out a chart with tick boxes and give a weekly reward if they get better at the required tasks.

If ugly situations arise before dinnertime, offer very light snacks (so as not to interfere with their main nutrition and meal routine), get them involved in making dinner, give them a short art or craft activity. An alternative is just to feed them dinner earlier, but your home and family routine shouldn't be thrown out too much, as radical routine changes can be a trigger of stress and bad behaviour in kids. Anger management for parents is sometimes a case of dodging the causes.

Dont be afraid to learn new modes of parenting Consult other parents, read parenting books even consult a family therapist can help with anger management for parents. Depending on your income, your local or state government may offer funded or subsidised family therapy.Just know that you are not alone, most parents 'lose the plot' from time to time, just don't procrastinate and accept that it has to be so hard.

Many parents see anger management as a long-term goal for all of us and re-assess your situation often, as family situations invariably changeIt is not abnormal to feel anger. What we are all aiming to do is to respond to our anger more appropriately (in an appropriate way to the appropriate person at an appropriate time).

Parental anger is not something that can be dealt with once and then will go away. Your children grow and change, and new issues will appear. From time to time take a fresh look at the issues that create negative emotions in your family and take action to change things for the better.

Cherish and dwell on your feelings of love for your nearest and dearest little ones (even as they grow into bigger ones), allow time for listening, hugging, kissing and teaching. Empower yourself with a discipline model that lets your children know what is expected of them and that you love them, angry or not. With a strong foundation of love an boundaries, intense anger can be avoided.