My child is always angry: what to do?

Anger and tantrums are a common cause of conflict between children or adolescents and their parents.

There are stages of life that can be especially complicated, both for children and adolescents.My child is always angry: what to do? Anger and tantrums are a common cause of conflict between children or adolescents and their parents.

There are stages of life that can be especially complicated, both for children and for parents. We are talking especially about childhood and adolescence.

• What can we do if our child is always angry?

In this article you will find a series of guidelines to analyze this behavior and to be able to find effective solutions that improve both your well-being and that of the youngest of the house.

"My child is always angry": a common problem First of all we should try to analyze carefully what exactly is happening to our child (not so much the cause, which we will see later, but rather the behavior itself).Is he/she really angry?

Many times, behind an anger or a tantrum there is some other type of feeling or emotion behind it

. It may be that behind the anger there is really only sadness, feelings of guilt, or even depression. In these cases, the underlying problem should be treated first, since it will facilitate a subsequent approach to the more observable behavior (in this case, the anger), i.e., the behavior that our child manifests. Seeing a professional who can guide us can also help us..

• On the other hand, in addition to understanding what behavior our child is showing (we repeat, if it is really anger or not), it is also important to

to carefully analyze the antecedents and consequences of his behavior.

Why does it happen? Behavioral analysis

Many people do not go beyond the stage of thinking "my child is always angry". But it is important to go further, we must ask ourselves: what precedes their anger? Are they always the same situations/stimuli? Or, on the other hand, do they change? Can it be that apparently "nothing happens"? On the other hand, it will be essential to analyze in detail what manifestations our child shows (crying, rage, nervousness, behavior disorders, anger, etc.), as well as the frequency in which these behaviors or states appear.Finally, we must also pay attention to the consequences that appear when our child gets angry: i.e., do we pay attention to him?

Do we pay attention to him/her, what kind of attention, is there punishment, or is there understanding and empathy on the part of the child?

Or is there understanding and empathy from the environment? Vicious circlesIt is important to pay attention to this because it may happen that we are entering a vicious circle,

for example, when the child shows "unjustified" or poorly managed tantrums.

The child's environment (e.g. parents or school) "reinforces" this behavior by paying attention to it, without causing any change, thus perpetuating the problem and without really addressing it.

From behavioral psychology, this is understood from the mechanisms of negative reinforcement: it would be for example giving a lollipop to our child when he wants one and gets angry so that we give it to him, and we do so; that is to say, we would remove that "annoyance" but at the same time we would reinforce that in the future this situation would happen again. Guidelines for action.

Once we have a mental map of these factors that may be influencing and/or perpetuating the situation,

we must try to understand why these frequent angry behaviors appear in children.

How do we do it? Here we will briefly see some guidelines that can help us: 1. Use empathy.

Whether our child is a child or an adolescent, we must understand that he or she may be going through a more sensitive time, and that and that they have their own way of feeling, suffering and experiencing things in their own way..

It is therefore important that we use empathy to try to put ourselves in their shoes. How can we do this? By applying active listening: look for quiet moments to talk to them and listen to their concerns.

listen to their concerns

It may happen that he/she does not want to tell us anything or simply says that nothing is wrong. We will have to be patient and gradually start inquiring (a good idea is to ask his teacher if he behaves the same way at school), and ultimately gain his trust so that he feels free to open up in case he needs help. 2. Apply techniques to reduce impulsivityIf we have detected the situations where our child tends to get angry, it is a good idea to apply some techniques that allow him/her to withdraw from the situation,

• to prevent him/her from reacting impulsively
• . Some of them can be:
• Count to 10.
• Withdraw from the situation to a calmer space.

Practice three deep breaths.

Repeat some calming words. 3. Do not pay attention if they are "unjustified" anger..

As we mentioned, sometimes (not always), children learn to get angry to get what they want.

learn to get angry to get what they want.

This is a dysfunctional response that will end up generating many conflicts; that is why in situations where our child gets angry "for no reason", or in a "disproportionate" way, it is advisable to avoid giving him the attention he is looking for, and apply techniques such as extinction (stop reinforcing a behavior that was maintained by reinforcement).

4. Understand All of us, adults and children, go through moments and stages where we are more irascible. Sometimes this is triggered by a particular situation, and others may be influenced by other variables such as having a bad day, a particularly sensitive period, accumulated fatigue, occasional stress, etc.That is why

we must try to understand these behaviors within certain limits, without letting them evolve.

without letting them evolve into persistent and dysfunctional anger. 5. Doing things together.

Sometimes it is a good time to rethink whether we are spending quality time with our child, and if these moments of connection and play have been

if these moments of connection and play have been somewhat neglected, start to recover them. If, for example, we find out that our child is angry because he is really sad (for example, because he got bad grades at school, or because he is angry with his friends) (obviously this must have been investigated), we can consider dedicating more time to him to avoid this feeling..

This does not mean that we neglect the cause that originated the behavior; i.e., we should always look for moments to also deal with the cause of the behavior,