Let me think about the last time I was angry.

Hmm…… I think it was about a few days ago.

My husband and I were getting ready for lunch. I wanted to get hot sauce and went to the fridge to get it. While I was taking the hot sauce out of fridge, my husband stretched his arm and grabbed macaroni salad. I said “don’t eat that. We are eating white pasta already.” (Meaning unhealthy.) Then my husband yelled at me. “I want to eat it!” 

😦

🤷‍♀️……

Fine, but why do you yell?! 😡

My mood was ruined and I was angry.   

So I just ate and watched tv without saying a word.😂 And…… I was cold to my husband until the next day.

What makes you angry with your partner? And how do you deal with it?

My coping mechanism on that event was staying quiet, not taking any more negativity by staying far from the cause and letting that anger fade. 

It may not seem like a big action to you, but actually it is one of my consciously-learned and long-practiced responses to anger with my partner. 

Think about yourself. What’s your general reaction to anger?

Does your child get angry? 

Probably yes, right? Because we humans all get angry sometimes.

How does your child act when s/he is angry?

There are different types of reaction to anger among children.

Some children yell. Some children throw things. Some children don’t say anything and leave the spot. Some children go to a corner and stay alone.

Like this, the natural response to anger is different for every child. 

But, are they all desirable? All acceptable? 

No.

We don’t want our children to throw things when they get angry at school. We don’t want our children to hurt other children because they were angry.

Like I said with my life example, the responses to anger can be learned and practiced. And I want to introduce a way to teach the anger management – for preschoolers!

My Body when I’m Angry

1. The first thing to do to deal with negative feeling is noticing that feeling in you. 

So we want to talk about how our body changes when we are angry.

Bring a stuffed toy and toy bandages.

Tell how each body part can feel when someone is angry.

You can ask your child to put a toy bandage on the body parts as you talk about the signs.

You might have a headache. Where do you get a headache? Put a bandage on the bear’s head!

To help your child notice that s/he is angry, I recommend using this body check play. 

2. Teach what we can do when we are angry.

If there are your child’s unique calming strategies, remind them to your child here.

3. To learn this more deeply, read a book about anger with your child.

I found this book that talked about the similar things that I explained above.

So in the book, your child will see how the anger management strategies s/he learned can be applied in real life.

Tell your child that when s/he feels angry she can check her body if she has any body signs of anger.

Or the other way! If s/he finds body changes or pains like s/he learned, she can suspect anger in her mind. 

Happy learning and quality time!

Teacher Gela 👩🏻🎀