Proactive Anger Management

IDevice Icon Thinking Proactively
Many children arrive at school angry or are angered by what they experience there. Teachers and school administrators may not always be able to pinpoint the source of the anger, but we have the responsibility to help children learn to control and to express anger appropriately.

Some experts believe that, rather than waiting until aggression and violence has occurred and then devoting increased resources to hiring additional school resource officers, creating in-school suspension centers, suspending or expelling students, a more effective approach would be to redirect resources to the implementation of violence prevention programs, particularly for young children and pre-adolescents (see for example www.cfchildren.org).

Educators, parents and others "reduce" the chance of violence in our youth when we give them the ability to arrive at nonviolent solutions to problems that may drive anger by teaching them skills such as:

  • problem-solving
  • stress management
  • assertiveness
  • anger control
  • impulse control

If an angry child is left alone to deal with feelings of hostility, the result can be (as per apa.org):

  • poor school performance
  • interpersonal conflicts
  • verbal or physical assaults

Image by flickr user HikingArtist


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