Helping a kid with anger-non-judgmental advice needed

[Anonymous]

I have a 5 year old like this. Is he getting enough exercise to get his energy out? Is he overstimulated by too much screen time? Or too hungry, tired, or frustrated but can't communicate it? These are things I have asked myself about my DD. I'm reading "The Explosive Child" which seems not that great for younger kids who can't communicate well, but it might work with older kids. I also got an anger card game called Mad Dragon which I have not used yet but it got good reviews by psychologists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a 5 year old like this. Is he getting enough exercise to get his energy out? Is he overstimulated by too much screen time? Or too hungry, tired, or frustrated but can't communicate it? These are things I have asked myself about my DD. I'm reading "The Explosive Child" which seems not that great for younger kids who can't communicate well, but it might work with older kids. I also got an anger card game called Mad Dragon which I have not used yet but it got good reviews by psychologists.

Try What to Do When your Temper Flares and What to Do When you Grumble too Much by Dawn Huebner for younger kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The other thing to consider beyond the onset of puberty, is that thoughts fuel feelings which can lead to actions in sometimes a vicious cycle. Whether or not your son has long term anxiety and/or ADHD, he might benefit from short term counseling to help him understand and manage his feelings.

Say something doesn't go his way at school or home. He might get annoyed and stomp off. But he keeps thinking about this "injustice," and keeps getting more angry, so instead of being able to address it in a constructive way, the path of least resistance is to throw things, etc. He's escalating his behavior.

My kid has ADHD and we did the Unstuck and On Target social skills class at Ivymount. You could order the book on Amazon. The research for the curriculum is based on kids with autism, however, the techniques work with pretty much all kids--how to keep perspective and make a plan B:
https://www.amazon.com/Solving-Executive-Function-Challenges-Unstuck/dp/1598576038/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481557952&sr=1-2&keywords=unstuck+and+on+target

Executive functioning is affected by puberty alone, so what you're experiencing might be a relatively short lived phase.

Can you tell if the course helped?

Executive functioning skills are essentially task management skills as they relate to impulse and emotional control as well as flexibility. Many kids hitting puberty have a difficult time with them but they'll improve with maturity. Kids with ASD, ADHD, or other LDs have an especially difficult time and their ability to deal with difficulty may not improve naturally: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/executive-functioning-issues/understanding-executive-functioning-issues

What I liked about the Ivymount course is that the kid does the social skills component while the parent learns about the theoretical framework and how to implement system at home. My kid is intensely ADHD even with medication, so for us Ivymount was a good fit. Basically, you're learning how to coach your kid through a problem solving framework that they are simultaneously learning the same strategies with peers. And the information is coming from someone other than a parent, which helped in our situation. Not every detail was relevant to my kid, but there's definitely a lot of over lap. It was also reminiscent of dealing with a toddler-- as in is this a choice or no choice situation. Peas or carrots for dinner--is a choice situation. Letting a toddler run into the street--a no choice situation.

Similar social skills curriculum (minus the parent education) is offered during summer camps at SN schools like Lab, Newton, or Auburn. Sometimes speech therapy or occupational therapy practices offer similar programs. Many mainstream schools are now adopting similar curricula as well. These kinds of programs can be expensive when offered privately.

So if you can garner enough to help your kid by reading the book or something similar like Michelle Garcia Winner's books, or through a similar parenting class like Dr. Shapiro (MD/DC) or Dr. Hackney (VA), then all the better. Basically, pick a system (based on research) and wash, rinse, repeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:www.livesinthebalance.org

Its by Dr. Ross Greene, author of The Explosive Child. You can read the book if you want, but I found it more useful to watch the videos and listen to podcasts on the website. There are also CBT kind of books like "When your Temper Flares" out there. Maybe you would get some use out of them. I didn't.

We talk about DC's "big feelings". How people are different that way. Some people are more mellow and just don't feel as strongly about certain things. But other people really do feel certain things more strongly. Like a huge surge of anger or fear or worry or frustration sometimes. It's almost as if some people are narrow, skinny garden hoses while others are wider, more open garden hoses. Water flows through both, but more quickly and in higher volume with the wide hose. That's the way it is with some people and their feelings. They just feel them more.

The key is that while the "big feelings" are absolutely fine and normal, they're also sometimes hard to deal with. Again, they can come in a huge surge that can seem overwhelming. Again, if your DS is into analogies, like a huge surge of electricity that might overwhelm the circuit. So the key is to LEARN some tricks to help manage that surge. How to slow it down. How to tame it a bit or take the edge off before it bursts out.

This is the distinction between "feelings" (always ok) and "behavior" (some is appropriate, some is not). Help your DS learn to (1) notice and name the "big feelings" as they're coming on (frustration/anger/worry/disappointment etc.); (2) pause to let the feelings settle (or take some other step between feeling the feeling and acting on it); and then (3) CHOOSE how to express that feeling appropriately (calm words not screaming or violence).

For more ideas on how to manage (2) and (3), I highly recommend the CBT book mentioned above. DD and I both found it helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/What-When-Your-Temper-Flares/dp/1433801345/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Y04Q75M8FKDXFXYQG2ZG

This one was also helpful. (I agree with the PPs who suggested anxiety may be a factor here): https://www.amazon.com/What-When-You-Worry-Much/dp/1591473144

[Anonymous]

I love your first sentence in your post. "He is usually sweet 90% of the time." This means he is able to self regulate and you know your son! I would keep track of his tantrums and see if they are becoming more frequent. After he is done a tantrum I would also consider having a family talk about how to handle this next time. Maybe he can do the suggesting? Having these kinds of talks when everyone is calm is helpful. I don't think counselling is a bad idea as well. it is not a defeatist thing to do but rather proactive. May God give you wisdom as you navigate through this time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:www.livesinthebalance.org

Its by Dr. Ross Greene, author of The Explosive Child. You can read the book if you want, but I found it more useful to watch the videos and listen to podcasts on the website. There are also CBT kind of books like "When your Temper Flares" out there. Maybe you would get some use out of them. I didn't.

We talk about DC's "big feelings". How people are different that way. Some people are more mellow and just don't feel as strongly about certain things. But other people really do feel certain things more strongly. Like a huge surge of anger or fear or worry or frustration sometimes. It's almost as if some people are narrow, skinny garden hoses while others are wider, more open garden hoses. Water flows through both, but more quickly and in higher volume with the wide hose. That's the way it is with some people and their feelings. They just feel them more.

The key is that while the "big feelings" are absolutely fine and normal, they're also sometimes hard to deal with. Again, they can come in a huge surge that can seem overwhelming. Again, if your DS is into analogies, like a huge surge of electricity that might overwhelm the circuit. So the key is to LEARN some tricks to help manage that surge. How to slow it down. How to tame it a bit or take the edge off before it bursts out.

This is the distinction between "feelings" (always ok) and "behavior" (some is appropriate, some is not). Help your DS learn to (1) notice and name the "big feelings" as they're coming on (frustration/anger/worry/disappointment etc.); (2) pause to let the feelings settle (or take some other step between feeling the feeling and acting on it); and then (3) CHOOSE how to express that feeling appropriately (calm words not screaming or violence).

For more ideas on how to manage (2) and (3), I highly recommend the CBT book mentioned above. DD and I both found it helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/What-When-Your-Temper-Flares/dp/1433801345/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Y04Q75M8FKDXFXYQG2ZG

This one was also helpful. (I agree with the PPs who suggested anxiety may be a factor here): https://www.amazon.com/What-When-You-Worry-Much/dp/1591473144


This is great advice. I have an 11 year old who is anxiety prone. At this point, he holds it together everywhere but home and occasionally . . . we get some of these big feeling outbursts. It's really only in the last two years that he is mature enough to start to control these things himself and make the kind of choices described above. Before that, we had to just try to avoid triggers to manage the behavior. FYI--we found that red food dye made this sort of behavior MUCH more likely. Taking it out of his diet entirely made a huge difference and seemed to enable him to access the sort of coping skills described above.