ASK THE EXPERT:Feeling angry is never a problem as long as you stay in charge of what you do when you are angry, writes DAVID COLEMAN.
WE ARE having problems with our son who will be 12 in July. He has a temper that he just can’t seem to control. He has always been very competitive and has always had this problem on the football pitch, where he loses the head if his team are losing.
He has in the past given the ref the “finger” or used terrible language to the opposition. We have punished him by banning him from football for weeks on end, but we feel this is not ideal as we would like to keep him involved in team sports and he is so passionate about it.
He says that no matter what the punishment is, it doesn’t seem to prevent him from losing the head the next time his team are losing. He says he tries to keep the lid on it but it bubbles up inside him until it explodes, at which point he seems to have no control over it.
Lately however, he is losing the head with his younger brother who is two years his junior. He got him in a headlock and stabbed him in the coccyx with a dart recently.
Again he was banned from football, his phone was confiscated, the dart board was confiscated and he was sent to bed straight after dinner for 10 days. We thought this would teach him a lesson but the other day he punched his brother so hard in the face that he was crying for hours afterwards.
We are at a loss to know what to do. Again he says his brother annoys him so much that he just loses it. He has never seen violence in our household as we do not slap them. Have you any advice about where we should go from here?
It sounds to me like your son does indeed have difficulty managing his anger and that he might need some help to learn to do this. The good news, however, is that you and your husband are in a good position to offer that help.
I’m not surprised to hear that the punishments you are using are not effective. I think there are two reasons why they are not working. The first reason is because the punishments are too extreme in comparison to the anger outbursts.
If, for example, your son has been banned from football for weeks on end it’s quite likely that by the end of the punishment he has entirely forgotten the reason why he was punished. Also, if he feels he has already lost everything then there is no incentive for him to behave well, as things can’t get much worse.
The second reason why punishments are not working is that consequences are always likely to be ineffective where a child describes that they have no control over the problem behaviour. It is akin to being punished for not speaking French when you’ve never had an opportunity to learn that language.
So rather than punishing him for behaviour he can’t control, your focus should be to try to help him increase his level of control over that behaviour.
The first step to becoming more in charge of your anger is to recognise the signs, both physical and emotional, that the anger is building. So, for your son, help him to review what happens to him as he starts to get angry.
He already describes that his anger “bubbles up” which means that there is a period of time over which the feelings of anger are getting stronger.
It might be that he notices that he clenches his fist, clenches his teeth, feels flushed in his face, feels his heart racing, or notices his breath speeding up. At the same time he may notice that he stops thinking clearly, that his mind gets very focused on revenge for a perceived injustice or that “red mist” forms and clouds his judgment.
The key to becoming more in control of his anger is for him to intervene before he starts thinking irrationally and while he is still aware of what he is doing, how he is feeling and how he is thinking.
So, as his anger starts to build and he notices the first signs like his heart rate speeding up, he needs to learn to walk away from the situation or to practise some kind of relaxation like a deep breathing exercise.
If you are around and you notice him getting angry, you can encourage him to practise these skills and then to reward him with praise for managing to walk away and not reacting with his normal anger outbursts.
It may also be a real help to him if you talk to him about how you can understand that he feels aggrieved in certain situations and that you recognise that sometimes he reacts angrily when in fact he feels disappointed or upset about things that are not going his way.
Your aim is to teach him that feeling angry is never a problem as long as he stays in charge of what he does when he is angry.
David Coleman is a clinical psychologist, author of Parenting is Child’s Play and broadcaster with RTÉ television
Readers’ queries are welcome and will be answered through the column, but David regrets he cannot enter into individual correspondence. Questions should be e-mailed to healthsupplement@irishtimes.com