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You can help your child overcome anxiety, worries, and fears.Check out the Anxiety-Free Child Program. What kind of Anger Management Training is Both Transformative and Fun?
There is One form of anger management training takes into consideration a basic law of nature: energy can be changed from one form to another. Fossil fuels, for example, can be converted into electrical energy forms. Potential energy becomes kinetic energy when we move. The key is finding a fun and accessible way to make this conversion possible. Helping your child move excess energy, stress or anger into something positive can easily be done through a form of anger management training called art. Children are naturally attuned to creative expression. Many simply need to be given the space, time and materials needed for creative transformation to take place. How to Help Your Child Control Anger without Yelling or Screaming There are several ways the caregiver or parent can help the child with this form of anger management training. 1. Make choice the primary focus in this activity.Giving the reluctant child choice is the best way to elicit his or her cooperation. Get out as many tools and materials as possible such as craft dough, paper mache, paint, crayons, pencils, brushes, plastic spoons forks, potatoes, paper, strips of newsprint and Bristol board. Then begin making something with the materials. Anything. It can be a picture or a doll, even hand made yo yo. The idea is to start a fun process and let the child digest what he or she sees as a missed opportunity. If you and other children are having lots of fun making stick characters, dough animals, the recalcitrant child(even if he has just emerged from a wild tantrum, will choose to come forward and join you. After all, it is certainly more fun making something than staying mad. We cannot stay mad when we are involved in creative play. 2. Allow the child room and space for his or her creative impulses.The yard in the back of the house or the deck that can be hosed clean are all perfect places for developing the urge to make something from your heart. The key is to give the child space - space to work with the materials, space to play and experiment with what is before him or her, space to think, space to let ideas gel,even space to take a break and start again. It is absolutely necessary that we abandon the one hour arts and craft session idea; no one can work creatively under timed circumstances. So tell your child the afternoon is his; he is the artist and he can shape with the materials at hand what he feels, or what he sees inside. Anger Management Training is Learning How to Control Anger that Seems Uncontrollable 3.If we can help the child understand that what can be felt inside can also be seen, he is more likely to draw the shape of his anger.This is one way he can understand visually and physically that anger is under his control. Even starting a conversation about what comes out of his art work can help the child understand that he or she has the power to make the anger get smaller or even go away. Getting anger out and putting it into a certain shape is one way to make the uncontrollable more manageable.At every point, validate the child's feelings by mentioning how you too have felt the same way, how you have used art as a form of anger management training.
4.Give praises and encouragement openly and often.You are not training your child for the Academy of the Arts. You are giving the energetic self a way to play off excess energy. Positive encouragement is the best way to keep this self preoccupied. Any creation, even if it is half made, is worthy of positive comment. The child is making something out of nothing and that in itself is noteworthy. Positive comments encourage the child to make the connection between a specific activity and his emotional state. You want him or her to make this connection a lifelong affair. So keep telling the child how marvelous his creation is.Emphasize the way he has turned his anger, his ugly feelings into something beautiful or workable. 5.Play soft music in the background; it can be soft classical music or cheerful children's songs. Studies have confirmed that music does have a powerful effect on our emotions. In fact, music itself is worthy as a form of anger management training. Researchers have discovered that emotions aroused by joyful music can produce healthy effects on blood vessel functions. The sense of joy aroused in listeners actually causes the blood vessels to dilate or expand, allowing for greater oxygenation in the body. Convey to your child this concept of joy as a power that opens up the body, filling it with life. This image can also go a long way as a form of anger management training. Ask your child: "What you you fill yourself with after you get your anger out?" Let your child fill it with wonderful things like love, joy, magic, light. Make a symbol of this transformation and hang it in your child's room as a reminder of the power in him to transform negative feelings, fear and anger. Anger Mangement Training Bolsters Self Worth 6. Display your kids' art. Make your house into an art gallery. There is nothing that bolsters self esteem more than seeing one's creations displayed and appreciated. I have my grandkids' art works all over my fridge and all over the walls going up the stairs and down the stairs in my house. I place them in sturdy frames so that my house is literally an art gallery for their creations. And I make sure that family and friends have the chance to see them when they visit. 7.If you can, create with the kids.I love doing my own art pieces with the children. Being there adds a whole new dimension to the experience. I am not merely supervising them, but actively participating in their play. It is not only fun for me (makes me 10 years younger); it is absolutely critical for my own development as an artist. They give me great suggestions. Kids are the best art critics when they are given the chance. Validate their sense of art, their sense of symmetry, what looks good and what doesn't because all this will validate their own position in this world. Nothing can topple us if we are firmly rooted to the ground. Anger management training does not need to be a form of heavy duty training. Anger management can be fun, focused and transforming. It can certainly do so through art.
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