Transforming Anger: Strategies for Parents and Kids

Anger can often feel like an insurmountable challenge, especially in homes with neurodiverse children. Today’s episode focuses on understanding anger as a signal for deeper emotional needs, rather than a negative emotion to suppress. Listen as we explore practical strategies for both parents and children to manage anger effectively and build emotional regulation skills. 

Laurie Bloyer, your host and learning and life success coach for families with ADHD, guides us through key themes like identifying emotional triggers, the importance of self-regulation for parents, and the essential techniques to teach children how to process their emotions. This episode highlights the significance of repairing relationships following outbursts, emphasizing that it’s not about perfection, but continual progress in fostering understanding and connection. 

We invite you to uncover tools that not only reduce anger but also enhance emotional health in your family dynamics. Join us for a transformative conversation that encourages exploration of feelings and practicing healthy expression. Ready to conquer the chaos? Subscribe now for more insights and support from our community!

Post your activity on social media with #Neuronexus

Also please send ideas for future episodes and the the upcoming workshop! 

Thank you for listening!

***NEW Resource!!! - Try our quick ADHD quiz!!! Discover Your Child's Unique ADHD Personality Strengths *****

Parenting, Learning, and Living!! Sign up to receive your FREE copy today!! - https://parentinglearningandliving.com/

Please find my other (older resources HERE) 

You can also find all my socials HERE

**NEW - Join our Facebook Group for the Neuroquirky Nexus Podcast (and all things Neuroquirky)- ADHD Parenting Support for Kids With Neuroquirks here!**

As always, 
Keep it Quirky!!

Transcript

Introduction to Managing Anger

Laurie Bloyer 1:46

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Neuroquirky Nexus. I'm so delighted you're here with us again. It's been such a joy to bring these episodes to you and I really hope you're finding them useful my community and with my teenage son. So I wanted to talk about anger. It's also a workshop, because it's been coming up so much. I'm developing a workshop on transforming anger and would love to bring it to you or your community online or in person, your school, if you're a therapist anywhere that you see value for community learning how to transform their anger. So managing anger in the home is what we're going to talk about today and it really takes a team. So this is for parents and for children. Both strategies work, for both, yes. So today we're going to, as always, navigate our neuroquirkiness and for our neurodiverse kids. This is focusing a lot on anger and ADHD. So I'm Laurie Bloyer, your host, and I'm your learning and life success coach for families with ADHD. I'm happy to help you if you have a need and I hope these podcast episodes are really helping as well. Okay, so today we're tackling a big topic managing anger in the home. If you've ever felt like your house is a battlefield, you're not alone. Many parents of neurodiverse kids struggle with emotional outbursts, defiance, frustration I know I'm preaching to the choir here, right? Both their children and their own anger, right? Not just theirs. In this episode, we're going to break down why anger happens, how to manage it and how to create a more peaceful home environment. Are you ready? Let's get quirky. All right, understanding anger it's really not just about defiance, right? Anger is what's the tip of the iceberg? There's a whole bunch underneath the surface Anger. It's often misunderstood. It's not just about a child being defiant or disrespectful. Instead, it's usually a response to feeling overwhelmed, unheard or out of control. For kids with ADHD, emotional regulation can especially be challenging because of differences in their brain's executive functioning. Many of us were raised to see anger as a bad thing, it's a problem, it's negative. There's really different types of anger and really, people have seen anger, though, as something to be suppressed or avoided. But anger, when it's understood and managed well, can be productive. It signals a need for change, a boundary being crossed, or a deeper emotional need that isn't being met. Instead of eliminating anger, our goal should be to transform it into something constructive or learning about it. Right. We shouldn't just avoid it or hide it. Let's learn how to work with it or channel it into something constructive. As parents, we may also struggle with our own emotional regulation, especially when we're exhausted, overstimulated or feeling ineffective. Anger can quickly turn into that cycle your child explodes, you react, they escalate and soon everyone is overwhelmed. That cycle. Your child explodes, you react, they escalate and soon everyone is overwhelmed. That cycle. How do we interrupt that cycle? How do we break that cycle? All right, let's talk about that. Step one One of the best ways to manage anger is to understand what triggers it, for both parents and children.

Laurie Bloyer 5:52

Common triggers. So think about these. What triggers you? What triggers your child? Some common ones could be feeling unheard or dismissed. Sensory overload, right, too much noise, light, chaos Could be transitions moving from one activity to another. Stopping an activity is, I know, a big one for some parents Could be they're hungry, they're tired. Do any of those sound familiar? Maybe they just feel that there's injustice or something is unfair. How many times have you heard your teen say that that's not fair? So, beyond these external triggers, though, it's also important to recognize our internal triggers.

Step Two: Regulate Yourself

Step Three: Teaching Emotional Regulation to Kids

Step Four: Repairing After an Outburst

Closing Thoughts and Takeaways

Laurie Bloyer 6:37

Many of our reactions to our children stem from our own childhood experiences, right, and our own ingrained beliefs. Ask yourself what am I trying to protect when I get angry? I talk a lot about this in the workshop, so I hope that we can meet again in our workshop the anger transformation. But what are we trying to protect when we get angry? Often anger arises because we feel disrespected, powerless or like our authority is being questioned. Does that hit a nerve for anyone? Does that resonate? Let me say that again. Often anger arises because we feel disrespected, powerless or like our authority is being questioned. I know that definitely triggered my anger. I used to be a very angry parent and thought that was the way to correct things was to yell, and it really changed. Life is so much more peaceful now that we've cleaned up this area or that area of my parenting. That was horrible. I hated that. I yelled, I hated it and my child, I think. Really it added to his anxiety, if not gave him the anxiety. So it definitely changed things when the yelling stopped and the peace was found in our home. Okay, sorry, side note. So yeah that, what was I trying to protect? All of those right, that my authority was being questioned, that I felt disrespected, that I felt powerless because my child was young, so I felt powerless can help us respond rather than react. Start observing those patterns in yourself, in your child. When do you see the meltdowns happen? What situations set you off as a parent? Identifying these really helps you prepare for them. Okay, step two regulating yourself. First, before you can help your child manage their anger, you need to check in with yourself right and really regulate yourself, because you can't help them if you are not regulated. Otherwise, you'll go back to that cycle again, the never ending cycle of the never-ending cycle. So if you meet your child's chaos with more chaos, right, things are going to escalate and there goes the cycle. So pause before reacting. Take a deep breath or count to five before responding. I'm really, as you know, a proponent of deep breathing. It is a very proven strategy to help with regulating for children and adults. As an adult, you can lower your voice instead of matching their intensity. Speak softly and it will help de-escalate inside of you and de-escalate the situation. And you know what? Sometimes you just might need to step away. It's okay to take a moment, collect yourself before addressing the problem, and what's even better is, if you do all of these, you're modeling for your child. You are modeling. We're going to talk about the children coming up next, but you being a great model for them. You're saying I'm going to take a deep breath, I'm going to talk in a softer voice, but you know what? I'm really really angry right now and I just need to step away, calm down and I'll come back and talk when I can not feel so angry. Isn't that a great model for your child? So when they get angry, you can remind them. Oh, remember what I do Take a deep breath and tell me how you feel You're really angry or you're really disappointed, or you're really frustrated? Okay, take a deep breath. And if you tell me how you feel you're really angry or you're really disappointed or you're really frustrated, okay, take a step away and come back when you feel ready. What a great thing to model for them as young adults and adults going forward. You can always also just use the mantra to yourself. Say like my child is struggling, not giving me a hard time. That can help shift your mindset. Or my child is having a hard time. They're not giving me a hard time, right. Those are mantras that you could say or sayings. Or my child is being bad. They are not bad, right. They're acting bad. They're not a bad child and I'm not a bad parent. I may be having a hard time, but I'm not a bad parent. It's another one. You can say to yourself and recognize your own needs. If you're exhausted, overstimulated or feeling alone in parenting, your patience will be thinner. Make sure to prioritize your self-care. Remember what we talked about on Valentine's Day week and ask for support when needed. So important. All right, you ready for step three Teaching your child emotional regulation skills. So that modeling that we talked about earlier. Kids with ADHD need explicit teaching before they get angry, before the situation and the big feelings and during the big feelings. Right, so teaching and practice. When it comes to managing big emotions, some strategies you could use are naming the emotion. Right, I see that you're really frustrated right now. You're really angry, you're really mad, you're really disappointed. You're really frustrated right now. You're really angry, you're really mad, you're really disappointed. There's a lot of words. They don't have to just use one or the other. Teach them what those emotions are and it helps them really feel understood and it builds their awareness of these different emotions. You could provide them with a physical outlet like okay, I can see, you're just really needing to get out some steam right now Jumping jacks, jumping on a trampoline, squeezing a stress ball, doing wall pushups, anything to release some of that energy in a more positive way. They could practice mindfulness, like I said, I love that deep breathing. Love that deep breathing. Even better if they breathe out with an audible tone to really stimulate that vagus nerve, which I should do more episodes on that. But if they breathe in and breathe out with whatever noise they want to make to stimulate the vagus nerve, that's a great one. And progressive muscle relaxation. So they get really, really, really, really, really tense and slowly relax their muscles. It's also really great for adults too. That one is an immediate stress reducer. And how about a calm down corner? We've talked about this many times in earlier episodes, but a sensory corner that feels calm and relaxing, their little oasis where they have their special lighting or other sensory tools, a blanket fidgets, right, anything that you put in that calm down corner to help them regulate themselves. Remember, we're really trying to use our regulation strategies to meet their dysregulation strategies so that the two come together Again. Talk about that a lot in my workshop. All right, let's use if-then planning so help your child create a personal anger plan. When I start to feel angry, then I will All right. When I start to feel angry, then I will take a deep breath, then I will go to my calm down corner, then I will do 10 jumping jacks. Having a backup strategy also helps. So you could say things like if that doesn't work, then I will right. So if the jumping jacks didn't help, then I will take a deep breath, then I will do progressive muscle relaxation Okay and helping them recognize their triggers, just as you parents need to identify your own anger triggers. Kids really benefit from understanding what sets them off. Kids benefit from understanding what sets them off and practicing ways to navigate those situations now and in the future. So important, okay. Step number four Anger happens, repairing anger after an outburst. The goal isn't perfection, it's learning how to repair after things go wrong. You can model apologizing I got loud earlier and I'm sorry. Let's figure out a way I can do better next time. Or we both can do better next time and help your child reflect what did you need in that moment? And you can ask them those whys that I really love why did this happen? Okay, why did that happen? And why did that happen. You could go three, four, five layers deep to really get what's really bothering them, and that's a great strategy to work on problems that are deeper than just the surface of what they might be telling you. Reaffirm connection A hug, a reassuring statement or some quality time together reinforces that mistakes don't change your love. And if you have really worked on connection before the anger points, that connection will really give you both something to lean into after those hard moments. So connection, connection, connection very important. And of course, as I said earlier, teaching your kid that anger isn't bad. Right, it's information. When kids see that anger is a signal rather than a problem, they can begin to process it in healthier ways. So definitely, repairing after is so, so, so important and learning after is so important. Okay, closing thoughts. So managing anger at home isn't about never getting upset. It's about learning how to handle big emotions in a way that fosters connection instead of conflict. So you could just start small, focus on your own regulation and finding out what your triggers are. Help your child name their triggers and their emotions when they are feeling them, and then you could build a toolbox of strategies that work for your family. What's going to work for your family. Remember progress over perfection. You've got this, you can do this, but you do have to start with connection and build that toolbox and help your child with their triggers. Find out your triggers and don't forget to say sorry. I know it's hard, even as an adult, but apologizing really goes a long way. Again, you're modeling for your child. Okay, let's go ahead and wrap this up. Thank you so much for listening. If today's episode, you know, really resonated with you, I would love if you shared it with someone that you think might benefit from these strategies that we talked about, and be sure to subscribe and leave a review. I would love to get this into the ears of as many people as possible that need this support, and if you want more support, please check out all my resources and my socials down in the show notes. And, as always, I really appreciate your time and thank you so much for joining me and keep it quirky Till next time. Bye, bye.