Anger Management for Children- Part Three: Characteristics

Anger-prone students may exhibit some, most, or all of the characteristics listed next.

1. Anger-prone students have habitual anger outbursts that seem out of proportion to the situation.

2. Habitually angry children think negatively most of the time about themselves, other people, or situations.

3. When dealing with difficult events, troubled and anger-prone students display catastrophic thinking, a thinking pattern that assumes that the worst thing that can happen is what is going to happen.

4. Anger can be identity or role-congruent for these children; that is, feeling angry all the time matches their self-image (e.g., “I cannot help myself. That’s the way I am”). Their perception of being an angry individual becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, validated by frequent outbursts of anger and acting-out behaviors.

5. Troubled and anger-prone students show low frustration tolerance, and they demand that what they want or need is satisfied immediately.

6. Anger-prone students show poor internal control or self-control.

7. One of the most common types of anger in children is the explosive type; this explosive type is characterized by sudden and intense angry feelings coupled with a loss of self-control, for example, a temper tantrum. In the explosive type, a minor annoyance can lead to a major outburst. Noncompliance and oppositional behaviors are common in anger-prone students. Anger-prone students also show a greater display of aggressive behaviors than their regular age-peers.

8. Anger-prone students show inflexible emotional reactions to different kinds of situations, labeling most situations as angry situations, or opportunities to feel angry.

9. Troubled and anger-prone students have a limited vocabulary for expressing their feelings (e.g. joyful, scornful, amazed, or annoyed) which limits their ability to label their emotions accurately and to handle their feelings effectively.

10.Troubled and anger-prone students exhibit what the cognitive literature calls tunnel vision. Their thinking seems impenetrable to environmental cues that can generate alternative explanations to the event, or can generate positive feelings.

11.Children in general have difficulty separating their behavior from their identity. Some children do not understand that you do your behavior, but you are not your behavior. This concept is particularly difficult to grasp for anger-prone and behavioral disordered students.

12.Anger-prone students are sensitive to the perceived criticism from others, interpreting all criticism and feedback as negative. They are easily irritated and offended by criticism. They do not like lectures, or having other people giving them advice or telling them what they should do.

13.They act on impulse rather than thought, failing to engage in a cognitive checking of their thoughts and feelings. Anger-prone and behavioral disordered children have little insight into their difficulties, and they do not make a connection between their temper and their behavior difficulties. They tend to minimize their problems in school.

14.They blame other people or external events for their problems, with little insight in how they contributed in creating the problem. They take little or no responsibility for their own behavior, placing the blame outside themselves (others condemnation).

15.Anger-prone students interpret events according to their own negative belief system. One common belief in these children is that everyone is against them.

16.Troubled, anger-prone, and behavioral disordered children have difficulty interpreting social cues appropriately, because they fail to encode all the relevant environmental cues and information. They interpret most gestures as aggressive, or can interpret a neutral situation as threatening.

17.They distort information, which leads to distorting and misperceiving what happened. In addition, when interpreting the event, they show a restricted perception of reality, focusing only on one part of the event- the part that fits into their belief system.

18.Anger-prone children have difficulty seeing things from someone else’s point of view (perspective taking). For this reason, they do not understand the negative effect of their behavior on others; oppositional-defiant children in particular show a lack of empathy for the feelings of others.

19.They show poor social skills and a deficit in social problem solving, that is, in solving problems that underlie social interactions. An anger-prone and/or emotionally troubled child is deficient in the number of solutions he is able to generate to solve a social problem.

20.Troubled, anger-prone, and behaviorally disordered children seem unaffected by or unresponsive to social consequences. With these children, a rewards system alone (e.g. stickers and prizes) does not work well. Punishment alone (e.g. losing privileges) is also likely to fail.

For more information on the topic of angry students, and to learn techniques and interventions to help children with anger problems, you can read:

1. Understanding the Anger-Prone Student-Part One: Models of Anger. To read this article, click here.

2. Understanding the Anger-Prone Student-Part Two: Triggers. To read this article, click here.

3. Creating Rapport with a Disruptive and Acting-Out Student: Psycho-Educational Interventions for Students with Special Needs. To read this article, click here.

4. Handling Angry Students: Psycho-Educational Strategies that Work. To read this article, click here.

5. Think Positive to Stay Positive: Teaching Children the Benefits of Using Positive Self-Sentences. To read this article, click here.

6. Child Guidance Skills for Teachers: Relaxation Techniques for Angry and Troubled Students. To read this article, click here.

7. Coping Strategies for Students with Anger Problems. To read this article, click here.

8.  Anger Management for Children: Using Self-Talking to Defuse Angry Feelings. To read this article, click here.

9. Behavior Management: Extinguishing Chronic Acting-Out Episodes Using the Tantrum Manipulation Technique. To read this article, click here.

10.The Therapeutic Classroom: Guided Imagery and Visualizations for Students with Anger Problems. To read this article, click here.

Of Interest to Teachers...

Essentials of Emotional Communication for Reaching the Unreachable Student: Where Do I Start? What Do I Say? How Do I Do It?

To preview this book on Amazon, click here.

      A Call to All Teachers:

      Proudly announcing our new group for educators worldwide, “We Teach the World.” Our aim is to connect teachers and related school personnel all over the world, so that we can share much-needed ideas, strategies, and lesson plans as well as all kinds of resources in classroom management and in student discipline. Coordinating our effort worldwide, we can tell each other where to find important resources and information. If you administer a teaching blog or have created educational resources to facilitate our job, you are welcome to share them here. As long as they contribute to education, we want to know of your business. Teachers with questions, post them here; mentors and seasoned teachers, your valuable experience and unique perspective matter to us, so make your voices heard. Because isolated, we teachers are imaginative, resourceful and resilient, but connected, connected we are imaginative, resourceful, resilient AND powerful. To join us, click on, “We Teach the World.”