Anger Management in Toddlers

The initial stage of child development, from birth till the age of 3 years, the toddlers develop an understanding of the world and acquires the knowledge through their senses and motor movements.

The baby at the sensorimotor stage explores the world by seeing, touching, grasping, biting, sucking, and babbling through trial and error pattern. The toddlers soon develop cognition, becoming aware of their individuality, that they are separate from the world and form their own opinions and want to communicate their likes and dislikes nevertheless still having insufficient self-regulation.

While toddlers are unable to express themselves with no or limited verbal communication. Anger is one of the most vital emotions to help babies communicate their needs and wants to their parents or caregivers.

At this stage, the toddler also develops object permanence. This is the understanding that an object still exists even if it is removed from the present environment. Anger is toddlers is largely seen in the form of tantrums. But it can exceed that by kicking, snatching, screaming, biting and inappropriate anger coping behavior.

Management of anger in toddlers

Use words and gestures

Solely words may not be enough to stop the child from doing an inappropriate activity. Hence it is vital to use gestures to make the child understand. This can be done with the help of an authoritative voice and a few ‘no-no’ hand gestures.

Toddlers also get physical when angry because they are unable to communicate their strong emotions. Communicating through words and gestures with the toddlers can prove as a cue to them. It can be done in a way like this “you are angry at Rahul because he took your toy away?” This way they will learn to associate words like angry or mad to the feeling and in no time, they will start telling when and why they are angry.

Positive role model

Toddlers learn anger through social learning from surrounding individuals or television. It is important to be a positive role model and provide the child with a healthy environment.

Distraction

A simple way to deal with toddlers when they are being unreasonable or throwing a tantrum is to distract the child away from the situation. A simple ‘hey look at that kite flying’ works well. Distraction should not be used as bribing the child with something fancy.

Teach appropriate behavior

Anger is a very basic emotion and the child should be taught of appropriate behavior to cope with such emotions. It is crucial to sometimes let off the steam with some physical activity, to play or squeeze the play dough, and have them draw their anger. These are some healthy way to get rid of anger in toddlers.

Time out

When the situation blows out of proportion it is ok to take some time off and to go to out with the toddler to walk, or to a neutral place and then calmly talk to them.

Appreciate appropriate behavior

When the toddler engages in healthy and appropriate coping behavior the child must feel appreciated. When the child feels appreciate they engage in more positive coping habits with anger.

To learn more about Mentriq click here

All images courtesy Pixabay