If your household is anything like ours, you’re breaking up lot’s of fights, dealing with epic meltdowns (“I miss my friends!” sound familiar?,) and dealing with your own currently short fuse. Here’s our favorite parenting expert Dr. Laura Markham’s best mini tips to calm OUR selves when they get fired up.
“I agree with everything in your article When Your Child Gets Angry: The Crash Course, but I can’t remember all that in the heat of the moment. Can you give us a very short version?”
Great idea! Everyone needs the short version on their refrigerator.
Here’s the cheat sheet on what to do when your child gets angry.
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
1. Use your Pause Button to calm yourself.
- Stop (what you’re doing.)
- Drop (your agenda, just for now.)
- Breathe (which gives you a choice about how to respond.)
2. Remember you’re the role model.
Your job is to calm the storm. If you respond with anger, your child will get more dysregulated. Don’t get hooked by your child’s anger. Don’t take it personally. Stay as calm as you can.
3. Listen, and Acknowledge your child’s perspective, even if you don’t agree with it. In any disagreement, each person thinks they’re right. Rage doesn’t begin to dissipate until it feels heard. Once your child feels understood, she doesn’t have to escalate.
4. Create Safety so your child can get to the tears and fears under the anger.
Summon up all your compassion. Softening yourself makes it safe for your child to surface the more vulnerable feelings driving the anger. When your loving compassion meets her wound, she’ll probably begin to cry, and the anger will no longer be necessary as a defense.
5. Wait to teach until your child feels re-connected and regulated.
You may feel an urgent need to set your child straight, but that’s your “fight or flight” talking. You’ll be more effective once you both calm down. (Don’t worry, you know where he lives.)
Dr. Laura Markham is the author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life
and Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting and 
more, – you can visit her at ahaparenting.com. Purchase her books here;
Article reprinted with permission by the author.