Helping Your Angry Child - Softcover

"When parents can process their anger and talk respectfully about strong feelings, they set a powerful, positive example for their young children. This new workbook gives parents (and teachers) many useful anger-management exercises for relating to both their young children's anger and frustration as well as techniques for helping their children learn how to handle angry feelings. Any parent whose child struggles with anger should get this book." -Matthew McKay, Ph.D., author, When Anger Hurts and When Anger Hurts Your Kids "In this inviting text, based on sound principals of developmental psychology, and clinical experience, the authors have accomplished making the often-dreaded task of anger management in children easier, even playful. I highly recommend this practical guide to parents, teachers counselors, and their young charges." --Susanne M. Jensen, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, Baton Rouge, LA

The authors of Helping Your Angry Child conducted a wide-ranging, ten-year clinical study in which parents participated with school staff and children in anger-management training. They learned that when children expressed their anger, parents took it personally, got caught in negative reactions, had difficulty staying in proper parental roles, and were bewildered by the anger. But the authors also discovered essential skills that put parents safely back in parental roles, and helped them and their children cope in healthy ways with anger. In this clearly-structured workbook readers learn the three essential components of parenting an angry child: how to always be prepared to be a good parent, how to teach children anger management skills, and how to relate within the family when strong emotions arise. Readers learn to define good parenting and resolve excess emotional baggage from their past to so that they may remain nurturing in the face of a child's anger. They are then offered strategies to understand, recognize, label, and deal with the anger a child expresses, teach their children anger management skills, listen without reacting to a child's anger, use anger alternatives, and address and resolve this difficult emotion within their family structure.