Overcoming Anger: Helping Kids Handle Those Red Emotions

My Students

Marcus Aurelius wrote, "How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it." My students need to learn to express their angry feelings in ways that don't hurt them, don't hurt others, and don't hurt property. Without these important tools, their anger is potentially deadly.

I am the school counselor at a K-5 elementary school in Tennessee.

Our 850+ students are a diverse group culturally, ethnically, and economically. Many of my student's counseling needs are met through the provision of a classroom guidance curriculum that addresses academic, personal/social, and career development. I work more closely with at-risk students in individual and small-group counseling. In this realm I work with many students on ways to identify and handle difficult emotions. One emotion with which my students struggle is anger. This anger has diverse sources: family changes, a parent's death, failure in school, and conflict with peers and adults, to name a few. These children are handicapped without strategies to successfully and safely handle their angry feelings, which often keep them isolated from peers and disengaged in school. These children are also at risk to eventually seek unhealthy ways to calm their feelings, including the use of alcohol and other drugs.

My Project

The materials requested here will be used in small-group counseling sessions to help my students develop strategies to counter their feelings of anger and rage. Working together in group, students see that they are not alone in their challenges and this format diminishes their feelings of isolation. The activity books, strategy pack, and games will be used in the sessions to help teach techniques students can use to handle their angry feelings. Among the many techniques my students will learn in individual and small-group sessions are mindfulness breathing, positive self-talk, anger scaling, active listening, I-messages, conflict negotiation, and identifying anger cues and triggers. The small group format allows the opportunity for students to role play these techniques with each other. This practice in the safety of the small group makes it much easier for my students to then use these techniques in real-life situations when they arise.

Unmanaged, angry feelings can hurt self and others, and this is certainly the case for some of my students.

Without the tools to handle difficult feelings, students remain isolated from peers and less engaged in academic lessons. In later years, these students are at greater risk to self medicate with alcohol and other drugs in an attempt to find some peace. By teaching children effective and healthy ways to handle their angry feelings, their lives are positively impacted, now and in the future