Looking for Healty Ways for 5 Year Old to Express Anger

This is a great question. I just wanted to read the responces. Looks like Sharron knows exactly what to do.

My older son turns 7 in two weeks and we dealt with this at about 5 as well. He was doing the "I hate you" whenever he didn't get what he wanted. My husband and I did a lot of behind the doors discussing to come to an agreement between the two of us how to deal with it. I was okay with ignoring the behavior and saying "it is okay to feel that way, but it will not change the fact that you are not getting what you want". My husband was seriously upset that I allowed him to show me that type of disrepect. I guess I just didn't think about it that way. I agree that my hubby is right, if I let him do this, how will he show the same anger and frustration when he is 14 or 15 years old. We started a Star Chart. It is basically a calender. The way we did it was that if he was good all day (no outbursts) he would get a star on that day. We defined being good as "correcting the behavior the first time we told him" We also told him frequently that "if you are upset or do not feel you are able to behave appropriately right now, you may ask for some time away and go to your room until you are able to control yourself" This was not a parent enforced time-out, rather him removing himself from the situation until he could express himself calmy and politely. He used it and when he came out of his room he would calmy tell me why he was angry and what he wants to happen. We would also get 3 extra stars on Saturday if he recieved a star each day of the previous week (mon-fri). Most of our problems with his "I hate you" had to do with wanting us to by him a toy or take him to eat out at a particular place. Because of this, we used our Star Chart to teach him about money. Each star was worth a quarter. This meant he had the potential to earn $2.50 each week. He also had limited opportunities to make more stars (empy dishwasher, vaccum living room, set teh table). When he would tell us something he wanted, we would right it down on the Star Chart with how much it costs (ex: $20 - bat man figure). When he had enough stars to buy what he wanted, we would mark through his "spent" stars with a magic marker and go to the store and get what he wanted. It worked really well. He learned self-control, patience, value of money, benefits of saving money, and goal setting. We used it the year before school started and throughout kindergarten. We haven't used it in about 6 months now. We no longer have the problem and he has his own bank account now and stars aren't very exciting to him.
I hope this helps. Good luck. Call me if you want to talk...S. ###-###-####

Sit down and talk with your son, ask him if he wants you to talk to him the same way, and tell him that you hate him etc.
He most likely will not want this said to him either. Also if he says bad words, there must be something that he values dearly, take it away, if he get's an allowance have him put some in a kitty. Remember this money is his so keep it safe, do not let him know that however. Save it for something special when he no longs does type of thing.

Hi L.,
I just wanted to say I love Sharon's advice! I have 3 daughters and have never gone through this, but I have a background teaching parenting classes and one of the things that is really important is that you (& your husband) are able to stay calm and rational through all of this. It is really, really hard sometimes, but if you have to take time away yourself (go into your bedroom, close the door for a couple of minutes) to collect your thoughts and calm down, you should do that. It is better than yelling at him, which just teaches him that yelling is perfectly okay and an acceptable response to any situation that makes him unhappy. I see so many parents screaming at their children to stop yelling and talking back, but that is exactly what they're doing to their children! Doesn't make a lot of sense. Best of luck to you!

well i have not had to deal with this yet i only have one 2 yr old daughter but i did see an episode of the super nanny with a young boy who and some anger issues and what she did was gave him a speacial pillow for him to hit and to yell into whenever he felt frustrated or mad...it seemed to work for him!

I tell mine he can go scream into a pillow if he feels like yelling. He may hit the pillow as well. He can ask for time to himself. He can go outside and run around, like laps around the yard. For disrespectful phrases, I make sure he understands why I don't like the phrase. Then, I make sure to give him other options of what to say when angry. Once he knows those 2, then he gets punished for being disrespectful or violent or whatever the case may be. If I can talk to him about it reasonably or show him how silly he is being, then I will do that first before punishment (at this age). But, sometimes, he's too out of control and can't be talked to, but has to be dealt with. I have found that only reacting with punishment for this only increases the frustration and anger on his part. But, mixed with reason and humor, depending on the severity of the situation, has really worked for us so far. You can ask him to yell into his pillow and then when calm come out and explain to you why he is angry or frustrated with you. He can say - Mom, I'm calm now. May we talk? Or you can start that conversation. But, it works well when he has to start the conversation. He doesn't get his way no matter what if we don't have a conversation about it. And, I purposely give in sometimes when it really doesn't matter, just to show him how communicating in a calm way is much more effective at getting what he wants. (or we come to a compromise.)

First off, pick your battle ...with our grandchild we opted to show her that some of things were not worth becoming angry over...and opting to replace phrases, I hate > I don't like....
Importantly, when she was disrespectful to us, we would begin the statement," Honey, When you (do or say) ......, it makes me feel...(sad...hurts my feelings...."
It is an on going process and takes patience and commitment...

It's okay to be angry. Everyone gets angry. It's not okay to talk to people like that, slam doors, hit things, etc...

That's pretty much how the conversation started with my 5 year old. Then I just taught him some strategies to deal with anger like, stop and think. count to 10, breathe deep breaths, etc.

I strongly urge you to read the "Love and Logic" parenting series books. You can get them from your local library. They teach you how to talk to your child so that you express empaty and neutralize arguing. Best of luck!

Although some people swear by taking out anger on an object, most research is showing that anger breeds anger and those who take anger out on a subject only draw the anger out longer. If you could use the anger as a vehicle to discussion, you give it a better place to go. Art works really well at this age. I would sit down with him when neither of you is upset and say, "I want to try something new. It is totally ok and normal for you to be mad at me sometimes. And it is totally ok and normal for you to let me know you are mad at me. I don't like the way it makes me feel when you yell at me or say mean words like hate. We are going to try something new. The next time you are really mad, I'm going to give you this pad of paper and these crayons (or markers or paints) and you are going to draw what you are feeling. I'm going to set the timer for five minutes and we aren't going to talk at all during that time. When the five minutes is up, if you want more time to finish your picture, that's ok. But even if you finish before five minutes, we are not going to talk until the timer rings." Since you've established exactly what is going to happen, he knows what to expect ahead of time. By giving him this time, you give yourself time to prepare how to react and you give him time to get in control of his feelings. By drawing them he gets a chance to recognize exactly what he's feeling and why. It also keeps him busy for the five minutes long enough for his anger to cool enough to make good decisions when expressing his feelings. This will help you train him so that when he is older you can set the timer and he won't have to do the art. You guys will just know to give yourselves a little break before talking about feelings. The reason we slam doors and yell is to show the other person how BAD we are feeling, because we don't know good ways to say to each other, "I'm needing your attention because I'm feeling bad. I want you to know what you did made me feel a 9 on a scale of 1-10 bad." Kids (and most adults) just don't know how to describe feelings in those terms, so showing anger is necessary. If you teach him that not only can he show his angry feelings by drawing them, but that you will be sitting down and LISTENING to his angry feelings, it gives him a safe way to express those feelings so he doesn't need to do those other things that upset you. I hope this gives you some ideas of how to handle it! (My background is education and I work as a private tutor teaching kids with behavior problems and their parents strategies to deal with behavior issues.)

I highly recommend you read Siblings without Rivelry. It is a wonderful book that covers anger in great detail. If you have spanked in the past, stop. Spanking may make you feel better, but will not help your son and will only add to his anger. If you lose control, identify the trigger and work and pray to overcome your own anger. Don't be too hard on yourself or your son.

I went to a great class that suggested making an "angry basket". Fill it with things that you (or your child) can use to get the angry energy out, or also things to calm you down. Maybe headphones with music to listen to loud and jump around (or calming music if you prefer). For a kid (or adult!) who needs to use your mouth in anger, try gum to chew instead of yelling. Let him have a big wad to work on really aggressively until he feels better. For those who like to throw things, foam balls or small bean bags you can whip against a door or fence without hurting anything, were suggested. Taking ice cubes outside to stomp on and throw on the sidewalk or patio is a favorite at our house. Typically ends with some kind of watch it melt science experiment, so calm is restored!
Anger is healthy and good for us. (It's how to express it that gets tricky!) If we see all of our emotions as "allowed" we will be much better off, as will our children. Sounds like you are doing great by your son. Keep talking to him and he'll tell you what he needs to blow off that steam and feel better. As far as the "I hate..." goes, we would say "hate is a very strong word, so you must be having very strong feelings!" and usually my son will elaborate with specifics.
I have three boys ages 8,6 & 3... I know just were you're at! :)

I'm anxious to hear your responses. We just got through with a timeout this am for the no bit with my three year old. Included in the explanation to him about why he was in timeout was a little tidbit about being disrespectful to momma. I would consider a sticker reward chart and take stickers away whenever he's disrespectful. That all, of course, following a big long discussion about respect and using the word hate and slamming doors and all the above.

My dad had a flashback of his childhood recently when my son had slammed the door (not out of anger just carelessness) of his dad saying to him "Come back here and shut this door right."

I'd try to really zero in on each action that is unacceptable and explain what was not acceptable about it and demonstrate what is acceptable and make him demonstrate his understanding of it. It seems daunting, but you've got to start with their acknowledgement first before you can get anywhere with correction. And always, always give more hugs and loves than correction. I know you're probably thinking, "There's not enough hours in the day." Just delve into it and hopefully you'll look up and have gotten somewhere a little bit at a time.

Best wishes!

"No" is normal. It's just important why and to whom he is saying it. If it's to you when you've told him to do something, then it is unacceptable, because not only is he saying he doesn't want to do it, he is trying to show you that he is the boss and you can't tell him what to do. This can lead to much worse things. Saying "I hate---", that's also normal, just turn it around into something positive. If he is talking about a person, tell him that he really doesn't hate that person, he just hates what they have done and that they'll be friends again. If he says it about you, just tell him that you love him and are sorry he is unhappy with whatever it is you've said or done, but no matter how mad he is at you, he really doesn't hate you, he's just unhappy right now. As for slamming doors, that also is not acceptable. I used to make mine come back and very gently open and close the door 15 or 20 times. They learned real quick not to slam doors. Throwing things is also not acceptable because they could either break something or hit someone. If he's really mad, make him run around the backyard as fast as he can, or take a baseball and throw it at a target as hard as he can. In a little while he'll be so involved in what he's doing that he'll forget that he was mad.If he still hasn't learned to control his temper by the time he is old enough to drive, take his keys away. He should never be allowed to drive mad. In short, just assign him a job to do that will pass your inspection when he is finished.