What Makes Me Angry - Parent 1

Your student is participating in classroom activities helping them learn what makes them feel angry. We would love for you to keep the discussion going at home!

Definition: Anger is a feeling people get when something unfair, painful, or bad happens; it is a feeling of displeasure.

Here are just a few ideas to help get the conversation started:

• Discuss with your child what signs their body gives them that they are beginning to feel angry.
• Your heart may pound faster
• Your body temperature can rise-often making your face red
• Your breath may become fast
• Your hands can make fists or you may shake your finger or jab your finger toward someone
• You may start to shake or tremble
• You may start to raise your voice
• Review with your child what their anger buttons are (those situations or statements that cause them to begin feeling anger).
• Ask your child what coping skills or strategies work best for them. Ask them to share the strategy/coping cards they may have made in class. Have them practice with you.

Role play the following scenarios with your child.

• You are at a store and you want a new toy. Mom tells you no. How does your body feel? What coping skills could you use?
• Dad tells you it is time to do your homework and you don’t want to. How does your body feel? What coping skills could you use?
• You are at baseball practice and you get called out at second base. You don’t think you were out. How does your body feel? What coping skills could you use?

Consider setting a day or time each week to talk with your child about the situations or statements that caused them to feel angry during the week. Ask them how well they did practicing or using coping tools when they began feeling angry that week and have them rate themselves from 1-5 (1 being not good using the tools, 5 being mastery of using the tools). After rating themselves, develop a plan on how they can continue to improve his/her coping tools.