Anger Management for a 5yo DS?

[mloo]

Middle DS is a lovely sweet boy but he also has moments of pure beligerance and aggression. He flips between sweet and aggressive alarmingly quickly.

I see friends, relatives and occasionally school TAs all reacting badly to him after too much exposure to his volatility. Short of hauling our whole family off for some sort of joint counselling to deal with him, what if anything should I do to get him to be less angry?

It's absolutely key that you make your son understand that he owns his behaviour and he chooses it. I'm a bit concerned that your emphasis seems to be around how people respond to him, rather than making sure he understands that some behaviour is never acceptable. Do you show disappointment/ disapproval when he "flips"?
There's some frightening statistics about the rise in exclusions in children of your son's age. In my (35 years) experience, this is often caused by parents who confuse loving their child with letting them do whatever they want.

Watch Supernanny! She really knows her stuff about managing children's behaviour. Hope this helps - have a better 2010.

I have a son with problems. He can be sweet and lovely but he can be sheer nasty sometimes too. He has behavioural problems anyway (he is 7) and sees lots of people at school and as a family we have support too (he isnt an only child, I have two dd's who are nothing like him!) He is very aggressive (not all the time) but not really violent.

I have found, over years of trial and error, that the best way to help him is give him ways to express himself. He has communicaiton difficulties, and so a lot of the time it is frustration rather than anger. If he has had a bad moment (or day!) I encourage him to talk about why he behaved like that, what happened before it and what happened afterwards, who else was involved etc. In time he is beginning to reason his behaviour before he reaches boiling point, so we are slowly getting somewhere.

Maybe have a look at his diet. Ready made prepared foods have all sorts of additives in them that can dso nasty things in the body to cause such behaviour. If it's possible to cut down on anf 'junk' treats and replace them with fresh food/fruits/veg and maybe add an essential fatty acid supplement to his diet maybe he also needs a vitamin D supplement also. It may be worth looking into befor going down any therapy route..

Does he get enough fresh air and running around?

can you walk to/from school, stop at the park on the way home, join football lessons

I have heard great things about karate and martial arts, where they teach self control

Ta 4 replies.
Sorry 4 delay getting back to this (she says typing with a toddler on her lap, such is my life).
Other people's responses can make DS much worse: for instance, if we respond with anger then he becomes much more angry. It's very unproductive and exacerbates DS's temper, but not under my control how other ppl react. It makes me quite when other people obviously react badly (especially with anger) towards him.

I will try to figure out if we can implement other suggestions. Ta again.

Hi, mloo.
Forget supper nanny.

Every child is different, so from 100 sugestions you'll need to pick what you think will help your DS.

What is triggering his agressive out birsts?

Is it due to fear/anxiety or or frustration, or something else? It can be very useful, for you and hom, to realise what is triggering his behaviour in the first place.

There is a suprising amount of books on Amazon about angry children, so it might be worth having a look there.

It might be worth providing with something for him to take his anger out on...ripping up newspaper, punching cusions, etc. He needs to know whatever he does, he mustn't hurt other people or himself.

What triggers it... er, being alive?
Sibling rivalry, any kind of frustration, angry outbursts from other people, any kind of delay -- he is incredibly impatient, and shouts a lot for something the second he wants it. He's better now, but if the shouting didn't get him what he wanted, he used to quickly progress to throwing stuff when he was littler. His volume control has 3 settings: imperceptible whisper, normal and very loud.

Oh, I know the thhowing stuff only too well.

He will learn to use what ever it takes to get his own way. My (angry) DS learned that tantrums didn't work, but sobbing patheticly was very effective. There is no short term answer...you ned to see this as a long term thing. Look at how you react to his out burst, and take it from there.

I look at my Ds's anger from the view that I'm going to eventualy turn out a decent grown up, who doesn't get overly angry with his wife/ the bloke who nickes "his" parking space. My DS has to easily angered grandfathers,(although he's never seen either of them angry) so I guess to a certain extent it's hereditary.

Hold on tight..it'll be a bumpy ride, but I guess you'll all get there in the end.

our school did behavioural classes for all the reception children. particulalry the boys aged 4-5. they seemed unaware of how to treat their friends/ what was acceptable etc

they were taught that anger is good/fine. it is o.k. for something to make you cross. but lashing out by throwing, or saying something nasty to someone who has said something that has upset you, is not acceptable.

I thought that this all sounded very sensible.