How to foster emotional resilience in a 5 year old/help work through angry outbursts?

[IhearyouClemFandango]

DS is a lovely, funny, clever little boy but when something doesn't go his way he lashes out. For example playing with a train track and the track comes apart or something he will start ripping it all apart and throwing it. Or screwing up the paper he is working on when the shape doesn't come out right and refusing to try again.

He is our 3rd and we never seemed to have this with his siblings, so I was wondering if anyone had any tips to help him work through this? He needs to learn to deal with things not going his way eventually.

No advice, but our 3rd is younger (aged 3) but showing similar tendencies so maybe there is something about being youngest child there! At the moment I'm trying to up the fresh air and exercise, as he's definitely worse before he's had a chance to work some energy off. I also try naming the emotions and telling him what an appropriate way of expressing those angy emotions would be (e.g. stamping or even shouting but not throwing or hitting). Suspect it won't be enough to interested to hear what others suggest!

Praise him for the effort he puts in and not the results that he gets. Avoid that's a great train track' and instead use 'wow, you worked really hard on that' and swap 'that's a great picture' for 'you've been concentrating so hard on that'. Gently move him away from being so outcome focussed.

Talk to him about his emotions when he is calm and receptive and not when he's in the middle of something. Share your experiences with failure (big and small) and talk about other family members etc. too, particularly if he has a older sibling or cousin that he looks up to. Point out your own mistakes, so for example say 'oh no, look I've parked wonky! I'll have to try again'. Let him see failure and correction in practise.

Make him clear up the consequences of his outbursts in a natural consequences way. It's not a punishment, no anger, just simply if you've thrown train tracks round the room, you will have to pick them up.

Pay attention to how you deal with mistakes that they make. If you get annoyed when things go wrong, a drink gets spilt/they forget to something/they knock something over etc. the you're teaching them that mistakes are bad/you should be angry about them. Mistakes happen, we learn from them and move on.