Have y’all heard of the Snake and the Saw story? Let me tell you. One day a snake entered a carpenter’s workshop. It was dark in there. When the snake moved, it collided with something and the snake got slightly injured. Because of this, the snake got angry and lifted its hood. He tried to bite the thing which had hit him. Acting on this thought, he also injured his face. Not understanding what was happening to him and assuming that thing was trying to attack him, the snake tried to roll around the thing trying to suffocate whatever it was that hurt him with all its strength. Unfortunately, the snake’s entire body was covered in blood and it couldn’t move anymore. The next morning, when the carpenter entered his workshop, he found the snake wrapped around a sharp saw, dead. This is what anger can do to us at times too, especially when not controlled. We should be able to control our anger rather than the anger taking us over and controlling our words and actions.
What is Anger? As well-defined by Google, it is an emotion characterised by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong. Like stress, sometimes anger can turn out to be a good thing. For instance, it can give you a way to express negative feelings or motivate you to find solutions to problems. However, it may become a problem when you have trouble controlling it, causing you to say or do things you regret.
There can be several reasons a child can have anger issues. Moreso often it is seen that symptoms of depression or depression can cause anger. Other major reasons include trauma, grief, or hormonal changes. Your child may feel or see his self-worth being deteriorated leading to low confidence, and lower self-esteem and hence he/she may project all of this through anger. Children with anger issues often fail to understand their strengths or have always seen/heard their weaknesses being highlighted. For instance, a boy with glasses might always be tagged as ‘chashmish’ hence making his weakness the only thing in society. This pushes the boy to direct his bottled-up anger to burst out in inappropriate or irrelevant ways. He/she might therefore correctly claim to be a victim of bullying. Another reason would be unhealthy peer pressure day in and day out accustoming the child to direct his unresolved feelings into acts of anger. He/she may see/face conflicts between family members and other close relationships. He/she may be stressed about studies, school work or socializing at school. Although, there are cases wherein the child might not have a great understanding of situations or their own’s capability turning into a superiority complex i.e. ego, therefore, displaying or engaging in acts of anger like shouting or throwing things. Anger issues can also sometimes be side effects of other medicines or shorter/smaller displays of other larger mental issues.
Some of the common symptoms of anger issues are listed below:
1. Often reacting to people or situations that don’t require a reaction.
2. They react or explode without giving a thought or having a reason.
3. Often getting anxious thinking about situations or people.
4. Panicking whenever things don’t happen as planned or decided.
5. Always have fixed or non-negotiable ideas or opinions.
6. Being strong-headed and often stating things very strongly.
7. Believing in the ‘my way or the high way’ thinking and action process.
8. Often pointing out or noticing only the negatives in a person.
9. Pertaining to mostly having negative opinions about situations - pessimistic ideations.
10. Outbursts relating to judgements against them or anger tags.
11. Actions and verbal behaviour often leading to self-harm.
12. Use of inappropriate abusive language and shouting or chest-beating.
13. Holding grudges against a person who did wrong to them and constantly thinking about that.
These symptoms when experienced or seen often can get tough for self and others around them. Hence, it is crucial we solve this.
When you feel the rage inside you growing, try thinking and analyzing how the person’s capacity is lower than seen. Calming oneself is useful in such situations. How do you calm yourself? Mudra or pranayam comes in very handy. Journaling about your emotions on a daily basis and realizing the imbalance to see patterns to be worked upon. Note down all the feelings you felt in the entire day to lift some weight off of you. Realize and pen down the triggers which caused the anger to rise.
Here are some questions to ask yourself when you feel troubled with all the anger inside you and you can’t seem to know what to pen down:
1. How was your day? Write details and understand what makes you look back and change something about your behaviour in a particular situation.
2. Which emotions and feelings did you experience throughout the day?
3. Which emotions are the negative ones and which are the positive ones?
4. Was there any particular emotion or feeling that gave you discomfort? If yes, which?
5. What was the discomfort all about?
6. Did you feel anger in any part of your body? If yes, which?
Journaling your emotions is the first step to addressing your emotions and feelings. Answering these questions each day will help you analyze yourself, your patterns, emotions as well as feelings.
Article by –
Riddhi Doshi Patel
Child Psychologist / Parenting Counsellor
3x TEDx Speaker