The Effects of Anger on Children
Anger is a normal emotion that everyone feels at one time or another, but it can be harmful if not handled properly. Anger from others to a child can be emotionally and physically harmful. However, a child's own anger can also have harmful effects. Understanding how anger effects a child is important in giving a child coping skills to deal with it.
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Emotional
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Deep breathing exercises can help teens cope with feelings of anger. When kids have difficulty dealing with their own anger or expressing that anger in appropriate manners, they can feel tremendous embarrassment, shame and frustration. Because of the fluctuation in hormones during puberty, teens can be especially vulnerable to bouts of unexplainable anger and inappropriate outbursts. Giving teens tools of self-control and explaining that feelings of anger are normal, can help kids deal with the emotional effects of improperly expressed anger.
Physical
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Coping with anger is important for heart health in both kids and adults. Experts at the Coalition Against Institutionalized Child Abuse (CAICA) are clear that high levels of anger can be physically unhealthy for kids or adults. Specifically, experts indicate that yellers, door-slammers and general rage-prone people increase their risks of heart disease with their unhealthy levels of anger. In fact, a 2010 study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that found that chronically hostile adults without a history of heart disease could be as much as 19 percent more likely to develop heart disease when their anger is frequently out of control.
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Social
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Kids with extreme anger issues can also have social difficulties. Inappropriate outbursts and rages of anger can make them outcasts to their peers, find them in trouble with authority figures and prevent them from integrating well in school and at home. In addition, kids that experience extreme levels of anger can also develop social difficulties, becoming withdrawn or even becoming aggressive and anti-social in response.
Family
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The family unit can benefit from healthy exercises in anger expression and management. How a family expresses its anger also affects how those family members feel about one another, indicates the University of Illinois Extension. While anger can be a normal sign that there is something wrong and needs to be addressed in the family, anger inappropriately expressed can damage the family. Learning effective ways to handle and express that anger in an appropriate manner within the family can be a healthy part of family life. However, any family that has difficulty managing anger with one or more of its members should seek professional assistance.
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References
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