Learn

Every child gets ‘angry’ – it is a normal and expected emotion. But it is also a physiological reaction. Caregivers often wonder, “How much is too much?” or “How can I support my child to help them learn to self-manage their anger?” We suggest that if you first understand what is happening with your child physiologically, then you are able to more meaningfully engage with your child and teach them the self-coping skills to move through their anger.

What Happens to My Child’s Body and Brain When They Get Angry?

Anger is a strong emotional and physical outburst that happens when your child’s sympathetic nervous system goes into ‘fight’ mode due to an obvious (conscious) or hidden (subconscious) threat.

Your child’s body physically changes when angry. When your child is experiencing a full emotional expression of anger, it is all-consuming – literally involving the body and the brain.

• Adrenaline surges, heart rate increases, muscles tighten, body temperature and blood pressure rise.
  • We have colorful, figurative language to describe what our bodies go through when we get angry: “My blood is boiling!” “I’m about to explode!” and “They’re going to blow their top!”
• Access to rational thinking and problem-solving is unavailable.
  • All of your child’s brain resources leave the prefrontal cortex (the most evolved part of our brains where higher-level thinking happens) and instead, the amygdala is activated.
• The amygdala is the part of the brain that goes into high-alert and acts as an emotional alarm system, warning of danger or threat.
  • From an evolutionary perspective, this helped us survive out in the wilderness. When confronted with life-threatening danger, we needed to shift all of our resources to survival mode. Vitals would spike, giving us the energy to mobilize and either run away from or fight the threat.
  • Human beings still hold these ingrained survival response patterns, and our bodies and brains instinctively react as though there is a life-threat in front of us even when there may not be.
  • When the amygdala perceives threat or discomfort, its job is to protect us and go into survival mode, which may look like anger for many children.

Is It Normal for My Child to Become Angry?

• Anger is an expected emotional response in certain situations. It may happen as the result of frustration build-up that leads to a big reaction.
  • For example, if your child is trying to create a tall tower of blocks and it keeps falling down, their frustration may snowball each time the tower falls and they have to start over again. This can lead to an angry outburst due to the mounting frustration of not achieving a desired goal.
• Anger can be an outward manifestation of other covert emotions and/or discomfort.* This includes:
  • Affective emotions – Emotions that involve our moods, such as anxiety, embarrassment, shame, hurt, disappointment, sadness, etc); and
  • Homeostatic emotions – Emotions that involve our basic body needs such as hunger, thirst, pain, exhaustion, illness, needing to go to the bathroom, etc).
• Some children exhibit anger more frequently and with greater intensity than others. The reason can be a complex combination of factors. It is important to consider both your child’s individual differences as well as family and environmental influences.^
  • Individual differences – Natural temperament, development, cognitive abilities, health-related issues and/or neurological disorders may affect how your child is internally ‘wired’ to process and manage emotions.
    • Some children are ‘wired’ with reduced frustration tolerance and/or impulse control which can affect their emotional regulation skills.
  • Family and environmental influences – Children will often model behaviors that they witness, whether it is from the media, from the grown-ups in their lives, from their siblings or other family members, or from other children. If a parent struggles with their own emotional regulation skills, this can contribute to how their child copes with difficult situations and emotions.
• If your child exhibits anger more frequently and with greater intensity than others, it is important to do some investigating to recognize patterns and discover any underlying causes.
• It is also important to consider underdeveloped skills your child might need to build which may be contributing to their anger outbursts.
  • Your child may need to build their emotional vocabulary, practice using language to talk about their emotions, or develop their metacognition and executive functioning capacities.
• Examples of underdeveloped skills include:
  • Emotional awareness: Being able to recognize and label emotions.
  • Interoception: Noticing bodily sensations that provide clues of internal emotional states.
  • Emotional regulation: Using strategies to manage emotional states.
  • Empathy and perspective-taking: Understanding the thoughts and feelings of others, and how your behavior impacts others.
  • Cognitive flexibility: The ability to adapt to new information, consider different solutions to problems or think of different ways to act/respond.
  • Response inhibition: The ability to pause and think before acting.
  • Initiation: The ability to recognize when you need help and to ask for help.
  • Expressive language: The ability to use language effectively to describe internal states, intentions, desires, thoughts and feelings.

More articles and a roadmap for understanding your child’s brain angry behaviors:

• What Does Anger Look Like?
• What You Could Do and Say
• Frequently Asked Questions

—

Citation references:

*The Interoception Curriculum

^What Angry Kids Need, Show Me Your Mad Face