Anger Management Strategies

To assist both ourselves and our students in confronting and addressing issues surrounding anger, following are some tried and proven strategies for:
- controlling our thinking and our anger
- regaining our normal functioning level after being angry

In many instances, bouts of anger are treated in schools as “one off’s”, and as a consequence, we are forever putting out spot fires rather than the more desirable approach of addressing the root causes; remember we can ignore it or diminish it but it won’t go away without strategic and definitive action.

When discussing the issue of anger with students, it is important to break it down into digestible pieces:

• ask them to write down the physical warning signals they experience as they become angry; it could be hot ears, hastened breathing, muscle tension etc
• ask them to draw an outline of their body and put their individual warning signals on it; use visual imagery to enhance their connection to anger signals
• be open with our own personal approaches to anger; story telling is a powerful learning strategy
• remember relational learning, people first, students and teachers later
• initiate a class discuss on the motives of people who irritate them and possible replies to them
• was it accidental? Assertively say “please be more careful in future” with firm eye contact
• was it deliberate? Don’t lose it and assertively use strong eye contact and walk away
• remember the bully is looking to see you and others upset
• the key is to not allow bullies to have any feelings of power over us and others
• encourage them to use positive self talk; “settle it’s not worth the pain if I lose it, calm down”
• share their issues with family and teachers they feel comfortable with.

Further helpful strategies include:

• make a private signal between particular students and ourselves to use when we see them starting to lose their composure
• for example, scratch your ear, tap the desk, rub our hands together etc
• teach them deep breathing and assertive body language to control anger; consciously taking 10 deep breaths increases their oxygen intake and gives their minds a break
• encourage them to exercise, walk, run to stimulate the release of endorphins, feel good brain chemicals
• ask them to think about their feelings when they are becoming angry and write down on a sliding scale from calm, to irritated to blowing their top to raise their self awareness
• role model with our students the body language and responses to be used with bullies
• encourage them to find a critical friend who will let he/she know when he/she is beginning to show signs of becoming angry; prevention is better than cure
• chat with our students often out of class time to share how life going, to build rapport and nurture trusting relationships; never lose sight of the fact that each of us could be valued by individual students as the most significant person in their lives.

Anger is a destructive influence for all of us, let’s face it and address it head on!

“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is our conscience.” Harper Lee