Children’s anger and aggression (17 Dec 2010)

For many adoptive parents dealing with anger and aggression, on a scale they could never before have imagined from a small child, is a daily event. We look at where it comes from, some techniques to diffuse it and other adopters’ experiences.

Children may display extreme rage for different reasons. They may have learned violent ways of expressing their anger, they could be recreating the atmosphere of their past, or they may feel such huge amounts of rage that it comes out on a dramatic scale.

Parents are left with the difficult task of trying to moderate and contain the outbursts to keep themselves, the child and anyone else involved safe from the child’s rages.

In their book New Families, Old Scripts adoptive parenting experts Caroline Archer and Christine Gordon write: "Adopters need to communicate their empathy and understanding … whilst simultaneously making it clear that aggressive and hurtful behaviour is not acceptable."

They suggest that displaying anger and aggression is a controlling behaviour, exerted by children who do not feel in control of their feelings or themselves.

Releasing anger and aggression

Below are two lists of suggestions to help release anger and aggression. The first is a list of methods for a physical release of the rage, whilst the second is a list of techniques to let go of it in a peaceful way, less likely to be effective in very young children.

Anger release suggestions:

Laughing madly
Screaming (but in control)
Singing loudly
Twisting wet towels
Eating an apple (alters facial tension and prevents saying things to regret)
Punching pillows
Taking a shower
Massaging plasticine, Blu-tack, or kneading dough
Deep breathing with the diaphragm – inhale to a count of five and exhale to a count of ten

‘Letting go’ techniques:

Visualise putting your feelings inside a balloon – tie the balloon up, cut the string and let it go
Imagine your feelings being slowly drawn or sucked out of you from top to toe
Record your feelings on tape, write them down, draw them or record them in colour or a diagram – then discard the feelings by burning them or throwing them away
Imagine yourself in a calm place you like to be, visualise who you are with, what you see, hear, smell and touch
Visualise yourself as a puppet made up of separate body parts linked together with string – see one of your parts as the angry part, label different parts ‘happy’ ‘sad’ ‘crazy’ etc. remember the angry part is only one of many other parts

Online Community users’ experiences

Our daughter is totally dominated by her rage. Every time you say no or disagree with her, she flies into a terrible temper, shouting and screaming the most abusive things she can think of accompanied by hitting, scratching, kicking etc. She has always been very controlling and defiant, but seems to have moved up a level. It's very tiring, and I am thoroughly fed up with being abused by a six-year-old several times a day. She does it to my husband and her two older brothers too, but to anyone outside the house she is the most charming little girl you could meet. I don't think anyone who knows her at school would even recognise the little monster we have to deal with. She gets into such a state, that you could confiscate everything she owns and cancel every treat and it wouldn't make any difference. She just seems consumed by rage and nothing reaches her.
Chocoholic

My husband is trying to calm down a very aggressive child at the moment, who kicked/bit/punched both of us tonight. It is exhausting. While we are finding it very hard to deal with (the social worker’s best suggestion was give him a cushion to kick – he promptly threw it at my head!) I don’t believe he hates us, he is simply overcome with rage about other things.
Marmite88

I have never learnt that my daughter cannot climb down once the time bomb has started to tick. I still try chat, distraction etc. and she gets angrier and angrier. Distraction, rewards, sanctions just do not work and you feel like a bad mum as you just think you must be not doing it right or should be harder/ firmer. Keeping a diary helped – I could spot the triggers (change) and so could try and prepare her and the house better. Calming sensory things helped and quick one liners like "all little girls deserve nice days out" when she is sabotaging things. Shouting and hitting were diverted towards the pile of old cardboard boxes to rip and tear and shout at and bouncing on a trampette or swinging on a swing to help regulate her after a major wobbler. Borrow The Angry Child tape from Adoption UK by Holly Van Gulden. There are lots of handy techniques on there. I did find The Explosive Child a very good read – it helped me back off a bit on some things and helped my personal understanding.
Pear Tree

My adopted daughter was Little Miss Angry several times a day for about eight weeks, five months after she'd moved in. She was just over seven. It was absolutely exhausting. We still see it a few times a week three years on complete with abusive language, pushing things over, stomping, high-pitched screaming, throwing things. She used to follow us around and do all this but now she will at least rage in her bedroom. If I have the energy I get her to sit in the same room as me. If not, she goes to her room and once the noise has stopped I go up and hug her. I don't talk, I just sit and rock her gently. This usually results in her crying which ends the episode. If you go up too soon, it escalates again. A psychologist told us not to get sucked into the battle she was trying to create. Ignore what's going on, however difficult that is. She was used to a violent chaotic household and that was what she was trying to produce, presumably safety in familiarity.
Freda

Additional Online Community users' experiences can be found on our message boards.