By Thalia Ferenc, MSW, MA, LMSW

	Introduction
	What’s a parent to do?
	Encourage Feeling Expression in Words
	Encourage Feeling Expression Without Words
	Limit Out of Bounds Angry Behavior
	Avoid the Blame Trap

Introduction

Anger is a common and legitimate emotion felt by most children during their parents’ divorce transition. Kids seldom want their family and their familiar home to disintegrate beneath them. They feel powerless, afraid and furious that parents who are supposed to protect them from pain instead seem to be the source of it.

Some children express their anger as rage, but others withdraw or become depressed. Often the anger is never openly directed at the parents themselves, at least not about the separation or divorce. Instead, there are more frequent and intense fights between siblings or playmates. There may be more oppositional behavior around ordinary and reasonable expectations by authority figures at home, school or both. You may more frequently hear the classic parent-wounding epithet: “I hate you!” Or your child may spend all his or her time hiding in the bedroom with music or TV, phone, computer or electronic games.

What’s a parent to do?

Many parents fail to recognize the underlying source of the outrageous behavior and clamp down with groundings and assorted punishments “to get the kid to shape up.” Perhaps you are inclined to take the anger personally and feel unloved and unappreciated. Neither of these choices will help your child much.

Children (and adults) need to learn to express their feelings, including anger, in a constructive way. Using words will do nicely. Reflect back what you are seeing and hearing through sentences such as, “You seem to be pretty angry at me lately.” Or “You sound furious right now.” Keep your voice even and willing to understand, rather than making it an accusation.

Don’t suggest your analysis of why he’s feeling that way – no one likes a superior, know-it-all attitude. Just listen. For as long as he’s willing to talk. Your child needs to know that someone cares enough to hear him out.

Hints for Managing Children’s Anger in Divorce or Separation

Teach children to talk about feelings rather than act them out in unacceptable ways.  Listen. Listen. Listen.  Help the child think of possible solutions for the immediate problem.  Offer ways to express feelings without words, such as art and physical activity.  Talk to the other parent about handling the child’s anger in coordinated ways.

Encourage Feeling Expression in Words

Empathize by letting her know most kids would feel as she does, and, in fact, if you were the kid in this situation, you might feel the same way, too. You may hear only about the unfairness of your TV watching rules, but discharging this anger by talking about it calmly will prepare the way for other discussions about the separation, and will lighten her anger load to make the rest just a little more bearable.

Use words that help your child identify feelings: sad, frustrated, upset, scared, mad. When he’s winding down on expressing the feelings, help him identify possible solutions to the immediate problem. You probably can’t change the divorce, but you may be able to change the way decisions that affect him are being handled.

Perhaps he can become proactive and find solutions he can implement himself. This will help him to feel less helpless. Is he angry that there’s nothing to do when he visits his other parent? You can’t control what happens there, but you can help your child plan activities he can realistically do – bringing a game or toy, collecting “junk” materials and glue to make a craft project, etc.

Encourage Feeling Expression Without Words

Sometimes it is very difficult for children to translate their feelings into words. You can help find outlets for feelings in nonverbal ways.

Make sure she has lots of opportunities for physical activity. This can release tension and help her to handle stress better.

Art activities that do not require a specific product are very effective ways to express emotion. This means that coloring books or a craft project that is supposed to look a certain way, while they may be fun, will not produce feeling expression. Clay, nails or glue with small, odd pieces of wood, paint and drawing with markers on blank paper will do a better job. Finger painting, with special paints or with pudding on a cookie sheet is fun and releases feelings.

Never ask a child what the object they have created is. It may be about feelings that cannot be said in words. Many children will simply make something up in order to have an answer for you. You might comment, “Tell me about your drawing. It looks like you worked hard on it.”

Some of these methods can be used as consequences for angry behavior that is not acceptable. Telling a child to go to her room and draw a picture about how she is feeling will help her learn to manage anger in better ways in the future.

Limit Out of Bounds Angry Behavior

None of this is meant to excuse behavior that is out of bounds. Swearing, biting, hitting, breaking things, screaming are not acceptable. You can say, “I understand you’re angry, but this is not behavior I will tolerate. I want to talk to you about how you’re feeling, but you need to go to your room to cool off until you can talk more calmly.” Then make sure that you seek him out to ask if he wants to talk about the problem afterwards. Even if he doesn’t, you have left the door open for future discussions and validated that his feelings are important to you.

Avoid the Blame Trap

It is commonplace for the child to act up for the parent with whom he feels most secure. Usually, this translates into good behavior with the parent who moved out, since he’s not really sure it’s safe to show any negative feelings to someone who could leave him so easily. Don’t fall into the blame trap. It will only distract you from the real problem of helping your child cope with change. Talk to the other parent about the child’s anger problems and develop a plan that both of you will follow to help the child express and manage the feelings in appropriate ways.