Ideas to Help With Your Teenager’s Temper

For some children, nothing seems to annoy or upset them. Others often feel angry. Their response can seem out of proportion and they might become furious over seemingly minor problems and concerns.

When younger children feel angry, they can have tantrums, a physical outburst to express their emotions because they don’t yet have the language skills to communicate how they feel. Most children grow out of tantrums around the age of 7 or 8.

However, as your child starts puberty, they go through enormous emotional and physical changes. It’s common for them to show the behaviours you saw when they were much younger. This usually settles down naturally over time.

As children grow older, they may show their temper in different ways:

• Slamming doors
• Stamping feet
• Screaming and shouting
• Ripping or breaking things
• Hitting and kicking objects or people
• Speaking or acting aggressively
• Vandalism

Anger is not a ‘bad’ emotion. We all naturally feel angry at times, and the aim is not to get your teenager to suppress these powerful feelings.

Instead, they can learn better ways to cope when they feel angry and recognise the signs of anger before they feel out of control.