So what to do? Teach kids strategies to prevent the anger from getting too hot to handle. Practicing strategies when a child isn't angry will give him or her the foundation for using the techniques once anger starts to build. Teaching a child these strategies is not easy and takes a lo t of patience on the part of the adult.  However, the end result will allow just enough of a pause between an incident and a meltdown to allow for inserting a calming strategy. Many strategies for managing anger may be found in our latest book,  I Feel Mad! Tips for Kids on Managing Angry Feelings  now available on  Amazon.com .

A stormy moment will dissipate faster if the parent or teacher who is with the child remains calm. Adults have strong feelings too, though, and managing our own feelings is not always easy to do when a child is acting out. Adults often react to tantrums with reciprocal anger and may demand for the tantrum to stop with the proverbial "stink eye" expression on their face. One way to stay calm in the face of a child's storm is to use calming strategies ourselves and take those deep breaths that we tell kids to take. It can be helpful to remove ourselves from the situation if we can and give ourselves the pause we need (an adult time-out). Another way is to think empathetically about the tantrum. Even if we don't understand the cause, we can appreciate how upset the child is and how he or she is much less experienced at managing emotions than we are and how scary that must be for him or her. Sometimes, there is an underlying reason for the anger that those who are close to the child may not see. I had a woman call me last week whose child was having angry outbursts at home and at school. He was getting into trouble daily and discussions were underway about placing him in another school. During our discussion, she told me that the boy's dad had passed away less than a year ago. Given the trauma that the death of a parent would cause a child, it certainly makes sense that he would feel angry. In this situation, the boy would benefit from grief counseling in order to process and understand the death of his father.

Regardless of the strength of the anger or the reason behind it, when you keep your own anger in check and react with empathy and kindness instead, you will teach your child that  you will be the calm during his or her storm.