Tuesday 30 May 2017

Tips or book recommendations for teaching patience, frustration tolerance, and anger management


tl;dr 8 year old girl has pretty much no patience or tolerance for frustration/anger. Lashes out frequently with a rude tone over very small issues. Looking for books or general advice on teaching my kid some anger management skills and helping her remain calm and polite when feeling frustratedWe are currently fostering an 8 year old girl who has been with us for about 2 months. We are her pre-adoptive placement. Considering everything she has been through in her young life, she's turned out as much like a normal 8 year old as could be expected. I believe she is a good child at heart who wants to please. Hands down our biggest struggle with her is her level of patience and her tolerance for frustration and anger (which are non-existent). I would say she has the emotional maturity of a 4 year old. She hasn't developed the coping skills that most 8 year olds have developed at this point for remaining calm.It mostly comes out in her tone. For example, if she asks me a question and I am not able to answer it immediately (mostly if I need to ask her a clarifying question because I didn't quite understand what she meant, or I didn't hear her properly) she just says "ugh nevermind!" or she will say "NOOO, I meant THIS" and her tone becomes very short and rude VERY QUICKLY. Sometimes she will even stomp her feet on the ground while she says "nooo" and her face becomes very red. This happens in the middle of what had previously been a very calm and pleasant discussion. It's like a switch flips and she turns. The good thing is it is usually pretty quick and once she gets it out a lot of times she goes back to being happy and calm as if nothing happened.When we try to talk to her about this and coach her at times when she is calm, she will say "okaaay, we don't need to talk about this anymore" and avoids discussing anything real as much as possible. Lately what we've been doing is just not giving her what she wants until she is able to be calm. If she gets frustrated while trying to ask a question, we refuse to answer the question until she has asked it in a calm tone of voice. If she is getting frustrated while playing a game, we turn the game off until she has calmed down (and if the meltdown was bad enough, we make her apologize for her rude behavior before we turn it back on for her).We knew going into this that this was going to be a long road. I am aware that there is no quick, magical solution. This is going to take a lot of time for her to learn and there will be setbacks along the way. I just wanted to see if anyone could recommend any good books that teach parents the best way to help their kids learn patience and anger management, or any tips that you have found effective with your own children.She is in therapy for her trauma, and is also enrolled in a therapeutic day treatment program through her school. Her TDT program is doing a summer camp that is going to be focusing on these issues (as well as her social skills, which are also non existent, but that's a whole other post) so she is getting real professional help. But obviously she needs effective and consistent help with this at home in order for her to fully master it. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2qy5dRP

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