Do you ever feel like there is a small but fierce tornado shaped like a child in your home?

What a coincidence, so do we!

Sometimes, the little people in our world seem to hold a whole lot of anger. As parents, this can be hard to fathom. After all, what have they got to be angry about? They get to play all day, have meals delivered to them, stories read to them…Sounds pretty good to us! But, anger can be the presentation of a whole lot of other feelings and motivations bubbling under the surface.

Then there’s the teenage years.

Did you know that teenage brains are actually predisposed to see anger in our expressions even when we don’t feel angry?

You can probably guess how they react to this. In some ways, the fourteen-year-old in your family is actually very similar to the four-year-old. If you took a scan of both their brains, it would be hard to tell them apart. That’s because kids at both these ages are operating without a lot of help from their frontal cortex. Basically, they’re a big bundle of FEELINGS, and this drives just about everything they do, and how they perceive the world.

The grown-ups in the household aren’t exactly immune to these big angry feelings, either. By now, you’ve probably noticed that certain things your kids say and do never fail to set you off. Unfortunately, they don’t come with trigger warnings!

The important thing to remember is this: Anger is healthy and normal.

Repeat after us: Anger is healthy and normal! Anger is healthy and normal! But, understanding how and why we’re seeing or feeling it, knowing when it’s crossing a line, and knowing how to manage it are important, too.

Luckily, ParentTV has got you covered…