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June 2, 2011

Adolescent Anger

During adolescents, individuals are struggling with many developmental, social, emotional, and physical challenges. Peer relations, body image, hormonal changes, sense of identity, and independence issues are to name a few. Most adolescents are able to work through this time with very little difficulties. Others may have a more difficult time negotiating their way through this time. Youths are not always directly expressive of their feelings, trust an adult enough to confide in them, or be able to articulate their emotions themselves as to what is going on.

The emotions this age group is addressing may come out more in their behavior rather than through expressing them. A youth may not verbalize depressed feelings but act depressed. External events(victim of bullying, breakups in relationship) could also be a factor in this behavior. Often, the way they express their emotion is by anger. Anger may not be intentional but more of an expression of them struggling with an emotion or event. An adult’s job is to decipher behavior and help youths manage and express their feelings in appropriate ways.

The first goal is to determine if there is a benefit to their anger. For example, a youth who gets angry every time a parent requests them to do some chores or asks where they are going, may be shaping their parents behavior into not asking these questions for fear of an angry response. The parent may back off for fear of an outburst.

Even if the anger is not serving a function of avoiding accountability for the youth, it is important that this emotion be addressed to help the adolescent learn to adapt to societal expectations. Parents’ will only reinforce this behavior if they do not address the behavior. If a child appears concerned about his anger outbursts, they will need to improve on their problem solving skills, triggers to anger, self talk, and relaxation skills