We had an incident with my ds 5 over the weekend. He has issues with anger..

[lisa in ohio]

and I need to know if there are any other parents who have had to work with this issue. He isn't angry all the time he just gets frustrated easily and every once in a while hits a child if they do not stop doing what he asks them to do. There is no excuse for his hitting anyone and he is not "getting" it. Has anyone used an "anger management" book that has worked well for them?

Thanks,
Lisa:bigear:

[j.griff]

IMO- sounds like you need to "hover" when he is around other children, and you need to intervene when you see things start going south. At first, it would probably help to step in when you see a child is annoying your ds, model an appropriate response- "x, what you are doing is bother ds and he has asked you to stop. Please stop." X stops, "Thank you x, ds is really glad that you stopped doing that." Or if x doesn't stop, "Okay x, I see that you don't want to stop doing that. DS is going to move away from you until you can stop." And then you redirect DS to something else. This is a real hands on problem, and DS needs to be coached in how to handle situations until he's capable of doing it on his own. HTH

[Mom2legomaniacs]

Dr. Sears book, The Discipline Book, has some good ideas for parenting, IMO. One thing I recall is modeling situations by acting out different scenes in order to practice how to behave properly. Give your ds some practice, in a safe environment, with what his options are for certain situations. Help him to recognize the feelings that start to stir up in him before he explodes so that he can go away from the situation before exploding on someone.

hth! I have one that on occasion blows up like that. These worked for us!

[Joanne]

and I need to know if there are any other parents who have had to work with this issue. He isn't angry all the time he just gets frustrated easily and every once in a while hits a child if they do not stop doing what he asks them to do. There is no excuse for his hitting anyone and he is not "getting" it. Has anyone used an "anger management" book that has worked well for them?

I would not call this an "anger issue" so much as an undeveloped, immature response to social situations. Many 5 year old kids still hit inappropriately. It's not acceptable; it's also not a huge deal or outside of normal. Are there additional areas of concern?

For a hitting 5 year old:

1) Remove them.
2) Tell them "no hitting"
3) Strongly encourage an apology
4) Leave if they do it again in the same situation
5) Teach *appropriate* ways of expressing anger, frustration and other less than happy emotions.
6) Practice a "better way" to handle the same situation
7) Coach, teach and train him that he can't use force if someone is not doing what he wants.

[momee]

Heart of Anger was a book I had at that stage.

You've gotten good responses. I would add in the benefit of "hovering". I could see his buttons were being pushed and could help steer him clear of the issue at hand or help him deal with it, whichever was more feasible.

I remember having thoughts this kids was going to turn out to be some criminal in his older years...he's an awesome young man now.

Stand by him, train him and encourage him to gain self control. They're as scared of their anger as you are :)