If however you are a teenager yourself and are looking for ways to help manage the anger and stress in your life, you have already taken an important step in the right direction. Head directly to THE STRESS VACCINE™ and get started down the path!

For the parents reading this I have two main goals:

• to help you understand why your teen is so angry
• to help you find a way to address anger management for teens in the context of your own parental relationship with your teenager

Everyone who is living and breathing has experienced anger as an emotion. Our first step is to understand what anger in the context of anger disorder really is, and to get a grasp of the unique character of teen stress.

The kind of verbal and physical outbursts that characterize anger disorder are a symptom of stress.

Stress is the body and mind’s response to change.

In order to manage stress, we have to learn to manage change.

By improving our ability to manage the change in our lives, we improve our ability to manage the stress, and reduce the symptoms of that stress – in this case unhealthy expressions of anger and rage.

Different people express the symptoms of chronic stress in different ways: some people are more predisposed towards anxiety or panic attacks, others to depression, and others to the outbursts of uncontrolled anger that characterize anger disorder.

Anger is a unique expression of stress in that it represents an outward manifestation of an inner fear.

Whether it be fear of abandonment, fear of physical harm, or some other fear, outbursts of anger essentially function as a defense mechanism gone awry – minor stressful events cause an inappropriately intense response as the subconscious fear is triggered and the teen lashes out in rage.

Anger management for teens is really an exercise in understanding the teen's insecurity and fear of their own inability to handle the intense change experienced during their teenage years.

A particularly common underlying fear is that of failure – defined in this context simply as the inability to accomplish goals that the teenager wants to accomplish (failure to “fit in” with the “cool” crowd amongst his peers, failure to make the cut for a sports team, failure to make grades, failure convince their parents to extend their curfew, etc.)

Failure is followed by frustration which is followed by an angry outburst (verbal or physical) whose purpose is essentially to achieve through anger whatever goal the teen failed to achieve initially. One of the most common qualities of teenage anger is this unqualified “frustration” with anything and everything around them than eventually manifests itself in anger and rage.

In other words, outbursts of anger really serve as a tool used by the teenager either to protect themselves from experiencing fear or to accomplish some goal which they were initially incapable of achieving.

The use of anger in this way is a learned behaviour. In this context you can understand why not rewarding this kind of behaviour is so important. Demonstrating that expressing anger with physical or verbal outbursts does not achieve the teen’s underlying goal is crucial in de-incentivizing the behaviour.

The key to anger management for teens is not just to avoid rewarding the teenager’s expressions of anger, but also to teach methods for handling the stress that is the cause of the problem.

You manage the stress by managing change, and by managing change you remove the fear that is at the root of anger disorder.

In other words, the secret to solving teen anger is to provide your teen with the tools to manage the period of intense change that they experience simply by virtue of being teenagers.

In order to have credibility with your teen you must (1) demonstrate as a parent that angry outbursts are an ineffective tool, and (2) replace the anger with effective tools ... tools that actually work.

My book THE STRESS VACCINE™ outlines a program that is particularly appropriate in assisting anger management for teens because it does not involve endless talk therapy or doping the teenager up with drugs.

It will also help you as a parent deal with some of the stress that teenage outbursts can cause!

HARCDCORE STRESS MANAGEMENT™ provides tools that work, and work fast.

More info on Teen Stress

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