25/10/2025
I was thinking the other day about how many grown-ups I work with who are worried about their kid’s verbal anger and worried that their kid’s anger is uniquely scary/bad/evil (not that they’d say it in those words), and how it’s kind of funny that it might fit into any one of several different categories but that the common thread is that all of them are scary in some way to grown-ups, and just represent different outworkings of the child using the angriest words they know.
The angriest words they know might happen to be swears, or they might be threats that are real-sounding, or they might be threats that aren’t real-sounding, or they might be insults, or they might be childish insults. And no matter which one this particular child happens to lean on, the grown-ups aren’t happy about it.
Different anger types might end up with different incidental societal consequences. Using realistic threats in a school building might set off a cascade of social services. Using swears around the wrong grown-up might be interpreted as orders of magnitude worse than any of the other angry expressions. Conversely, using childish insults against a bullying peer might just get you laughed at.
A common thing that I hear grown-ups say when they’re worried in this situation is that they think the child is going to grow up thinking “it’s okay” to use that kind of expression of anger, and that they need to know that “it’s not okay”.
In actuality, no matter which expression of anger a child uses when they’re angry, the child already knows that it’s “not okay”—that’s why they only do it when they’re not okay. If they thought it was “okay” then they’d just be going around threatening or insulting everybody all the time for fun. If people pull out a particular action when they’re stressed and on the defensive, it’s because their body feels like it’s being attacked and under threat. They KNOW it’s “not okay”, that’s why they’re using it as a last-ditch resort to try to protect themselves.
One thing that is important to know is that the verbal represents a maturation from the physical in the first place. When a kid is immature, they might boundary-set by shoving people away; they might try to “persuade” by punching; they might express their anger by throwing and hitting. As they get more mature, they shift to verbal skills for these things. They boundary-set by explaining what they need. They persuade by persuading. They express their anger by yelling about how angry they are.
This maturation process isn’t only a one-step thing — first physical, then verbal. It might be more like: first physical, then verbal (screaming), then verbal (swearing), then verbal (explaining). (And even that is an oversimplification for the sake of a Facebook post.)
It’s helpful for kids to understand how energy and emotion works in their body. I often teach this in little “drips” of information over time, not in one big lecture. One day I might say, “It makes sense that you want to yell when you’re mad.” Another day I might say, “People’s bodies are full of yelling energy when they’re mad.” Another day I might say, “Yelling energy is tough to know what to do with.” Another day I might say, “Yelling energy makes sense but…it’s hard to use it without hurting somebody!” Another day I might say, “Yelling loud songs gets some yelling energy out of my body.” And so on, and so on.
It’s okay to try to overtly teach your child what you do want them to do when they’re angry. “When you’re angry, I want to listen to you and help you. You can literally just tell me, ‘I’m angry about…’” They also implicitly understand this from the way that you react when you are angry—that’s the modelling that they pick up—and also from the way that you react when THEY are angry. If they can come to you and say “I’m angry about…” and you react like their problems are tiny and pointless or tell them they have to solve it themselves, they might feel that they have to truly explode in order to be heard.
[Image description:
A flowchart. At the top it says “Angry child” and has arrows to five different boxes which represent five different things children might do when they’re angry. These say:
Uses angry, realistic threats (e.g. "I want to cut you with a knife”).
Uses angry, unrealistic threats (e.g. "I want to throw your soul into a black hole”).
Uses swear words in an insulting way (e.g. "you ---" or "I --- hate you”).
Uses insulting non-swear words (e.g. "you idiot jerk”).
Uses insulting childish words (e.g. "you stinky p**p head”).
These lead to the grown-up reactions. Using angry realistic threats leads to Grownup: Fears the child might be a serial killer.
Using angry unrealistic threats leads to: Grownup: Fears how the child even thought of that.
Using swear words leads to: Grownup: Fears how the child learnt offensive words.
Using insults (childish or non-childish) leads to: Grownup: Fears the child using disrespectful words.
And all of the grownup fears lead to: Grownup fears: Usually manifest as punishment, retribution, "consequences", "they have to know that's not okay”.
Out to the side is a purple box, a different color scheme than everything in red which is the main flowchart. Inside the purple box it says,
In actuality, every one of these is simply the child using the angriest words they know to express that they are angry, when they are angry.
They already know it's "not okay", that's why they only do it when they're not okay.
What they need is for someone to hear and validate their anger. Maybe problem-solve it (if solvable). Maybe give them a script for expressing their anger in the future in a more acceptable way. And time to grow and mature.
End description.]
