Parents of problem children may need to deal with their own anger issues in order to help their children, say the British Association of Anger Management (BAAM) and leading children’s charities. Children learn by example, the Association claims; school bullies are often spawned by angry parents and just witnessing an angry outburst can have a serious effect on a child.
Parental anger can take many forms, including physical violence, emotional threats, sexual abuse or passive anger, involving the removal of care.
“A child emulates what he sees; angry behaviour rubs off in many ways”, says Mike Fisher, Director of BAAM. “A child from an angry household won’t respond to reason when he gets to school”.
John Cameron of the NSPCC also points to anger as a root cause of a spectrum of issues which the charity deals with, from domestic violence to bullying in the playground. “Parents find it very difficult to seek advice. We are saying to parents, your behaviour impacts on the child’s; you need to learn to manage it”, he said.
It seems that the problem may also be on the increase, with charity Parentline Plus noting that calls about issues with anger doubled in frequency for the period October 2007 to June 2009.
