We know how difficult it can be to get through a day without losing our cool. Whether it’s a difficult co-worker, unsafe drivers, or an insensitive comment about our appearance or skin color, our patience is tested often. We also know from experience how damaging it can be to act on our first impulses in these types of situations.

For our children, things aren’t quite so easy. Lacking the emotional maturity and coping skills that come with experience and age, young children tend to act from the gut when they are frustrated or feel wronged. As parents of young children, one of our primary tasks becomes helping them learn the right tools and attitudes to work cooperatively at school, play well with friends and make good choices.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and American Psychological Association (APA) recently put together a program on how families can help children learn peaceful ways to solve problems, deal with disagreements and handle anger. This program is based on the concept that learning coping skills early in life will help children get along better and avoid problems as they enter school and the world beyond their families.

You are your child’s most important teacher

Young children learn a lot about how they should and shouldn’t behave by watching the people around them. One of the best ways to encourage your children to come up with creative, non-violent ways of solving problems is by showing them how you handle things. According to the NAEYC and APA, the behavior, values and attitudes of parents and siblings have a strong influence on young children. Values of respect, honesty and pride in your family and heritage can be important sources of strength for children, especially if they are confronted with problems such as negative peer pressure and bullying.

Problem-solving

When they are young, children tend to work out their differences with their first, most basic instincts, which can include hitting, biting, pinching and pulling of hair. One of the best ways to discourage this type of behavior is to explain in a calm way using very simple language why it isn’t helpful: "Hitting hurts." Or offer an alternative: "Use your words, not your hands," or "Why don’t we find another toy to play with." Praising children when they solve problems constructively, without aggression, is one of the best ways of encouraging repeated good behavior.

You can teach your children non-aggressive ways to solve problems.

• Discuss their problems with them. Ask them what might happen if they use aggression to solve problems and what might happen if they solve problems with a calmer alternative. Talking together will help children see that there are other, more effective solutions they can try instead of aggression.

• Parents sometimes encourage aggressive behavior without knowing it. For example, some parents think it is good for a boy to learn to fight. Teach your children that it is better to settle arguments with calm words, not fists.

• Encourage your older children to try working through a problem in a couple of different ways before they ask you to get involved. (This may require prompts from you about using their words or finding somewhere else to play.) This is especially key when it comes to disagreements with siblings and friends. Learning to successfully resolve their differences helps children develop a sense of confidence in their own abilities and puts them in good stead when they are in such settings as day care and preschool, where you won’t be available to get involved.

• Teach your children your favorite games, hobbies or sports and help them develop their own creative, non-aggressive ways to enjoy their free time.

• Talk to them about times when you were frustrated, but decided to work things out calmly.

Anger management

Everyone, even babies, can get angry at times — it’s part of being human. Anger is a normal feeling that can be helpful because it tells us that we need to make a change. But anger can also become problematic if it gets out of control.

According to the NAEYC and APA, young children who learn to manage angry feelings are more likely to make and keep friends. This skill can also help prevent and resolve conflicts at home. School-age children who frequently fight and argue are the ones more likely to have problems in school and to have trouble making friends. These issues can later lead to quitting school, having problems with the law and abusing alcohol and drugs.

Though it is difficult for very young children to understand and manage their anger, there are some basic attitudes you can teach children from the time they are young. They are:

• It’s okay to be angry.

• There are "okay ways" and "not okay ways" to show your anger.

• It is okay to tell someone that you are angry.

• It is not okay to hurt anyone, to break things, or to hurt pets when you are angry.

• There are ways to calm yourself when you are angry.

There are many ways to help children learn to express angry feelings. Here are some suggestions to try with your family:

• Talk about the names of these feelings and show what they mean. Often children don’t have the language to describe the difference between feeling frustrated about not having a favorite toy to cuddle at nap time vs. being downright mad at the friend who pulled their hair.

• Ask children to tell you how they feel when they are angry. Some questions to include: "Does your voice get loud or soft?" "Does your face look happy or sad?" "Do you breathe faster or slower?" "Do you feel like you want to run around or sit very still?"

• Help children learn to recognize that other people have feelings. Ask questions such as: "How is the girl in the story (TV show or book) feeling now?," "How did your brother feel when he lost his game?," "How do you know when I am angry?"

• Help your children think about what makes them angry.

• Tell your children what makes you angry.

• Ask your children what they think makes all children angry.

• Help children find ways to calm down when they are angry. Show your children how you calm yourself down when you are angry. Some ideas to suggest include: counting to 10, taking some deep breaths (this calms the body and gives them a chance to decide what to do), taking a walk around, getting a drink of water, going to a quiet place and thinking about what to do, or asking for help, such as "Daddy, I am mad! What can I do?"

• Help your children find ways to express their anger without aggression. Encourage them to use words like "I’m really mad!", draw a picture of the mad feelings, squish and pound a handful of Play-Doh, act out their anger using puppets or stuffed animals, or take a walk or run around the backyard.

Media violence: how to limit its effect on your child

Research suggests that children who see a lot of violence on television, in the movies and in video games are more likely to imitate that behavior and behave aggressively themselves. You can control the amount of violence your children see in the media. Here are some ideas from the American Psychological Association.

• Limit television viewing to one or two hours a day.

• Make sure you know what TV shows your children watch, which movies they see and what kinds of video games they play. With young children, watch their television shows along with them so that you can help answer any questions they have about what they have seen.

• Talk to your children about the violence they see on TV, in the movies and in video games.

• Help them understand how painful such violence would be in real life and the serious consequences for violent behaviors.

• Discuss with them ways to solve problems without violence.

Picture books for peace

The following are books for children and families that show creative, peaceful ways of solving problems, making and keeping friends and learning to accept what is good and kind in all of us. They all have easy text and bright illustrations — just right for preschoolers and beginning readers. All are available at the public library and at local bookstores.

• The Big Book for Peace by Lloyd Alexander

• Peace Begins With You by Katherine Scholes

Tolerance/Acceptance

• Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes

• Yo! Yes by Chris Raschka

• Oliver Button Is a Sissy by Tomie De Paolo

• How My Parents Learned to Eat by Ina R. Friedman

• Angel Child, Dragon Child by Michele Surat Surat

• Pearl Moscowitz’s Last Stand by Arthur A. Levine

• All in a Day by Mitsumasa Anno

• Cooperation and Problem-Solving

• The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins

• We Can Get Along: A Child’s Book of Choices by Lauren Murphy Payne

• The King of the Playground by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Friendship

• How to Lose All Your Friends by Nancy L. Carlson

• Jamaica Tag-Along by Juanita Havill

• Friends by Kim Lewis

• Too Close Friends by Shen Roddie

Feelings/Emotions

• Baby Faces (Look Baby! Books) by Margaret Miller

• When Sophie Gets Angry — Really, Really Angry... by Molly Garrett Bang

• How Are You Feeling? by Saxton Freymann

• Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis

• When I Feel Angry by Cornelia Maude Spelman

• The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle

For permission to reprint this article, please contact the Capital Region BOCES Communications Service by e-mailing dbushsuf@gw.neric.org.

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