Managing Boys’ BIG Emotions: How to Navigate Anger and Frustration in Our Boys.

Let’s face it, boys and girls alike have big feelings sometimes (okay, every day!). But today I’m writing about something in particular – boys and their big hairy feelings!

My first born is a boy – so I can say firsthand that they absolutely have ‘feelings’ just as much as girls do!! I’m not sure where the stigma came from that boys don’t, can’t, or shouldn’t have feelings. But gosh let’s get rid of that STAT! It’s been around for so long, and it’s quite culturally embedded in many societies.

So let’s set the record straight. Both boys and girls have BIG feelings: emotions like anxiety, worry, overwhelm, frustration, vulnerability, all of these and more. We need to stop painting boys with a different brush to girls. Kids all have a vast array of feelings, and all feelings are OKAY. They’re normal. We don’t have to be so in fear of them. Yes, they bring discomfort but they actually hold very insightful information for us all.

Interestingly, anger in boys can be a bit of a front for something else deeper. Why? Because historically (and sometimes currently) it’s a ‘more acceptable’ emotion for boys. Also, it’s encoded biologically into their DNA.

Anger in boys often shows up in two ways.

1. Outbursts towards others and appearing ‘aggressive’ or overly physical.

2. Withdrawing into themselves and appearing ‘quiet’, reclusive, or shutdown.

How do we help our boys change this traditional, outdated approach? How do we give them the skills to understand and manage these big emotions? The key is for us as parents to make an effort and raise our awareness of this. When we notice a change in our boy’s behaviour like this, we can look deeper and find the trigger.

Triggers are circumstances that make our boys more likely to switch and find themselves in this big angry state. Examples are a change in routine, hormones, parents away travelling,  for work, brother in hospital, a best friend moving away, the big soccer game being cancelled… just to name a few. What things have happened in your little man’s life that may be a trigger for him?

Please, please do not fall into the trap of thinking your son is just being ‘naughty’. Challenge those common, negative thoughts of “Oh there he goes again. So naughty. He’s always like this. He’s just an angry kid, he’ll never change”. Change your perspective on his behaviour FIRST. Work on your mindset around anger, not his. (That comes later).

What might change if we took the perspective of our little guy having trouble dealing with something that’s going on inside of him, or around him. That he is struggling and needs help managing these big emotions. It’s not easy to navigate for us adults, so multiply that by 10 and you see the difficulty our young ones have.

Reframing our perspective on our boys’ anger will help us to come from a place of compassion and empathy, rather than judgement and frustration. We can then support our child through these difficult emotions.

Also, a few things to keep in mind...

Behaviour that is aggressive is often masking quite vulnerable emotions of embarrassment, fear, sadness and feeling dumb or inadequate. Let’s not punish our boys for feeling like this! Let’s help guide them through it.

Also, young boys are not as articulate and miss the complex language skills that girls have (I was a paediatric speech pathologist for 10 years, and I have seen this so much!) Boys are also slower to develop their emotional regulation skills, so they go for the physical means of communicating, rather than the verbal means. This is so important to remember!

How Do We Help Them?

Here are 5 of my top strategies for you, to start creating emotionally intelligent boys who can manage their big emotions:

1. Become an Emotion Coach Parent . This means talking to your boys about emotions, why they feel certain ones,

2. Build your boys’ emotion vocabulary. Many kids use happy, sad, angry. There’s so many more! Start teaching and modelling a vast array of emotion words for him to use.

3. Model your own emotional management – how do you notice and cope with your own emotions? This is the best way to teach our kids, as they learn most effectively from just observing others around them.

4. Allow all emotional expression from your boys. Teach him (and remind yourself!) that all emotions are OKAY. Even rage. But, this does not mean all behaviour or reactions are okay. Hitting, for example.

5. Problem solve how to manage big feelings. This start with conversations and chats about what your little man can do to cope with his feelings. What are some things that calm him, make him cheer up, release that energy?

Reach out to me if you have a little man with BIG feelings, and feel like you don’t have the tools to help him manage it. The first step is us parents tolerating and allowing these emotions, because this sends the message that they’re not being naughty, and that we all feel this way sometimes. If you are thinking “I just can’t handle it though, it triggers me every time!” then let’s chat. I’d love to help.

By Stephanie Pinto.

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