Watch Dr. Kanner discuss this topic this Monday @ 8:20am on San Diego6 News In The Morning.Background: Most parents from time to time have experiences with their children throwing objects when they are angry and frustrated. In fact, this is a common factor of the terrible twos or threes, along with temper tantrums. Over time, it I expected that words replace the use physicality as a means of expressing frustration along with activities designed to help children “channel” their strong feeling into something constructive, rather than destructive. Sports, for example is one of those activities which both help children place their aggressive energy into something healthy as well as other activities such as music, dance, and art. Once children are able to put feelings into words, which is not possible until at least three to four years of age, tantrums, throwing objects, screaming, and other unpleasant outbursts are “normal” means of how this age group expresses their feelings.
After the age of 5 however, the use of physical means of expressing frustration or anger should be more controlled as the child has developed the capacity to better self-manage their feelings, use words, and also find other means of absorbing their periods of plight. When older children continue to throw tantrums or throw objects, certain developmental milestones have not been met and parents then need to help their child internalize such functions, by coaching them through the problems and perhaps getting some professional help if necessary.
Back to the normality of the 2 to 4 year old throwing things, it is important that parents understand that this is a normal way that they are trying to tell you about their feelings that they cannot yet identify, and are looking to you to help them manage what is going on inside of their minds. When a parent either ignores such outbursts or merely punishes, the child is left feeling mentally abandoned and does not both feel understood and also does not have a clue why they are upset. This can then lead to both continued acting out and extreme feelings of guilt which then lead to poor self esteem. Therefore parents need to do the following when their child decides to throw out of anger and frustration.
Identify the feeling in words that they are conveying with the throwing.
Teach them to use words to express their frustration
Give them activities to do to help them funnel their frustration that are appropriate.
Don’t make them feel bad about the feelings – normalize that frustration is normal.
Set a good example yourself of how to manage anger.
If you have a tendency to throw things yourself out of spite, this will be difficult to stop in your child for they are looking at you as their model on how to both experience and tolerate strong emotions.

Dr. Keith Kanner l Morning Show Host
Your Family Matters
XETV l Bay City Television
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