As an expert in anger management, psychologist Shannon Doyle stresses this reassuring fact: “Anger is a natural emotion like happiness or sadness or anxiety or joy. We shouldn’t feel guilty about becoming angry.”
Unfortunately, many of us should feel guilty about how we express our anger.
“If we react by becoming loud, yelling, shouting, fighting or just shutting down, that’s where the trouble comes in,” Doyle said. “The problem isn’t that we got angry. It’s how we expressed it.”
And when it comes to expressing anger in troubling ways, it’s hard to top teenagers. School shootings such as those in April in Littleton, Colo., represent the most extreme examples of teens raging out of control. But just about every household with a teenager in it can expect to confront occasional anger.
Sometimes, though, the expressions of anger are not mild enough. That’s why Doyle and Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington, where he works, sponsored an anger management workshop for 14- to 18-year-olds. Teens and their families participated in the six weekly workshops.
At many junior highs and high schools, where seething teen angst sometimes turns to anger, the problem also is being dealt with in ways that go beyond traditional counselor-student relationships. In McHenry County, for instance, Project Success-Connect, run by Options & Advocacy for McHenry County Inc., has established peer mediation programs in seven schools, with more schools expected next year. These programs use students who receive special training to help settle disputes.
“I do believe these programs are effective,” said Janice Matol, violence prevention coordinator for Options & Advocacy, a social service agency based in Crystal Lake. “Peer mediation does not take the place of school discipline, but it is an added tool” to help stop minor conflicts — teasing, name-calling, cliquishness — before they turn into shoving matches, fistfights or worse.
As is usually the case with youngsters, these experts say, behavior is most profoundly shaped by what they see and hear in the home.
“Family occupies a central role in teaching kids about anger and emotions in general,” according to Doyle. “When you’re in the midst of a fight, that is not the time to resolve problems. Any communication that is to be beneficial must be done within a framework of mutual respect and trust, and you get that when you are calm, rational and really hearing the person. Without that, you end up in a shouting match or with one person trying to control the other.”
Doyle said that if a situation seems to be getting out of hand, the best solution usually is to take time to calm down. “Tell the child you know this conversation is important, but you need time to cool off. Say you’ll talk in an hour or so. That way the parent is acknowledging the value of the conversation but not pointing fingers.”
Doyle said he believes many teens react angrily in certain situations because they believe they will not be heard or that their thoughts and feelings will be discounted.
“They anticipate being rejected or belittled, . . . so they respond loudly or react in some other way,” Doyle said. “Communicating with them in a calm way gives them a new experience of people and of themselves. It teaches them a new way that leads them to react more appropriately. . . . It breaks the cycle of inappropriate displays of anger.”
Matol also stresses the need for communication that is respectful and regular. She said she believes many parents are working so many hours that they do not spend enough time just being with their children and conversing with them. Work isn’t the only hindrance to good communication, though. Matol said some parents are involving themselves or their children in too many activities that detract from togetherness.
“So many parents are spending all this time running their kids to dance lessons and ballgames and everything, when all the kids want is their parents to read them a book,” she said. “Parents can make time to be with their children and listen to them, even if it’s just while folding laundry together. That time in the car can be valuable. Just turn off the radio and have a conversation.”
Doyle and Matol agree that listening to teens is often more important than speaking to them. “Often they’ll be trying to tell us their sob story, and we want to fix the problem so we start talking when we should be listening,” Matol said.
Good listening skills can be learned and are a part of the peer mediation training that about 150 McHenry County students received this year. More than 2,000 students at the schools with peer mediation programs also viewed anger management videotapes and learned the basics of conflict resolution skills, Matol said.
One of those schools is Locust School in Marengo, where 15 6th-graders and 20 7th-graders received training in peer mediation. The training included two 2 1/2-hour after-school sessions and several study hall sessions led by Matol. The students also received a book on conflict resolution.
“They learned mediation skills and have done just beautifully,” said Locust School counselor Pam Predmore. “The students seemed to enjoy the video, and the mediators have learned a lot about dealing with people and letting each person give his or her thoughts. They’ve also learned steps that are important in conflict resolution, such as letting people talk, brainstorming solutions, selecting solutions and shaking hands. We’ve had several mediations which were successful.”
Predmore said the youngsters seem to relate better to one another than to adults, “although an adult is always in reach so that if something it getting out of hand, the adult can end the mediation or assist.”
Students are not required to mediate disputes. Instead, all students at the school are told about the option and may ask for mediation if they wish. Peer mediators include Sarahi Ortiz, a Locust School 6th grader, and 7th grader Ben Cowan.
Sarahi said she became interested in peer mediation after seeing a conflict resolution videotape, which included scenes of a mediation session. She has mediated two disputes, one of which ended well, but the other could not be resolved because one of the students refused to be friends with the other, she said.
Ben said he got involved after the video piqued his interest. He also received encouragement from his parents, Janet and Bruce Cowan, who said they thought the mediation training would improve his listening skills.
He has mediated one dispute, an experience that did not go as he expected, “because the people involved with it didn’t take it seriously. But we went on with it and got the problem solved.”
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For information on Good Shepherd Hospital’s teen anger management workshops, call the hospital at 847-381-9600. For more information on Options & Advocacy and its conflict resolution and peer mediation programs, call 815-477-4720.
