The reason why so many children struggle with anger all the time is because they have not yet learned how to express this emotion in a socially appropriate manner, but anger books for kids can help.
Anger is a very common emotion in children, especially during the toddler years. That’s why it is never too early to start talking to your child about emotions and helping them learn to identify their emotions and those of others.
The good news is that there are many simple and age-appropriate strategies that can help set the stage for the development of your child’s emotional intelligence, and anger management books for kids are also great resources if your child is struggling with anger.
From around age six, most children have learned to identify their emotions and have developed coping strategies to deal with emotion-provoking situations.
But some children continue to struggle with anger issues past this age. This is often a sign that they need help understanding their emotions and developing a tool kit that they can use to deal with frustration and anger-provoking situations more effectively.
In other words, they need to learn to identify their triggers, understand how anger feels in their bodies, and select an appropriate response to their feelings of anger.
Teaching your child to successfully regulate their emotions can have a long-term impact on their well-being. It can make it easier for them to react appropriately to everyday situations.
It is important to take action to help your “angry child”, especially because unresolved anger in children can have far-reaching consequences. When it lasts too long and occurs all too often, it is often evidence of a deep-seated malaise.
Strengthening your child’s emotion regulation through anger management books for kids can make it easier for them to manage their anger. Gross defines emotion regulation as “the processes by which we influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience and express them.”
Emotion regulation may impact a child’s social, academic and psychological development.
The good news is that several studies have shown that several parenting strategies can help children regulate strong emotions. We also know that books about anger are an important resource for parents seeking to help their kids better manage their big emotions.
In this post, we’ll look at the books about managing anger that can help your child deal with their anger more effectively.
Anger books for kids to help teach them about big emotions
Your child cannot learn to manage difficult emotions such as anger if they have not yet learned to identify and to differentiate between different types of emotions.
The good news is that there are many books about anger for kids that can help with the first step toward their emotional intelligence – learning to identify difficult emotions in oneself and in others.
Here are six books about anger for kids that will help your child learn about different emotions. Remember that children as young as two can start learning to recognize different emotions and to familiarize themselves with the behaviors and expressions associated with those emotions.
1) Tiger days: a book of feelings
This book is filled with fun rhymes and colorful illustrations that will help your child understand that there are lots of different ways to feel and be. It will increase their awareness of different feelings and how those feelings change.
The book is written for ages 5-6.
2) The Color Monster: A Story About Emotions
This book tells the story of the Color Monster whose emotions are all mixed up – he feels angry, happy, calm, sad, and scared all at the same time! But then a little girl helps him by using color to show him what each feeling means. Thanks to the girl’s help, the Color Monster learns to identify his feelings and begins to feel much better.
This simple book is perfect for young kids. Although it will help your child understand different emotions, it will not teach them what to do handle those emotions. It is therefore a good option to introduce young children to different emotions and to help them learn to name their emotions.
The Color Monster is a good book for your 3-4-year-old, but you can introduce it to your child as early as age two.
3) In My Heart: A Book of Feelings
This picture book with lovely illustrations has a fun and playful character who will help teach your child about different feelings such as happiness, sadness, bravery, anger and shyness.
It will explain how some of these feelings feel in the body and provide several tips to help your child respond to difficult emotions. It is a great book to teach children how to put their emotions into words.
It is written for children from age three, but you can introduce it to your child from age two.
4) The feelings book
The feelings book will help teach your child about the different emotions everyone feels. It uses bright colors and silly images to attract your child’s attention and teach them about emotions in a fun way.
If your child is just beginning to read, The Feelings Book will be a great tool to help them increase their awareness of different emotions. This is one of the books about anger for kids that has received overwhelmingly positive feedback.
This book with its original illustrations will teach your child about their feelings and help them understand that moods change often.
This is a great book for children from age three.
6) A Little SPOT of Feelings: Emotion Detective
This book revolves around SPOT, an Emotion Detective who will teach your child about different emotions and help them to learn to put their feelings into words. It comes with a printable chart to help your child identify their own emotions.
This is a great book about emotions for children from age three.
Once your child has learned about different emotions, you can turn your focus to anger if that is the emotion that they are struggling with most. Here are 6 resources that can help.
8 anger management books for kids
When I feel angry is a children’s books about anger. It is the story of a young rabbit talking about the things that make her angry and about the positive ways she can respond to difficult emotions.
This book is perfect for young kids (preschool and early preschool). It proposes relatable examples in simple language and uses illustrations to teach kids techniques that they can use when they are angry.
When I feel angry is quite repetitive which is great for young kids. It helps children learn to describe anger but also gives them several options (deep breathing, physical activity, quiet time, etc.) and proposes appropriate ways in which they can handle anger (instead of yelling, biting, hitting, etc.)
2) What to Do When Your Temper Flares: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Problems With Anger
This anger book for kids relies on cognitive behavioral therapy to teach your child to manage their anger.
It is a powerful resource because it can teach your child that although anger is a normal emotion that everyone experiences, they alone determine how they react “the only person who can make you angry is you.”
The workbook proposes plenty of ideas and is interactive which is great for helping kids put what they’ve learned into practice.
Although it is proposed for age range 8 to 12, this book can be used with kids as early as age six.
3) Angry Octopus: An Anger Management Story
Angry Octopus is an anger management book for kids ages 6-12.
It uses a story based on an angry octopus to propose exercises (progressive muscle relaxation and deep breathing techniques) that show kids strategies that they can use to calm down and manage anger and anxiety.
This book is among the best known anger books for kids. It draws on a story to teach kids how to express anger verbally and thus to regulate their emotions.
It is a rather short book that uses awesome illustrations adapted to young kids. The book teaches them that being angry doesn’t make them bad people, and that learning to put their anger into words can help them control it.
The Angry Octopus Color Me Happy, Color Me Calm is anger coloring book for kids that is designed to help children control anger and anxiety.
It proposes 38 illustrations featuring different scenes and poems to help children turn away from their angry or anxious feelings.
Although the book supposedly targets 4- to 11-year-olds, the pictures in the book are simple and are best adapted for young kids.
6) When I am Angry by Michael Gordon
This book uses great illustrations to teach your child that anger is a normal and healthy emotion, and that there are solutions to deal with than anger in healthier ways. It will teach your child to identify anger signs and to discuss angry feelings.
It is written for children from age three.
7) The Anger Expression Management Bundle
The Anger Expression Management Bundle proposes three resources that will help teach your child to identify their emotions, understand how those emotions feel and develop coping skills to deal with anger.
The first resource, The Emotions Kit EBook, will help your child learn to identify difficult emotions in themselves and others, understand what triggers those emotions, and learn appropriate strategies to deal with emotion-provoking situations.
This EBook proposes activities, stories, articles and games to help your child learn to better understand big emotions and to develop their own coping skills to deal with difficult emotions.
We now know that there are three major zones of anger. Dr. Mary Kurcinka likens anger in children to the traffic lights system. She says that there is a green zone of anger, an orange zone of anger and a red zone of anger.
Knowing exactly what to do to help your child process their anger more appropriately can be a life saver! The second resource – Anger Expression Management Course – is filled with practical tips to help you understand and react more effectively to each of your child’s zones of anger. It will help you reflect on the right questions to understand your child’s patterns of anger and, more importantly, it will walk you through the development of a personal strategy to reduce the frequency of explosive outbursts of anger in your child.
The third resource, The Positive Behavior Kit, is an EBook filled with practical examples to manage your child’s behavior more effectively.
This book uses easy to understand language to help your child better understand anger. It provides activities to help them better understand the difference between feelings and behavior.
References and further reading
Dealing with the hysterical child: Easy tips to address your child’s anger more effectively
51 ways to help your angry child calm down
This is how to tell whether your child’s tantrum’s are a problem
Emotional Regulation and Emotional Development
Emotion generation and emotion regulation
Updated on 19/10/2022
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