How do I cope with outbursts of anger, both verbal and physical, from the child I am fostering? Lashing out at school is becoming a serious problem.

This is a very important question because anger and aggression can have a huge effect on the lives of looked after or adopted children. Outbursts can lead to many changes of placement because of the need to protect others, especially if there are other children in the family of placement. Within school, teachers are trained to deal with children who are aggressive but may not appreciate the particular difficulties of a child who has been neglected or abused.

Causes of anger
There are several reasons why a child is angry. Some children use their anger to gain more attention (left over from a time when attention was not given). Anger may arise because the child is anxious in a particular situation or setting because of remembered or subconscious links to their past. Sometimes it is simply the way they express their unhappiness at being in care. Or it may be that their birth family has communicated through anger and violence, so this has provided modelling for the child from a young age. Children who have been sexually or physically abused may lose many of their social skills and become angry over little things. These children have lost control over their world so feel the need to regain control, through anger. Also, aggression can be an outcome of disorganised or inadequate attachment. More rarely, violence can be one of many symptoms of an underlying disorder such as Attention Deficit Disorder or Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

When helping your child, first try to find the cause. If he/she needs attention you can work out how they can get that attention for better behaviour. If your child is very tense, then your primary task is to help relax them and reduce anxiety. Think about when the aggression occurs – does your child hate change? Does they feel threatened? Help them to cope differently in these situations. Also, remember your child may be emotionally young because of past experiences, so a five year old may have ‘two year old tantrums’.

Helping your child
Once you have ideas about the cause, choose the most appropriate ways of helping your child from the following:

• For a younger anxious child, try increasing cuddly times and ‘winding down’ times, when you read a story or watching DVDs together. Repetitive non-emotive stories are best. Some children like to have their backs or feet rubbed to calm them down. Routines such as familiar prayers or bedtime routines will also help.
• As far as possible, help your child feel settled and secure. Make sure the child’s room is full of his or her belongings. Have places throughout your home to keep your child’s things, invite his or her friends to play. Keep firm, consistent rules that he or she understands. If the placement is permanent, tell the child this until they understand it. In her book, Vera Fahlberg suggests some more ways of ‘claiming’ your child, which will help him or her feel loved and cared for.
• Be a good model yourself, showing the child that you take time to be quiet and calm and look after yourself.
• Particularly with younger children, always pay more attention to the victim than the child. For example, simply and briefly tell the offending child ‘no’ and then turn away and make a big fuss of the hurt child. Over time, the angry child will learn that you will not give more attention for violence.
• Try teaching control of emotions. For younger children, reward systems can work, remembering that the younger the child the more immediate the reward. A four year old who stops screaming or hitting when told to can receive a sticker for this until they are able to do it all the time. Then the reward is given for less, or no screaming or hitting until the child is trying to control it at all times. For older children, the approach may focus more on teaching social skills and specific anger management techniques. For example, they may learn how to recognise their own symptoms of anger, so that they may gain control early on, before they are really cross. See also activities such as ‘Catching my Anger’ and ‘The Anger de-bugging Kit’ (Hobday et al, 2002).
• Use role-play, or perhaps discussion of a television soap you have watched together, to talk about the way people cope in different situations without being angry. See if your youngster can keep a diary of how well he or she copes in similar situations.
• During an outburst of physical aggression, your immediate task, and that of a teacher in school, is to protect others. Move other children away from a child who is being violent – he or she is unlikely to be able to move when very angry. Keep very calm yourself – the out of control child needs you to be steady.
• After an incident of aggression, see if you can discuss it and work out how things could have been different. It helps to draw a sort of flow chart, writing down together what happened and then working out different choices that could have been made to lead to a better outcome (see ‘Escape Routes’, Hobday & Ollier, 1998).
• Always remember that most children have some anger to express, so it is good to teach them how to express it in a way that does not hurt anyone – such as telling you they are cross, or hitting their pillow. Within school, some teachers give older children permission cards to place on teacher’s desk as they leave the room to go to their pre-arranged calming down place or person.
• No reply to this question would be complete without a reminder that a violent child should never be smacked or shouted at for aggressive behaviour. It perpetuates the belief that violence is permissible.

Last but not least
Look after yourself! Find the support that you need, while you work on the difficulty. Perhaps a friend from Church? Keep records of what is happening and celebrate any small progress. If there is no change at all over about four months, then it is important to seek professional help for your child.

For more ideas, try:
Fahlberg, V. (1994) A Child’s Journey through Placement. British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, London.

Hobday, A and Ollier, K. (1998) Creative Therapy: Activities with Children and Adolescents. BPS Books, Leicester.

Hobday, A., Kirby, A. and Ollier, K. (2002) Creative Therapy for Children in New Families. BPS Blackwell, Oxford.

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