Why a behavior specialist wants your child to be angry

Kellie Syfan is the owner of Applied Behavioral Happiness, an applied behavior analysis company that partners with parents to overcome challenging behavior through skill building programs and play. Syfan got her start while working on a ranch in Colorado that specialized in caring for and rehabilitating abused, neglected, and wild horses and held classes and therapy for veterans, teens in group homes, and kids with different disabilities. She found that she loved teaching these classes but recognized that she needed more training to be the best she could be for them.  ABA fell into her lap and since then she has been refining my practice ever since.

She answered some questions about what ABA is all about.

ABA stands for “applied behavior analysis” and is (in a nut shell) the study of behavior applied to making people’s lives better. The greater field is “Behavior Analysis” which encompasses ABA as well as the experimental analysis of behavior (EAB). It’s kind of like the field of medicine: Some doctors work with patients (similar to ABA), while others work in laboratories with animals to create models and test concepts (similar to EAB). There are other uses for ABA too, such as Organization Behavior Management (OBM) where the concepts from ABA are applied to making better workplaces. I use strategies from OBM regularly to make sure my staff are well supported and are not experiencing burn out.

Often, people think ABA is solely used to help kids with developmental disabilities. This is a misconception and our business is proof: Many of the kids we serve at ABH have no diagnosis and are typically developing. When ABA is applied well, it can be helpful to anyone!

We want adaptive reactions to anger. Anger is not the problem, the reaction to it is. In the words of Lyman Abbott: “Don’t teach your child not to be angry. Teach them how to be angry.”

A child who doesn’t know how to be angry will hold it in or refuse to feel it, let it out in maladaptive ways or both. If we can teach kids to be angry, frustrated, upset, mad, and disgruntled in safe and productive ways, we are preparing them for real life, for being able to handle big feelings, and for having self-control.

The first step is modeling, the second step is practice, and the third step is support. Tell them about the strategies you use and then SHOW them what that looks like through your own behavior. Now practice these same skills with them when things are calm by having them instruct you on what to do, play out the situation with toys, or act it out. Last, prepare to support them through anger and frustration not by fixing it, but by allowing them to feel through it and helping them maintain control. Feelings are not the enemy: We can feel very intense things and still choose safe behaviors.

When a child doesn’t know how to use anger well, it can lead to escape behaviors: pushing others away or pushing the self down to get away from the icky feeling. By teaching your child how to feel these “big feels," you are going to have some wonderful short term effects. You are teaching your child that feelings are not to be feared, that they are safe to feel difficult things with you and you with support them through it, and how to work through those feelings without exploding (acting outwardly in anger) or imploding (bottling it up).

In the long-term, you are helping your child build empathy for themselves and others. You are setting them up for being willing and able to engage in this world without shutting down or becoming belligerent. You are giving them the skills to advocate for themselves and others and to make positive changes in the world.

Teaching your child how to feel, express, work through, and live with big feelings—especially anger!—sets them up for a lifetime of success. You are giving them problem solving tools and helping them engage and communicate in the hardest moments. You are making sure that they don’t shut down and accept abuse or mistreatment, or alternatively fly off the handle and lose it every time something small upsets them.