Gamee/techniques to teach anger management

amandapmct · Sep 19, 2009

1) Start a focussed discussion on "what has helped you stay calm in the past when you felt angry but did not react to those feelings?" Open that up for discussion and write down people's answers on a white board or poster board. Keep the focus on what has worked in the past, rather than war stories or what hasn't worked. It helps people to remind themselves they have had past successes.

2) Teach relaxation techniques - always helpful. Don't feel like it's corny to play relaxing music and teach them how to relax, moving slowly from their toes, all the way up to their scalp, one part at a time. It may feel corny at first, but people love this! Speak slowly, soothingly. Read up on relaxation techniques on Google - there will be lots of helpful information.

3) You may also want to google Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which teaches people how to manage their feelings more effectively, and there will be lots of helpful tips there, as well. (If you can't find anything, do some academic research on DBT. There's tons of stuff out there on that.)

4) Since you have an hour, you could also briefly introduce some yoga poses along with meditation and suggest they do that for 20 minutes every day.

5) As you can see, I'm suggesting offering many different ways to calm anger and aggression, and suggesting they do it proactively - not every suggestion will work for everyone, so I think it's good to give several options, and many of these are interactive.

Hope that helps!