Tag Archives: mental health

Anger Issues: Innies and Outies

Posted on by Shona Innes
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I love anger.  You’re probably not supposed to have a favourite feeling because all feelings are important, but I do love anger.  Anger has so many great functions.  It can energise us. If unleashed, our anger can help us run faster, bite harder, and throw, move and break bigger things than we can when we are not so angry.

If emotions are the human dashboard that guides us through our body’s journey through life, when someone’s anger flares, it’s a great warning sign.  Anger is a way our body and brain use to yell at us to pull over and make sure we pay attention to something that is not quite right.

Often, anger is behind us when we finally decide to do something about a problem that has been building or neglected for quite some time.  Anger can be useful to get stuff done.

However, anger can also be dangerous and debilitating.  When anger gets out of control, it can be the emotion behind hurtful and destructive behaviour.  Anger can give kids, and adults, a bad reputation and make others disinclined to want to spend time with them.

An important part of parenting or educating a child is helping them to know how to get the best of their anger – helping a child get the best of the motivating and problem solving aspects of anger without hurting someone, breaking something or making a rash decision.

Sometimes we need to consider is the anger a problem, or is the child’s situation the problem.  Some young people have plenty of legitimate things to be upset and angry about.

Managing anger is one of those Goldilocks kind of things.  It’s important that we get the balance “just right” – Expressing too much anger in the wrong kinds of ways at one end and holding anger in and letting it build on the other end.  When we consider anger, we need to consider the problems that might go with externalising anger (letting it out) as well as internalising anger (holding it in).  So, just like belly buttons,  anger problems in kids and adults are usually of two kinds – “outie” anger issues or “innie” anger issues.

“Outie” anger issues are probably those that usually come to mind when we think of anger problems – yelling, profanity, damage to property, verbal abuse, road rage and physically hurting others.  Typically we help people manage outwardly expressed anger by understanding the things that trigger them and learning to take alternative action to deal with the tension that rises in them – to take a slow breath, take other’s perspectives, think about consequences, take a “time out”, exercise or do some hard physical work and learn to problem solve.  There are also new programs emerging that assist those to manage their outwardly expressed anger by tuning into the part of themselves that is grateful for what they have and to be compassionate towards others.  These processes take time, but do work as long as they are modified for each individual’s age and circumstances.

“Innie” anger or anger that is held in or internalised is also a problem and can have big implications for mental health and interpersonal functioning.  Some will hold their anger in until they reach a point where the smallest of things will set them off.  For those watching from the outside, the reactions seem out of proportion with the trigger. That’s usually because the trigger may have little to do with all of the other problems that have been held in and not expressed or dealt with.  When this kind of anger erupts it can take everyone by surprise.  It can seem confusing and can be very hard for a person to control.

“Innie” anger can also be linked to experiences of shame or self loathing.  A young person may learn to respond to something that makes them angry by appearing cheerful for a range of reasons – they may not want to bother others or stand out, they may be told by people who are important to them not to be angry, they may feel that others won’t like them if they are angry or they may be punished for expressing anger.  Instead, they develop a strategy for dealing with things where the  outside part of them doesn’t match the inside.  They lose touch with their ability to feel and express healthy emotions and this can have substantial mental health consequences.

It’s important that we help young people to know, label and understand emotions in themselves and other and learn how to express them in ways that are healthy.

Properly expressed anger is a fine and powerful thing for everyone to have in their interpersonal armor and coping tool box.

To encourage young people to express their anger in useful and safe ways we need to:

  • Model appropriate anger – Speak up in appropriate ways, let people know when we are upset by things and take necessary, responsible action – join a protest, start a group, write a strongly-worded letter, articulate the problem and ask for what they would like to be done
  • If you are responding to a child’s anger, be sure to help them label the feelings and be clear that you want them to manage the feeling differently rather than to banish the feeling
  • Encourage the safe expression of individual opinion in your household or school
  • If someone hurts someone else with their anger outbursts, be sure to have them make some amends – again for the behaviour and not for the feeling
  • Encourage exercise, loud vocalisations (some, myself included, might call that singing) and asking for help.
  • Develop compassion for others and for ourselves by modelling kindness and recognising others needs and our own needs, too.

Anger can be awesome, ferocious, strong, protective and proud. Without anger we can be vulnerable and taken for granted.  Turned in, anger can fuel shame and sadness.  The key to anger is feeling it, knowing it, showing it in the right kinds or ways and then using it’s powers to get problems fixed.

How long has it been since you gave your anger some attention?

 

 

Tertiary Education Life 101

Posted on by Shona Innes
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It’s that time of the year. University and other tertiary education institutions are gearing up for another influx of new students. Togas and silly hats may dominate the landscape of our university precincts as the more academic of the next generation step up to take their sought-after places in the hallowed corridors of learning.

Parents who may be sending younglings off to tertiary education for the first time, might be a little worried. Parents’ worry may be affected by their own recall of events from when they, themselves, first left home for academic pursuits (that is, given their recall has not been affected by poor brain-care habits over ensuing years). Parents may be both excited for their young adult children and a little apprehensive about the hi-jinks they may be exposed to and/or engaged in.

The student-child is somewhat of a developmental and social grey area.

The job of the parent/carer becomes even more fuzzy and tricky to define while the offspring is both dependent and independent. The student-child is still on your Medicare card, but they also have one of their own. They are enrolled to vote and licensed to drive, but many heading to a university or college will still be quite financially dependent and will still require a safe base to come back to in times of need.

You have done much to assist your children to get to this point. Their university entrance scores are shiny. Their neurobiology is still simultaneously quick to react and primed for socialising. They have likely survived the adventures of schoolies, likely seen or experienced some sort of illicit substance and no doubt partaken in an alcoholic beverage or two – despite growing up in an era when they know more about the concerning effects of this on their brain and body health than ever before. They have a new laptop/tablet or similar learning device that Nan’s Christmas money assisted to purchase. Some hold down regular casual work where they may hold quite a deal of responsibility. They have survived the social-media-goes-mobile-phone teen years, have veered somewhat away from Facebook (because their parents are enjoying Facebook, too, these days), and they can text, inbox and post selfies at a rapid pace.

So, what on Earth should your student-child pack with them for this next chapter of their life?

Well, researchers probably know more about students than any other population on the planet. The job of many under-graduate students (aside of course from pursuing their academic best) is to participate in numerous studies as the test subjects/guinea pigs/lab rats. It is easy for academic researchers to access cohorts of university students without even having to pack their clip boards into their motor vehicles. Thus, cumulatively, we know a lot about the university student sample.

Research has helped inform us about students and their emotional health. One group of university researchers surveyed undergraduate students to determine the strategies that best assisted student to “flourish” in their emotional health. It turns out that the students who were involved in the study used a lot of strategies to help their emotions including understanding and analysing feelings, talking to someone, doing something enjoyable, being grateful, using alcohol and coffee, treating oneself, and consulting an advisor or mentor.

Importantly, though, it was not so much what the students did to manage emotionally rather than what they did not do that seemed to separate the languishing students from the flourishing students.

Flourishing students did not avoid as much as languishing students. Flourishing students engaged and took part rather than used avoidance to manage their emotions. The researchers recommended less avoidance and more engagement when it came to student emotional health.

Additionally, a different group of researchers looked at students who were living away from home and sharing a living space with other students. After studying 103 pairs of students sharing a residence in their first year, the researchers concluded that first years were more likely to “catch” a vulnerability to depression if they shared with a cognitively vulnerable room mate.

Your student-child could do well to engage in student life and a variety of different coping measures and encourage their room-mates to do the same.

So, parents…., it would be wise to keep an eye on your student-child if you notice they are avoiding and living in close proximity to others who may be vulnerable to not coping. Be alert if they are spending less time with others, less time at the books and more time doing, well…, not much. Meanwhile, if you garner evidence that your student-child is interacting, participating, sharing and venting, then you may feel a little more at ease about their transition to tertiary learning. You could continue to worry about them if you wanted to, but that’s not a strategy that researchers can recommend at this point in academic history. The worrying and ruminating parent is a whole other body of research – it’s lucky we have a new bunch of academics researchers on the rise!