Anger Wheel for Fighting Siblings
Positive Discipline Tool Helps Angry Children Choose to Calm Down
Sibling conflicts can quickly escalate into sibling fights in which angry children become verbally and physically aggressive. A Positive Discipline tool called the "Anger Wheel of Choice" offers a gentle and respectful reminder to fighting siblings, even for children as young as four.
Jane Nelsen developed the “Anger Wheel of Choice” as a discipline tool for both children and parents. Nelsen offers a free sample of an “Anger Wheel of Choice” on her Positive Discipline website. Parents can use the “Anger Wheel of Choice” to teach children a healthy guideline about conflict: calm down before trying to solve a problem.
How does an Anger Wheel of Choice Work?
An “Anger Wheel of Choice” is simply a poster or piece of paper with images of healthy ways to calm down. When sibling fights intensify to the point of anger, parents can direct children to the “Anger Wheel of Choice”. Kids can look at the visual choices and choose a way to calm down before trying to further solve the conflict.
What Strategies Help Angry Children Calm Down?
Different children like to calm down in different ways. That’s one of the reasons there are several choices on the “Anger Wheel of Choice”. Preschool aged children might want to choose strategies such as squish play dough, pound a hammering toy or cuddle with a stuffed animal. Elementary aged children might choose to squeeze a stress ball or go outside and kick a ball. Teens may want to shoot basketball or go to their room and listen to music. The “Anger Wheel of Choice” is a flexible discipline tool that can be adapted for different children and different families.
Making an Anger Wheel of Choice
Families can make an “Anger Wheel of Choice” together and make sure to include a variety of choices that work for all family members. Parents can download a free sample “Anger Wheel of Choice” at the free downloads section of Jane Nelsen’s Positive Discipline website and show it to family members.
Parents and children can brainstorm together about what helps family members calm down and what things around the house can be used as calm down tools. Family members can either draw images of ways to calm down or use computer clip art to design a “Anger Wheel of Choice”
Getting Kids to Use the Anger Wheel of Choice
Parents can want fighting siblings to use a Positive Discipline tool to calm down, but how do parents get angry children to actually use a “Anger Wheel of Choice”? When sibling fights elevate to aggression, raging emotions often prevent children from thinking rationally about calming down. Siblings in a fight are usually focused on winning or making sure the other person loses.
Children often copy parents, so a great way to get children to use the “Anger Wheel of Choice” is for parents to use the wheel to calm down during a conflict. Although modeling how to use the “Anger Wheel of Choice” may seem uncomfortable for parents at first, most parents soon realize that the wheel is helpful for adults too.
Posting copies of a family “Anger Wheel of Choice” can be helpful in teaching children to use the wheel to calm down during sibling fights. Families might want to post a copy of the “Anger Wheel of Choice” on the back of bedroom doors and bathroom doors.
For those families who like dramatics, parents and children can have fun role-playing sibling fights to practice how children can stop arguing and walk away to choose a calm down strategy from the “Anger Wheel of Choice”.
Reassure fighting siblings that they can try to resolve the conflict again later after they calm down. Learning and implementing any new discipline tool takes time. Children will need lots of practice in order to learn the new skill of calming down during fights with siblings. Parent quality time helps improve sibling relationships too, so parents can also lesson sibling fights by scheduling one on one time with children each week.
References:
Nelsen & Erwin. Positive Discipline for Child Care Providers. Prima Publishing 2002.
Fighting Siblings Calm Down
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