Session on Anger Management

On the afternoon of Monday (26^th August, 2013) we, the 10^th IGCSE sections, had an Anger Management session with Rachana ma’am, our student advisor.

The session started off with the students listing down all the things that made them angry on a general basis (around 10 things were listed by each student). Next, we had to go through the list and mark the ones that irritate or upset us the most. We also had to mark the ones that occurred more frequently than the other points listed. None of these were discussed and were done in silence.

Here came the discussion part- we were asked to list down the ways in which we control or express our anger which was then discussed. Many people said that they punch things around them (preferably a pillow), shout, take a walk, cry and/or watch T.V. I also heard some people say that they eat, jogor watch a movie.

Rachana ma’am stepped into the discussion and added a few points of hers. She told us that anger can be controlled in a much better way than what we just listed out – we could just breathe and count numbers in our head (counting backwards from 100 to 0 is more effective in reducing your anger).

We did an (interactive) exercise in which all the students were required to hammer a nail into a piece of wood and then remove it. She showed how the nail now left a hole in the wood and explained that this was very similar to the hurt inflicted onto another person when you do or say something out of anger. You can go and apologize later but the pain caused to the other person by your anger (or rather, the lack of control on your anger) will always leave a scar – just like how the hammered nail left a scar on the piece of wood even after it was removed.

Most of the children admitted that they get angry mostly when they are being scolded by their parents. We debated about what we should do to manage our anger in these types of situations. Rachana ma’am pointed out that when your parents scold you they themselves are mad and therefore we shouldn’t interrupt them. Instead she advised us to tell our parents what we want to say when they are calmer (preferably after a few minutes or hours from when they scolded you).

Overall we, the children, concluded that anger isn’t bad (in fact it’s good) but not being able to control or manage it is bad. And she, Rachana ma’am, concluded that we weren’t children who get angry easily (we failed at acting out a skit because we could neither act like we were angry nor could we actually get angry despite all of madam’s efforts)- By Nishita Reddy, Grade X G, CIE.