How Can I Manage My Anger?

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Many children and teens labeled as having anger issues actually have anxiety disorders.

Our fight response is a stress a legitimate stress response necessary for survival.

Helping people who tend toward the fight response find healthy "fight" activities increases self-regulation.

I often start intakes with children by asking the question, “Do you know why you are here?” This helps me assess how much they know about their reasons for being in my office, as well as how much they know about who I am, and what my role is. Often, the child will respond with, “Because I have anger issues.” The reason I hear this so often is that most of the children who are referred to me are struggling with a combination of difficulties with emotional regulation and impulse control. In other words, things happen, they have big feelings, and big, often angry responses. The thing that is often being missed by parents, teachers, coaches, treatment providers, and other adults in their lives is that they actually don’t have “anger issues”; they have anxiety disorders.

We often talk about our stress responses, “fight, flight, and freeze,” but then forget that the fight response is a stress response. On the surface, these kids, many of whom are also neurodivergent, look like they have anger issues, but, in reality, they have anxiety issues. When their anxiety is triggered, they go into a fight response. This distinction is very important as it often changes the way that others respond to the child and will inform what response should be taken to support them in increasing their emotional regulation skills. Before we talk more about this, let’s first talk more about the stress responses.

Our stress responses are instincts preprogrammed into our brains to keep us alive in emergency situations. Think of a caveman walking through the woods and running into a saber-toothed tiger. He is going to try to fight back when attacked, run away to safety, or freeze up, and the tiger may leave him alone because he doesn’t seem like a danger. These reactions are not good or bad; they are instinctive responses that are designed to keep us alive when we are in danger. The thing about the stress responses, however, is that we don’t just engage in them in emergency situations; we also will go into one of the stress responses when we have really big emotions. In other words, when we are really anxious, sad, scared, mad, etc., we will go into a fight, flight, or freeze response.

Finding Healthy Ways to Self-Regulate

As a therapist, it is my job to help my clients find healthy ways to self-regulate. Usually in the therapy world, this means teaching deep-breathing exercises, mindfulness activities, grounding techniques, and other things that often fall into the freeze response category. For someone who tends to go into their fight response, this simply will not work for them. Their brain is telling them, “Fight or die!” and so deep breathing or counting to 10 is going to do very little to help. Instead, the person needs some kind of healthy way to simulate the fight response. Instead of grounding techniques, they need to go on a walk, take a bike ride, do push-ups, shoot some hoops, punch a punching bag, scream into a pillow, or something along those lines.

When I review the concept of using the fight response for self-regulation in trainings or when discussing my book, What’s Your Anxiety Level? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Neurodivergent Children and Teens with Co-Occurring Anxiety Disorders, many will ask, “Doesn’t this teach kids that it is OK to be physically aggressive?” The thing is, these kids are already physically aggressive. What I am doing is explaining why they are experiencing what feels like anger, and then giving them healthy alternatives to engage in this instinctive fight response.

By taking this approach, I have had multiple kids who were having severe fight responses, doing things like throwing kitchen chairs across the room when their anxiety was triggered, and then working with them to find healthy alternative behaviors. I have found that most children do not want to hurt themselves or others, and when given tools that are both designed with their input and work with the way their brain is wired, these kids are able to graduate from therapy in sometimes as little as 6 to 9 months. The reason this approach works is because I am helping them better understand themselves and then giving them healthy coping skills that are created just for them and the way that their brain is wired.

Let’s also consider that the fight response is necessary for survival. A few summers ago, there was a 13-year-old girl swimming off the coast of New Jersey when she was bitten in the abdomen by a shark. She fought back, hitting, kicking, punching, until the shark let her go. She was able to get out of the water, received emergency surgery, and lived to tell the tale. Now imagine if she had been trained that her fight response was “bad,” so she no longer engaged in it. If she had gone into a flight-or-freeze response, she probably would be dead. So, let’s not train kids (or adults) that their fight response is something to be ashamed of. It is an instinctive response that they may need someday. In the meantime, they need healthy ways to engage in their fight responses. This looks like, “You can’t hit your sibling, but you can hit this punching bag.” Giving people coping skills that work for their brains will lead to people who can more effectively self-regulate their emotions.

How Can I Manage My Anger?

Take our Anger Management Test

Find a therapist to heal from anger

Cork, J., 2025. What’s Your Anxiety Level? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Neurodivergent Children and Teens with Co-Occurring Anxiety Disorders. Routledge Press.

Vasquez, I., 2023, May 5. 13-year-old girl recalls fighting off shark after being bitten in arms, leg and stomach. People. https://people.com/human-interest/13-year-old-girl-fights-off-shark-aft…

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