Anger seems to be a very pervasive emotion for all human beings. And this is especially the case for kids and teens in today’s day and age.
Everyone seems to be angry and unhappy, making anger a pandemic emotion in our culture and time. One of the reasons why anger seems to define our time in so many ways is because there is so much uncertainty and upheaval for people.
Children and teens seem angry at their siblings, angry at the system, angry at their parents, and even more sadly angry for no particular reason except perhaps to get attention. Yet, the problem of anger often goes unaddressed, and it seldom goes away. In fact, if anything, anger is becoming more and more rampant among the young.
Being angry all the time is quite dangerous for a teens overall health and well-being. Not only is being constantly angry dangerous and detrimental to our physical health, causing a lot of diseases and illnesses, uncontrollable anger can be detrimental to our psychological and mental well-being as well.
Thus, being angry has several serious down sides. Some of the detriments to constant anger are as follows:
1. Anger can spiral into despair if we aren’t careful. Getting angry can frequently increase our sensitivity to things that make us angry. Accompanying increased sensitivity to events is a reduced ability to manage anger, followed by an increase in the intensity of vented anger. This can lead to even greater sensitivity to situations of anger.
2. Chronic anger can choke out other positive feelings and can become a solution to most problems. This is really serious since there are many other ways of resolving problems than by becoming angry. This can lead individuals to be unable to learn other ways of expressing feelings and emotions, be they positive or negative.
3. The chronically angry person nurtures a social and emotional environment that promotes anger. Blame, vengeance, unkindness, sarcasm, cynicism, and a critical spirit pervade the most meaningful social exchanges, while withdrawal, depression and loneliness characterizes nonsocial periods.
4. Uncontrollable anger causes an increased malaise in people and this is especially problematic for young kids who cannot control their negative feelings towards others or themselves. This can cause a life of extreme discontent and unhappiness.
Therefore, it is in our best interest to try and control our angry outbursts and episodes. That way we will be less bitter and will experience much more contentment and self-confidence.
