14 Feb, 2025
Anger is a natural human emotion, yet it is often misunderstood and stigmatised.
When managed effectively, anger can be a catalyst for positive change, helping us set boundaries, address injustices, and express our needs. However, when anger becomes overwhelming or is expressed in harmful ways, it can damage relationships, impact children’s emotional development, and contribute to cycles of conflict and distress.
At The For Baby’s Sake Trust, we work with parents who have experienced or used abusive behaviour in their relationships. A key element of our therapeutic approach is helping individuals recognise and regulate their emotions, including anger, in ways that promote emotional safety and wellbeing for themselves and their families.
In this blog by Brenda Evans, our Therapeutic Lead, we will explore the importance of emotional regulation, why it matters to parenting and relationships, and the strategies we use to support parents to manage their anger.
What is anger?
Anger is a normal human response that we all feel. Intense anger is rarely accidental or impulsive, nor is it inexplicable or unmanageable—there is always an explanation, even if it is deep-rooted.
However, intense, prolonged, and dysregulated anger can cause significant health issues. The first approach to combat unhealthy anger is self-awareness, as continually expressing anger in an unhealthy way only makes us better at being angry. Excessive anger often arises from unmanageable feelings, a lack of communication skills, and a fragile sense of self. Like anything that provides a ‘high,’ anger outbursts can become addictive.
Anger is also a common reaction to fear, humiliation, and shame. For children, experiencing explosive anger outbursts can lead to internalised rage or cause them to emulate the behaviours they witness.
How can previous trauma trigger anger?
A trigger can be anything that sparks a memory of a trauma, or a part of a trauma. When you encounter a trigger, memories and thoughts associated with the trauma come back without warning. You cannot stop the intrusive thoughts, and in response, feelings, responses, and physical reactions occur. A trigger might make you feel helpless, in a state of panic, unsafe, and overwhelmed with emotion. You might feel the same things that you felt at the time of the trauma, as though you were reliving the event. The mind perceives triggers as a threat and causes a reaction like fear, panic, agitation, and anger. The memory of the traumatic event places you right back into the experience, which causes you to feel the need to protect yourself and this too can be the result of a triggering experience.
How anyone responds when triggered is as unique as the person themselves and vary in severity. After encountering a trigger, it can take some time for your nervous system to recover. This is partly because trauma reduces your window of tolerance — the emotional zone in which you feel grounded, balanced, and calm. A smaller window of tolerance means stressors are more likely to cause greater emotional upset. Experiencing triggers is a distinctive feature of PTSD. Triggers are often key events in which PTSD symptoms arise or are noticed.
What is emotional regulation?
Emotional regulation is broadly speaking the ability to control your emotional state. It can involve behaviours like reframing a challenging situation to reduce frustration, anger, or anxiety, focussing on happy memories, or hiding noticeable signs of irritability, fear, panic, or anger. It involves what experts describe as the process of ‘down-regulation’ to reduce the anxiety and the intensity of experienced feelings. Humour, distraction, and dissociation are often employed to achieve the desired result. Emotional regulation also includes ‘up-regulation’ to ramp up the emotions when facing imminent danger or a situation that requires enhanced levels of excitement and/or anxiety. Broader categories of emotional regulation are reappraisal, changing how one thinks about the issue that prompted the emotion, to change one’s response and suppression, which has been linked to less positive outcomes.
In summary, emotional regulation refers to the ability to recognise, understand, and manage our emotions in a way that aligns with our values and goals and helps keep us and others safe. It involves:
- Identifying emotional triggers
- Understanding the root causes of emotions
- Being able to name our emotions
- Expressing emotions in a way that is helpful rather than harmful
- Developing coping strategies to manage intense feelings
Several factors can make it more challenging for parents to manage their emotions effectively. Alcohol and substance misuse, for example, can lower inhibitions, reduce the ability to consider consequences in the moment and impair judgment, making it harder to manage the response to stressful situations. Unresolved trauma, mental and physical ill health, caring responsibilities, sleep deprivation, worries about money and job security, and other stressors can also play a role, leaving parents feeling emotionally overwhelmed and less able to regulate their responses. Recognising the impact of these factors and seeking appropriate support is essential for parents to foster a more stable and nurturing environment for their children.
Anger can escalate into destructive behaviours such as constant shouting, withdrawing, or aggressive and threatening behaviour.
These patterns can significantly impact relationships, how safe all family members feel and impact children’s emotional security.
How does anger impact relationships?
When we think about relationships, anger can arise when individuals feel unheard, disrespected, or overwhelmed. It can also be a pattern of behaviour, sometimes learnt from childhood. Anger expressed through criticism, blame, and threatening behaviour is abusive behaviour, and can erode trust and intimacy. Anger can also contribute to coercive control, manipulation, and emotional withdrawal, creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment for all family members.
However, when we work to understand anger, the impact it can have on others, and how we can regulate our emotions so we don’t cause harm to others, it can strengthen relationships by facilitating honest conversations and problem-solving. The key lies in shifting from reactive anger to responsive communication, where emotions are acknowledged and expressed without harming others.
Why is emotional regulation important in parenting?
Children learn how to regulate their emotions by observing the adults around them. When parents struggle to manage their emotions and often resort to anger, children may experience fear, anxiety, or confusion. Exposure to frequent conflict can also have long-term consequences on a child’s emotional and psychological well-being.
Conversely, when parents model healthy emotional regulation, they provide a secure foundation for their children to develop their own coping skills.
At The For Baby’s Sake Trust, we support parents in recognising how their emotional responses impact their relationships, including with their children. By fostering self-awareness and developing tools to manage anger, parents can create a nurturing environment where their children feel safe and valued.
How can I manage anger and regulate my emotions?
- Recognising Triggers
Understanding what triggers anger is the first step towards managing it. Triggers could include stress, feelings of powerlessness, unresolved trauma, and feeling like our needs are not being met. By identifying these triggers, individuals can begin to respond rather than react impulsively.
- Practising Self-Awareness
Self-awareness involves recognising physical and emotional signs of anger, such as increased heart rate, clenched fists, or feelings of frustration. Pausing to acknowledge these sensations can create space for more intentional responses.
- Using Breathing and Grounding Techniques
When anger escalates, physiological responses can make it difficult to think clearly. Deep breathing exercises, grounding techniques (such as focusing on physical sensations), or taking a short break can help regulate emotions before responding.
- Developing Healthy Communication Skills
Effective communication is key to managing anger in relationships. This includes:
- Using “I” statements rather than blaming (e.g., “I feel hurt when…” instead of “You never listen!”)
- Actively listening to the other person’s perspective
- Taking time to process emotions before responding
- Challenging Negative Thought Patterns
Anger is often fuelled by unhelpful thoughts, such as assuming the worst or personalising situations. By challenging these thoughts and considering alternative interpretations, individuals can reduce emotional intensity.
- Establishing Healthy Boundaries
Setting boundaries helps prevent anger from escalating into conflict. This may involve:
- Communicating needs and limits clearly
- Recognising when to disengage from unproductive arguments
- Prioritising self-care to maintain emotional balance
- Seeking Support and Professional Guidance
For many individuals, anger is deeply rooted in past experiences, including childhood trauma. Seeking therapeutic support can provide a safe space to explore these experiences, develop coping strategies, and break cycles of harmful behaviour.
Breaking the cycle of abuse
At The For Baby’s Sake Trust, we believe that change is possible when individuals are given the tools and support to manage their emotions. Our whole-family, trauma-informed approach helps parents address the underlying causes of emotions like anger, develop healthier relationship dynamics, and create a safe environment for their children.
By working with both parents, we recognise that anger management and emotional regulation is not just about individual change, but about fostering a culture of emotional safety within families. We encourage open conversations about emotions, promote non-violent communication, and empower parents to build secure attachments with their children.
Final thoughts
Anger itself is not the problem – it is how we understand and express it that determines its impact on our relationships and families. Through emotional regulation, self-awareness, and support, individuals can transform anger into an opportunity for growth rather than conflict.
At The For Baby’s Sake Trust, we are committed to helping parents navigate this journey, breaking cycles of domestic abuse and fostering healthier relationships. By equipping parents with the skills to manage anger constructively, we can create a future where everyone in the family an feel safe, and babies grow up feeling safe, loved, and secure.
If you are interested in learning more about our work or need support, please reach out to us. Change starts with awareness, and together, we can build a more emotionally safe world for families.
