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From: Woody
Date: 10/8/00
Time: 9:42:26 AM
Remote Name: 155.247.229.47
This is such an important question. Children are, I think, first of all frustrated in their attempts to speak, and frustration is a form of anger, usually turned inward, that is, one is angry with oneself. In addition, children typically turn their anger inwards anyway, maybe because they lack power in an adult world. So the clinician does not see anger expressed very much even though the children are angry, and when it is expressed it takes child-like forms. What I look for in a clinical situations is displacement of the anger toward objects -- hitting and banging things, breaking things. All children like to express feelings of anger and power, but really angry children do it with more intensity. So, for example, any child will want to knock down a tower that he or she has made. The angry child might really smash it down. Sometimes, too, angry children make gestures that are hitting types of gestures, but made near or next to the person they are angry at. They hit the air off to one side of the (usually) parent. Another way to see it is in the pictures they draw. Children who draw monsters and evil looking characters are often identifying with the power these characters seem to have. When the child is extremely angry, they will talk about violent things, maybe hurt animals, or show some other pre-occupation with violence. I have seen very few stuttering children with this much rage, but I can remember a few. One of them threw a chair at me. I thought that was pretty direct.