One of the best, but most misused anger management techniques for children is "time-out."

Time-out is used by most parents as punishment for their children acting out. Instead of punishment, time-out can also be an opportunity to teach your kids how to control their feelings.

Framing time-out as a reprimand only teaches kids that acting out results in their parents exerting control over them. To which you might be saying, "Well, duh that’s what it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?" The problem is that no one likes punishment and they come to resent and fight it. I’m guessing you wouldn’t be reading this article if time-out was proving to be an effective anger management technique to use on your children. Some parents even find that using time-out as an anger management technique only makes their kids get angrier or get angry more often. There are three factors that cause this: 1) acting out is a good way to get their parents attention (even negative attention can be experienced in a positive fashion by kids). 2) it makes them associate anger with being reprimanded, which oftentimes has the unfortunate consequence of making them even more mad, and 3) it teaches them to stuff their feelings rather than to learn to recognize and manage them.

What I suggest is telling your kids that time-out is not meant as punishment, but instead as a way for them to learn how to calm down and have control over their emotions. If you children are 5 or under, try telling them it’s a way to learn how to act like the "big kids". What young child doesn’t aspire to be one of the "big kids?" It’s important to calmly and evenly keep repeating to them that you want to listen to what they have to say but that you can't do that when they are screaming and fussing. Once your child has become more peaceful take a minute or so and try talking to them about what got them triggered. Just make an honest effort to listen with an open mind. This doesn't mean caving in to them, it means allowing them to have their say and that, even if you don't agree with them, you will treat them with respect if they talk rather than act out in anger.

Try this anger management technique for a while and see what happens. You may be surprised at how much easier it is to put your child in time-out so that they can "have some time to relax." Some kids have even been known to put themselves into time-out.

How much difference do you think it would have made in your emotional make-up if your parents had used this anger management technique on you? It would have become second nature to you. Time-out, when used the right way, can be an extremely effective anger management technique.