Temper tantrums, conduct disorder, school behaviors, over control, fighting with siblings - all of these anger management problems can actually be signs of anxiety.

Many parents are surprised to hear that their child with disruptive behaviors could have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety and anger operate on very similar physiological responses in the body, meaning that increased heart rate, breathing, and muscle tension can lead to an anxious reaction or an angry one. It’s very important for parents to ask themselves:

Is my child angry, or just anxious?

We believe that all children deserve mental health care with professionals that support and accept them for who they are.

Parenthood is, no doubt, one of life’s most intense bags of extreme emotional highs and lows…What we may not anticipate, however, is the difficulty of handling our own emotions during our child’s most difficult moments.

I work closely with parents of kids as young as 4, and I often have parents ask me if their expectations are too high. Should I expect my 5 year old to help with chores? Should my four year old know not to do that? Each child is different, and you will end up shaping your expectations around your children as they grow and develop. But below are a few unrealistic expectations for children that I've seen or heard in my practice:

How differently does anxiety manifest itself in girls versus boys? What accounts for such differences?

This May, I hosted a #HealthAMA ("ask me anything") allowing people to ask me any questions on temper tantrums and anger management for kids. You can find all the questions right here, and this summer I've pulled a few to expand on.

Gender differences in anger.

Based on my experience, I often see more boys with anxiety brought in for "anger management" than girls

Here we are, a month into the new school year, and you're going through the homework struggle. Again.

You were hoping this year would be different. You worked so hard, collaborating with your child's teacher, and finally had a good system... by April. But now it seems like it's back tracked. And it kind of feels hopeless. You wonder if your kid is every going to get their act together when it comes to doing their homework.

What do you do?

You have a lot of needs to meet as a parent.

You want your child to be fed, but fed the best version of homemade, organic, local and nutritious meals - and oh yeah, you have your own food blog to document this and help other families.

You want your child to have self-esteem, and you want that self-esteem built at a prestigious private school, which doesn’t come cheap. But you have to give your child every opportunity that you can!

You want your child to have friends, but the right friends - friends who are also considering top colleges, or looking at the peace corps, and you want your kid to be influenced by these very driven peers.

You set your child up for as much success as you can…

So what to you do when they still have anxiety, and it feels like your fault?

It’s okay to see a family therapist even if you aren’t in complete crisis.

When we work with anxiety and anger management with our kids, teens and college students, we sometimes connect families to family therapists even if everything feels like it’s going well. A family therapist can offer their perspective on the entire family dynamic and work on issues together in a way that is different from the work we do individually.

We reached out to family therapists in the St. Louis area to discuss the ins and outs of family therapy to help you decide if it’s the right choice for you. We were fortunate enough to interview Sally King about her experience with helping families form better communication patterns and resolve conflicts. Read more below about his practice and experience!

“Somethings are difficult to put into words (at first), but can be shared musically, providing a starting point for further insight, work and learning.” Learn more about music therapy with Maria Carron, Director of Services with Midwest Music Therapy Services, Inc.

“I also witnessed first-hand how effective art therapy can be when a loved one received various treatments for anxiety and depression. Art therapy helped them to relax, develop more trusting relationships with their therapists, and become immersed in a joyful creative process in the midst of such a difficult personal struggle. “

It’s so important to find the right fit for you and your child.

And with our therapists, when we come together as a team, we help to make sure you’re getting the best help possible. All of our therapists have their own individual clinical backgrounds and experience, but they also have the specialized training as team in how to best work with anxiety and anger management in kids, teens, and college students.

What makes Compassionate Counseling St. Louis special? All of our therapists understand that anger and anxiety serve a purpose.

Our team would never call anxiety or anger bad. We may not like how it feels, or our reactions that we have may be unhelpful, but we always want to figure out how to move forward with anxiety and anger, and how to help it not feel so big.

Have you noticed anxiety in your child ?

Our therapists at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis have a lot of experience working with anxious kids, teens and college students ,and we wanted to take the time to really showcase the work that we do!

We have our ongoing interview series, which is a great way to get to know other therapists in the area, but we also want you to get to know the therapists here at our office, too! Each of our therapists tailor their approach to you and your child, so you get the most out of your sessions and you feel supported the whole time.

This week, we spoke to Art Therapist Maggie Schmidt on her clinical experience, what it’s like working at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis, and when it might be a good idea to get therapy for anxiety. We’re so lucky to have her at our office!

Is family therapy the right choice for me?

When things seem overwhelming or you find yourself facing communication struggles in your home, it can be helpful to seek a therapist who can work with the whole family. Sometimes, it’s even helpful to seek family therapy in addition to individual therapy. But how do you know if your family would benefit from family therapy?

When we work with anxiety and anger management with our kids, teens and college students, we sometimes connect families to family therapists even if everything feels like it’s going well. A family therapist can offer their perspective on the entire family dynamic and work on issues together in a way that is different from the work we do individually.

Teenagers do a really good job when it comes to keeping parents out of the loop.

Part of it is just how teens are designed to be. They’re meant to be maturing on their own, increasing their independence, and building up their self-reliance. You want your teen to be able to start solving problems on their own. You need your teen to be able to figure out action steps to reach their goals.

But wanting your teen to grow in independence doesn’t mean you never want to know what’s going on.

You want your teen to come to you for support, too. You want to help them with their problems. You want to know when they need help.

Teens, especially teenagers with anxiety, can feel too overwhelmed to reach out for support.

So it’s crucial for you as the parent to provide opportunities for them to check in, and to be on the lookout for hidden signs of anxiety.

Compassionate Counseling St. Louis specializes in anxiety management for kids, teens and college students.

We work with a ton of families. We love the work that we do! But we also know, even if we love working with you, that we’re not always the best fit.

If things aren’t feeling better, we want to check in with your weekly outcomes scores, to track our progress. We want to try out a few new interventions. And if we’re still not seeing the progress we want to see, we might refer you out.

Anger and anxiety often go hand in hand.

Rarely if ever is a person just angry. There’s usually something else going on underneath it. We may look angry on the outside, but internally we feel stressed, overwhelmed, and anxious. There may be grief, depression, or loss that is impacting our external anger. Or, we may not really know why we’re acting so angry, because we haven’t trained ourselves to figure out what else is going on. We know we seem angry to other people, so we accept that we must be feeling angry.

Anxiety can be tricky, and if you or your therapist isn’t digging underneath the surface, you might be working on fixing the behaviors, but you’re never addressing the underlying cause. That’s why you need to work with therapists who specialize in anxiety, and know that it doesn’t always look like your classic flight/freeze.