I
spoke with a woman over the weekend whose son is 10 years-old and she
says has anger management issues. We didn’t really get into his
specific behaviors but it caused me to reflect on some inherent
differences between males and females.

I think
that from very early on, boys and girls deal with their anger
differently. As a general rule, girls need to talk about it to feel
better, while boys need to work it out physically.

So if you have daughters, you want to teach them verbal skills to be
able to work out their frustrations but with boys, you will need to
provide opportunities for them to work out their anger physically—maybe
with a punching bag, racquetball, running, or martial arts. The list of
possibilities is truly endless but don’t expect your boys to “talk
about it,” at least not until they’ve had the opportunity to release
the anger in a safe physical manner.