Sometimes people feel angry. Learning how to understand and manage anger in a healthy, constructive way is an important part of growing up and learning emotional maturity and self-regulation.
If you are wondering how to teach your student or child about managing their anger, try one of our social story templates! These templates cover a variety of topics such as:
- What Should I Do When I’m Really Upset?
- Making Calming Choices
- Learning Consequences for Inappropriate Responses to Anger
- Using Green Words vs. Red Words
Social stories may help because they are written from your child or student’s perspective and can set expectations for appropriate responses to being angry. Within the social story, outline various scenarios in which your child may become angry. Be sure to include appropriate responses for them to try such as taking 5 deep breathes in and out, walking away from a situation that makes them angry, or asking an adult for a break to cool down.
By teaching emotional regulation skills and modeling appropriate behaviors, your child or student will learn how to respond to strong emotions like anger or frustration in a constructive way.
Create your own social story about anger or choose from one of our customizable social story templates!
The special education resources on this page were authored by Watson Institute’s special education consultant, Sophia Barrett.
These behavior stories may benefit your students. They can be downloaded, saved and edited to suit your needs. The * notation indicates the story is formatted in a Power Point presentation and the ** notation indicates a Power Point with sound narration. Each Power Point has animation included on each slide. Some occur automatically – some occur on a “click”. Feel free to send comments or questions to [email protected].
Beethoven Social Story (behaviors of concern: hitting, language, and pushing)
What Should I Do When I’m Really Upset**
Sometimes Bob the Builder Gets Angry
What Can I Do? (Preschool through 1st or 2nd grade)
What Should I Do When I’m Really Upset? (Preschool through 1st grade)
What Should I Do When I’m Really Upset (SIA DOG) – Preschool/Elementary; Special Interest Area (Dog); includes Power Card
Pictures to Request Help with the above resource “What Should I Do When I’m Really Upset?”
What Should I Do When I’m Really Upset – 5pt Scale
When I Feel Angry (Boardmaker Choices)
When I’m Upset I Can (Written Choices)
A Detective Story (Topic: Solving an issue when you’re upset)
Feelings and Anger (Topic: Coping skills to help when sad and to replace hitting, pushing. Template for personalized photos)
Feelings and Anger Clipart (Topic: Coping skills to help when sad and to replace hitting, pushing. Story completed with Clipart illustrations)
If you have questions or concerns about the Watson Institute’s use of this information, please contact us.