Managing angry feelings: teaching troubled children to cope

Children who have a history of physical and emotional abuse present special problems to nurses who attempt to teach them more effective ways of dealing with anger. Since the adults in abused children's lives have not modeled constructive conflict resolution, the social and cultural learning about aggression in such children frequently has been inadequate. The author asserts that because nurses are in close contact with the children and can observe patterns of behavior during their regular daily activities, hospitalization may prove the ideal situation to teach such children appropriate social and assertiveness skills.