Dear Jan: My 7-year-old son lets off steam by yelling at me. I tell him yelling is not acceptable and sometimes send him to his room, but often he just continues yelling.

If I talk in a reasonable voice, he yells, "You're mean!" Then I get upset, and it just cycles around like that.

There are times when I sit down and hug him because he is so out-of-control. I understand he has big emotions that need to come out, but it is not OK to yell at me. What is the best thing to do?

— A Mom

You are absolutely right; it is not OK for your son to yell at you. Yet as you realize, you are not going to punish those feelings away by sending him to his room. His feelings are OK, everyone feels angry from time to time. It's the behavior that accompanies his angry feeling that is not OK.

He needs to learn a respectful way to express his emotions, and he needs you to help him.

When your son shifts into high gear with angry emotions, take a few deeps breaths, shift yourself into low gear and move toward your child. Next, put your son's angry feelings into words, "You're really angry. You must have had a terrible day at school." Or, "You're really mad because you're trying to build with Legos and your building keeps falling apart." Then add, "I understand. I would be angry, too."

The reason you do so is twofold. First, you communicate that you understand his angry emotions. Second, you offer words that he'll eventually use himself to express his feelings.

Also, it's important to speak with the same intensity your son would if he could express his anger in words. Don't scream the words, just say them intensely. Matching his passion with yours proves that you really understand how strongly he feels, thereby validating his feelings.

When your son is angry, hearing the voice of reason will not move him from angry to calm. When angry, your son uses a primitive part of the brain that some specialists refer to as the reptilian brain. So when he's angry, don't think of him as a little boy with whom you can reason. You need to wait until your son's emotions settle down before offering a rational explanation.

Meeting his anger with your anger doesn't help the situation either. It only escalates his emotions, and that's when the two of you begin your dance of anger. Each of you completes your parts of this ugly dance until it ends with both of you emotional and exhausted. You then feel guilty, most likely indulge him until his anger erupts again, and the dance plays itself out once more.

To change this dance of anger, you'll need to validate his anger by putting it into words. This change in your relationship dance will take consistency on your part and at least three weeks for it to take hold. In time, your son's yelling will turn into words describing the anger he's feeling. Eventually, he won't even need you to affirm his feelings; he'll manage those feelings all on his own.

Jan Faull: janfaull@aol.com or Jan Faull, c/o Families, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.