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If you find it tough to control your anger, playing anger management games can help you build the internal skills and tools you need to be able to manage your feelings when things get heated.
Self-help life coaches and other mental health counseling services sometimes advise taking online anger management classes for depression anger or temper-related issues.
However, if your anger problems are not intense, anger games can also be a good alternative to attending such anger classes. Much like anger management worksheets, these games are designed to help us understand and subsequently find ways of dealing with anger.
Read on to learn more about how anger management games can help you and the best anger management games you can play today.
How Can Anger Management Games Help?
Anger management, as a whole, is an important skill to build if you have some anger issues. You should learn how to manage your feelings of anger, how to identify anger triggers, how to avoid and control those triggers, as well as to be able to express your anger in healthy and appropriate ways.
As mentioned above, if your anger issues are minor, using anger management games could be a simple and effective way to improve your anger management skills.
For once, a more relaxed and casual atmosphere when playing anger management games can make it easier for you to grasp the skills and concepts you need. By playing anger control games, you’ll find new and different ways to manage your negative feelings. You’ll also come to learn that life can be messy and unpredictable and that you cannot control every aspect of your life.
Lastly, these anger control games can teach you healthier and more appropriate ways to manage your angry feelings when they do rise up.
Types of Anger Management Games
Some of these are individual games that you can play on your own computer.
Below is an example of a Skullkid game (may take a minute or two to load):
Such games encourage a form of passive aggression wherein you express your anger on objects or persons on your computer screen, with the idea that once you let it out on your screen, you will no longer retain it inside, or feel the need to express your anger on another person or object in the outside world.
While such games can be entertaining, their effectiveness in dealing with real anger issues is unknown.
Other kinds of anger games are designed to be in a group format, with various discussion points after the game, that serve to help us realize that we cannot control everything that happens in our lives; and must learn to deal with things that are not entirely in our control, instead of getting upset over them.
Like hypnosis sessions aimed at controlling our anger, these anger management games also help us get a handle on ourselves and our emotions and let us deal with the anger triggers like frustration, disappointment, jealousy, and resentment in a mature, non-confrontational way.
Best Anger Management Games for Groups
The Gifts Game
Often anger pops up when we feel out of control or that life is unfair. In this game, we explore this anger trigger in a game setting.
Through this game, players can better understand how their feelings of anger can be triggered, how to deal with them when it happens, and learn how to deal with negative feelings when things happen that are out of their control.
Number of People: Minimum 4 pax
What is Needed:
- Everyone in the group brings a gift that is wrapped or placed in a bag that is sealed.
- Slips of paper with numbers, placed in a container
How to Play:
All the gifts are placed on one table or in one pile. One by one, each person draws a slip of paper from the container where there is a scope for luck or chance to play a part in determining the number each person is going to get in each turn.
When drawing from the number lot, if you draw an odd number, you get to open a gift of your choice, and set it by you on the table; if it is an even number, you lose your turn to the next person.
Once all gifts are opened up, the game can be continued the same way, with one variation. This time, if you draw an odd number, you get to choose and keep any opened gift from anyone else on the table; you lose your turn for an even number draw. This can continue for a preset time.
At the end of the game, some people will have multiple gifts, others will not have drawn any, while yet others will have lost the gifts they earned in an earlier draw.
Through this game, players can explore the feelings that came up when they draw a number that disadvantages them or when another person “takes” their gift. This game offers a chance to practice anger control in situations that are unfair or when you have no control over what happens.
If any players do feel angry feelings during the game, then discuss how the anger was dealt with and explore other strategies to control angry feelings.
Roll of the Dice
In this anger management game, players are exposed to situations that are unfavorable to them and that they have no control over. How do they react in such situations?
Number of People: Minimum 3 people
What You Need:
- A pair of dice
- Prizes (corresponding to each number, with some numbers not having any prizes at all); prizes can differ in quality and value
How to Play:
Turn by turn, each person rolls the dice. Each number is tagged to a prize or no prize at all. Through the game, players will win prizes depending on the roll of the dice and their luck.
Players’ behavior and responses during the game should be observed and noted by the mediator or counselor.
Once the game ends, have a discussion on how everyone felt during the game. How did they feel when they won or when they didn’t receive a prize at all? How do they feel about the prizes they did win? How did they handle any angry feelings during the game?
The Unfair Game
This anger management game is from the book 104 Activities That Build. This game, which is rigged with unfairness, allows players to explore how they respond in a situation where things are stacked against them. How can they control their anger in such a circumstance?
Number of People: 3 to 15 participants
What You Need:
- Deck of cards
- Pair of dice
- Bag of candy (each piece should be individually wrapped) – about 5 pieces per person
- Cards/Pieces of paper with game rules on them
Rules of the Game:
- When it is your turn you may roll the dice or select a card.
- If you roll the dice and get:
- Odd – you must put a piece of candy in the “pot” (a place in the middle of the table)
- Even – you take a piece of candy from anyone else’s pile
- Double – You must give a piece of candy to someone else in the group (this does not count as an even number)
- If you draw a card and get:
- Heart – you must give a piece of candy to the person on your right
- Club – you must give a piece of candy to the person on your left
- Diamond – you must put a piece of candy in the pot
- Spade – you get two pieces of candy from the pot (or from a person/s of your choice if the pot is empty)
- If anyone is unfortunate enough to lose all of their candy, they are then eliminated from the game.
- If you are eliminated from the game, you may continue to sit in the circle. You can return to the game only if someone gives you a piece of candy during the course of the game (no candy may be given to an eliminated person out of the goodness of your heart; it must be determined by the cards or dice).
- The leader decides who displayed the best sportsmanship during the game, and this person gets to keep all the candy left in the pot at the end of the game.
- After an allotted time the person who has the most candy wins, and everyone may keep any candy they have acquired.
How to Play:
Read ALL the directions to this game before playing. It’s also important to give this game a different name, so that the players don’t catch on to the idea that it’s meant to be unfair!
Prior to the activity take all but a couple of the spades out of the deck of cards and mix the few spades left towards the top of the deck. If possible, have two identical decks of cards and replace the spades with cards from a different suit from the spare deck.
Start by gathering the group into a circle and by giving everyone 5 pieces of candy. Inform the group that they will be able to keep whatever candy they have at the end of the game (and candy may not be eaten until the end).
Have a few copies of the rules out on the table for players to refer to during the game. It is also important that you – the leader – participate in the game.
Either set a time limit or end the game when a few people are eliminated or when the pot is filled with a bunch of candy. At the end of the time limit, select the person with the best sportsmanship. Of course, this person is you, the leader, so you select yourself and take all the candy left in the middle.
The idea is to make sure this game is truly unfair, just as life can often be. It is often our tendency to pass out candy to everyone at the close of a game like this. Resist this temptation in order for the game to have a stronger effect.
To heighten the effect, you may wish to reveal the truth about the deck of cards if they don’t figure out that the deck is stacked against them.
At the end of the game, discuss with players how they felt about the game. Wwas it unfair? Why or why not? Explore their feelings about what happened during the game. How do they deal with anger when things look unfair?
Hidden Heart
Anger is often hidden away, festering in our hearts and minds before it explodes in a flood of feeling. Sometimes, we don’t even realize that we’re angry on the inside and don’t understand how those negative feelings have impacted our lives.
Taken from the book 104 Activities That Build, this anger control game offers the chance for players to reveal their inner hurts, pain, and anger that they’ve concealed from the world. By sharing these feelings with others, they get the chance to learn how to manage them and regain happiness instead of being mired in angry feelings.
Number of People: Minimum 2 people
What You Need:
- Paper
- Pens or pencils
- Markers
- Scissors
- Thin pieces of ribbon
- One small, and one large balloon for each person (not inflated)
How to Play:
Each person gets paper, a pen/pencil, scissors, a balloon and a piece of ribbon.
The ballon symbolizes their heart and everything in it — the pain, hurt, anger that they’ve kept inside. Get them to cut small slips of papers (that can fit into the balloon) and write down the pain and anger on it. Put the slips of paper into the balloon and tie it off with the ribbon (without blowing it up).
Each person then gets a big balloon. Instruct them to put their balloon “heart” into the bigger balloon which they then blow up and tie off. On the outside of the balloon, they should write how they present themselves to the world to cover up their pain and hurts.
For example, some people put on a confident front to hide their loneliness and insecurity while others may use humor to deflect away from their hurts. Others may fill their days with work and hobbies and taking care of others to avoid feeling their own pain.
Players can write more than one thing on the outside of their balloons.
Once that’s done, start a discussion on what they’ve shared on the outside of their balloons. Challenge them to consider if it’s a good thing to hide what’s going on with them on the inside and ask if they would like to be able to share more of what’s going on inside of them with others. How can they do this?
After the discussion, each person gets to pop their balloon to symbolize popping down the walls they’ve hidden behind.
With the inner balloon “hearts”, there are 2 options. You can challenge the group to share what they’ve written on their balloon “hearts”. Alternatively, they can be tasked with sharing it with someone else in their life that they’d like to share their inner world with.
In this activity, players can better identify and understand the feelings they keep hidden from everyone and what makes them angry. They’re also challenged to be more open about their negative feelings and explore how their feelings might change if they share them with others.
Variation
Place a piece of paper with your name on it inside a balloon to represent you as a person and then write down the things that you do to keep people from getting to know the “real” you on the outside and share these with the group.
Need more help with anger management? Learn more about hypnosis for anger!
More Anger Management Resources
- Anger Management Games for Children
- 104 Activities That Build: Self-Esteem, Teamwork, Communication, Anger Management, Self-Discovery, and Coping Skills
- Anger Courses | Books | Audio
- Manage Your Anger: Hypnosis Downloads
- Anger Management Worksheets
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