How do you show you are angry or upset?

The other day we were driving in the car and it was raining a little bit and traffic was, as usual, all cafluffled as a result. At one point in the drive a bus and a scooter had a near-miss and a brief exchange of ‘pleasantries’, which my son saw out his side window.

In his enthusiastic, somewhat incredulous type of voice, he relayed what happened for the rest of us to hear. “Mommy, daddy, just now there was a scooter a bus that almost hit each other. The man on the scooter was really mad at the bus driver for almost hitting him.”

We asked him how he knew the man on the scooter was really mad. Before he could reply, my daughter asked a follow up question, sounding more like she was trying to answer for him than anything else – “Did he show his teeth to him?”

Apparently our older dog Maggie has left an impression on the kids. When she gets mad or scared she will show her teeth to let you know to back off. The kids, or at least my daughter, now associates showing anger with showing your teeth to someone.

So how do you show someone you are angry or upset? Do you show your teeth?