Getting Angry is Normal and Understandable
While there are many reasons for this saying, one is the way your children know how to push your buttons. Despite the unimaginable depths of your love for them, or perhaps because of it, you may be unprepared for the intensity of anger you may also experience.
Although upsetting and often surprising, it is normal to find yourself at your wit’s end. Frustration can build as you parent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, year in and year out.
Nobody cares about your children more than you do and that means that the stakes are high, as are emotions.
Everyone has moments when they just blow up. But by learning more about anger and healthier ways to express it, you can reduce the frequency with which you “lose it.” It may take time, but you can practice ways of expressing your anger that actually preserve and, in some cases, strengthen your relationship with your children.
Anger is a strong emotion that many people try to avoid. In the course of your life, you may have been given many negative messages about your anger.
Perhaps you were told that it was inappropriate to be mad or that you shouldn’t expect better treatment from those around you.
Or that anger only serves to damage relationships and leaves you feeling alone or abandoned.
Maybe you have been on the receiving end of someone else’s anger and it has been unpleasant or even frightening.
Through experience, you may have seen that your anger only adds fuel to the fire with your children. Expressing anger may have had only served to hurt you and others around you.
However, by understanding anger you can develop a more positive view of this emotion. When anger is expressed properly, it can actually improve a situation and a relationship.
Anger is a feeling like joy, boredom, or excitement. It gives you a clue to your emotional state and tells you what you are experiencing.
N ot good or bad
In and of itself, anger is not good or bad. It just is. What makes the difference is what you do with the feeling and how you handle it.
G ain insight
Often people say, “I am angry.” And they can feel quite justified in their anger. But it is more useful if you scratch beneath the surface. Many times what passes for anger is actually another emotion such as sadness, jealousy, hopelessness, the sense of being ignored, overworked, overlooked, disappointed, or exhausted.
As mentioned earlier, it is how you express your anger that makes it good or bad, constructive or destructive. You need to be sure to communicate your feelings to the correct person in an accurate manner, not discounting your own feelings or blowing up out of control. The next section will discuss healthier ways to express anger.
It is important that you find ways to release your anger or it can build up. Then you may explode, often in unhealthy ways that hurts your relationship with those around you.
If not done effectively, people have a tendency to retell the story (venting) and become angry all over again and sometimes with greater intensity. In this case, you are rehearsing your anger and not releasing it.
To move on, you need to practice skills that will enable you to discharge your anger in ways that relieve the pressure in you and to communicate effectively to the people with whom you are angry.
Like a tree, anger has:
roots (the underlying causes),
a trunk (your expression of anger),
fruit (the results of your anger which can begin a new anger tree).
The roots are all of the actions that cause you to react negatively. And raising children gives you plenty of cause. Even under the best of circumstances, parenting is hard and difficult work. Some of your children’s behavior that may make you angry may in fact be quite normal parts of child development, but challenging to deal with nevertheless.
A toddler who says “no!” to every question – even “Do you want a treat?”
A 10-year old who is loud – he talks loudly, sings loudly, and especially complains loudly.
A once talkative teenager, who now barely answers your questions with a grunt before retreating in his bedroom behind a closed door.
An 18-month old who clings to you when you have dinner to cook and company coming over in 10 minutes.
A two-year old throwing a temper tantrum just as you are getting to the front of the checkout line.
A child who won’t stay in her bed because she is sure that there are “monsters” hiding under it.
A middle-schooler who remembers to check his email but continually forgets to bring in the mail on his way into the house.
Sometimes you may have more patience for your children than other times. When your needs are not being met, you may be more impatient, frustrated, and angry. As parents, you often go on autopilot and do not take the time to stop and check how you are feeling.
When your resources are low, your children do not need to do much to trigger you. At these times, or ideally before, you can ask yourself, “What do I need?”
are tired, you may need sleep.
feel isolated, you may need to connect with a friend.
are bored, you may need time to recharge by doing your favorite activities.
When you are running on empty, when your needs are not being met, or when your children are going through a particularly trying time, the roots may be in place for your anger to grow.
The trunk in this case represents all the ways you can express your anger. The fight or flight response is typically triggered.
Flooded with strong emotions, you may:
- slam doors,
- handle possessions or your children roughly,
- give sarcastic answers,
- blame or shame your children.
Equally damaging, you can distance yourself, stop interacting with your children and pull away from the relationship. Although you may need to give yourself a time-out to cool down, anything beyond a few minutes for a younger child to an hour or so for an older child is not helpful to the situation.
As you express your anger, those around you get the fruit of your discontent.
For your Children
Faced with your anger, your children may:
- shut down,
- become ornery,
- yell back,
- become aggressive toward others such as a younger sibling or a pet,
- act out at school,
- become depressed and withdrawn.
These actions may once again trigger your anger, which in turn, continues the cycle of anger. So your anger spawns reactions which create more misbehavior, which results in more anger……
In addition, your words and your body language may not match. If, while talking through clenched teeth, you tell your children, “It is fine; I’m not angry,” children won’t know if it is really fine or not. Can they trust your words or their own reaction to you? They will begin to doubt their own instincts and feelings and ability to ‘read’ other peoples’ emotions.
Often parents report feeling just awful about how they handle their anger.
If you explode, you can worry about the damage you may do to your children’s self-esteem. At the end of the day, you may lie down in bed feeling guilty and wondering why you lost it over something that in retrospect seems so minor.
When you don’t speak up, you can also feel badly, questioning if you are acting like a doormat or if you are creating spoiled children who aren’t being taught how to have a give-and-take relationship with others.
But your anger, when acknowledged and dealt with in constructive ways, can prevent the occurrence of these outcomes or “fruits of our anger” by informing you when something is bothering you. Sharing these insights can actually strengthen your relationship with others as you reveal what is important to you. The trick is to do so without blaming and shaming others.
As mentioned earlier, it is not anger itself that is bad, but your expression of it that can be harmful. You do not have to be caught in the fight or flight response. There are ways to deal constructively with your anger that leaves everyone’s self-respect intact.
Notice when you are getting angry
The first thing is to become aware of how your body reacts when you are getting angry. Often thoughts register in your body before you are even aware of your corresponding feelings.
- clench your teeth?
- talk quickly?
- feel your heart beat faster?
- get flushed?
- feel hot or cold?
Take note where in your body you show your anger. With practice, you will be able to notice as your irritation is rising, before you burst. If you catch your anger while it is still small and easier to manage, you will have greater success in following the rest of the recommendations without exploding.
This concept, similar to counting to 10, will give you time to bring oxygen back into your brain and to reactivate the thinking part of your brain so you can do more than “see red.”
By regaining your composure, you can select how you want to act, rather than automatically reacting in familiar, but possibly not so helpful, ways to the situation.
Although easier said than done, with time you can learn to:
- slow down your breathing,
- unclench your jaw,
- speak more slowly and quietly,
- or relax your hand.
You may need to:
- take 5,
- engage in physical activity,
- visualize a calm image such as a cloud or rainbow,
- or repeat a mantra such as “I can handle this, “or “This too shall pass,” or “ I can be angry and still think.”
As a result, you will be calmer and in a better position to respond.
Consider what is making you angry
In the heat of the moment, you may not even be aware of what is annoying you. Getting to those underlying feelings and the reasons behind them can make a huge difference.
Your unmet needs
If you discover that it is one of your unmet needs causing the trouble, you can work to find ways to get what you need, such a break or time with a friend.
Your children’s behavior
If it is your children’s behavior that is the issue, you can learn about typical child development so you will know if your expectations of them are realistic. Much of parents’ anger comes from thinking that their children are deliberately trying to “drive them crazy.”
When you learn to take the behavior less personally, you may be able to let go of some of the anger and react with less irritation and with more compassion. Furthermore, you are more likely to come up with more effective and creative solutions to change the interaction.
For example, knowing that a typical 9-year-old is restless, you may realize that having this child sit through a long family dinner is difficult for him. You may notice that after 30 minutes he tends to pick a fight with his younger brother. Rather than criticizing him and starting a fight at the table, you can understand that this behavior is part of being 9 and plan to have him get up and refill water glasses or clear the table.
As you think about your experience, check if “angry” is truly the best word to describe your emotion. Is there an underlying feeling that needs to be addressed that more accurately defines your reaction?
The clearer you are about your emotions, the better you will be able to share your feelings and find solutions to the problems. It is also helpful to place your emotions on a continuum.
miffed?–> annoyed?–> frustrated?–> irritated?–>exasperated?–> furious?–> enraged?
Again, the better you can describe your experience, the easier it is to manage your reactions.
Use an “I” Message to share your feelings
Once you are clear about what bothers you, you can use an “I” message to communicate your displeasure. The goal of an “I” Message is to reveal your experience without blaming or shaming others.
You take responsibility for your reaction, which avoids those end-of-day regrets.
The Three Parts of an “I” Message
I feel… (you will have determined this in the previous step) sad
When I see/hear… (be descriptive) you call your sister mean names,
Because… it is important to me that you two are kind to one another.
Ideally, after using an “I” Message, you can let your children know what they need to do to remedy the situation.
Many children are uncomfortable when confronted with their parents’ displeasure. By showing them how to correct the situation, you are leaving their self-esteem intact.
Examples of effective “I” Messages
“I feel sad when I hear you call your sister mean names because it is important to me that you two are kind to one another. You can apologize to her and we can talk about what else you can say to her when you don’t like what she does.”
“I am furious when I see your new bicycle left out in the rain because we just bought it and I don’t want it to rust. Now go put your bicycle in the shed.”
Remember: You want to stick to the current issue and not bring up past misdeeds.
Ideas to Think About:
Accept anger as a normal, human, inevitable feeling.
Parents are going to get exasperated with their children; don’t judge yourself harshly because you are angry.
Look for underlying issues.
In this way, you can determine what may be causing the anger. Deal with it before it gets out of control.
Direct the anger at the appropriate source.
Examine your expectations of your child.
Focus on the essential.
Decide which rules are really important; let some things go.
Exit or wait.
Do not overwhelm a child with too much intensity. Walk away or count to ten.
Don’t pretend you are not angry when you are.
Plan how to express your feelings.
Remember you can think and feel at the same time.
Use calming techniques.
Use ‘I’ Messages.
The goal is ‘anger without insult.’
Stay short, to the point, and in the present.
Avoid physical force, threats and statements that attack or blame.
Use humor and restore good feelings.
Create a signal system.
This can be used so your children know that you are getting increasingly angry. At a certain point, they can know they need to give you “space.”
You can apologize.
If you find that you react in a way that is too harsh, you can say you are sorry and tell your child what you wish you had said or how you wish you had reacted.
Take time for yourself.
A Parting Thought
Just because you get angry does not mean you do not love your children. The fact that you are reading this article means that you care and want to make changes for the better.
You can model for your children how to express anger in a constructive manner and, at the same time, how to make a commitment to grow and improve yourself. It is not an easy task.
As parenting experts Faber and Mazlish note, “Finding a way to handle anger is the work of a lifetime.” We wish you much patience along your journey.
For more information about managing anger, check out the following books. Purchasing from Amazon.com through our website supports the work we do to help parents do the best job they can to raise their children.