Getting Over Getting Mad: Positive Ways to Manage Anger in Your Most Important Relationships (21 page)

For your child to maintain her self-respect, it's important for her to be able to save face. If you're mad at your child about something, shaming him magnifies the problem. Not only will he feel bad for messing up, he'll feel demoralized and come to the self-defeating conclusion that he is a bad person. If you consider your child to be wrong, pointing it out again and again won't get you anyplace. Humiliating doesn't work; shaming doesn't work. Grounding and restriction aren't effective unless you include a Face-Saving Dialogue.

A face-saving dialogue shows respect and motivates your child to do better. Children don't want to let their parents down, and when you have a face-saving dialogue you show them that while you're disappointed and mad that they goofed up, you still believe that they will do better the next time.

Five Steps to a Face-Saving Dialogue

1. Acknowledge the anger:“I'm mad that you went to the concert without my permission.”
   
2. Acknowledge the hurt:“I'm disappointed because I thought we had an agreement.”
   
3. Acknowledge the fear:“I'm afraid when you don't come home on time.”
   
4. Acknowledge the love:“I appreciate you talking with me about this. I want us to cooperate and find a better solution for next time.”
   
5. Acknowledge your part: “I'm sorry that I yelled last night, I know that made it worse.”
   

Your children look up to you; you set the example. When you have face-saving dialogues with your children, they'll learn the steps. Eventually, when they are mad at you about something, they'll have a face-saving dialogue with you.

A face saving dialogue is getting the information across without putting your child down.

Have you heard the cries of a baby startled by his parents' loud angry voices? Have you noticed the look in your child's eyes when you're angry and taking it out on him? If you've ever seen the look on a child's face as he hears his parents calling each other names, if you've ever seen the sadness in the eyes of a child whose parents are pushing and shoving, you know the toll such hostility can take on their souls.

Anger frightens children. It affects learning, self-esteem, and overall happiness. Living with anger makes children nervous. They can't remember or learn when they're frightened; they can't relax or think clearly. They wonder what they've done wrong. All their energies go into avoiding trouble. Imagine what it must feel like to be small and have a giant of a parent, someone you admire and trust, standing over you with a gnarly, angry face, yelling at you. Yelling “You're so stupid” doesn't make them smart. Angry shouting may get a child to mind, but it slowly erodes any comfort in your alliance.

“I yelled at my daughter, ‘Why can't you pick up your backpack and shoes?’ I really lost it,” Paul told me. “My daughter looked at me and said, 'Well Dad, if you ask me nicely, a least when I get around to doing it, I'd be more cheerful about it.'” Asking a child ten times, “Will you please take out the garbage?” is exasperating. No wonder parents come to the conclusion that yelling is the only way to get things done. I've done it myself, but each time I yelled to get things done, I was left with a gnawing ache inside, because I knew that asking nicely ten times was a better example to set for my daughter than yelling and getting angry.

Six-year-old Jake told me, “I get so mad when my stepsister swears at me that I want to say swear words back at her, but my mom won't let me because I'm too little.”

“How do you keep yourself from swearing when you're so mad?” I asked.

“I remember that I'm not suppose to swear and I don't do it.”

Jake exercised a degree of self-control that even his father, mother, stepmother, stepfather, older half-siblings, and stepsiblings couldn't. Most of them were on a rampage, shouting, swearing, stealing each other's things. They may have had good reasons for feeling the way they did, but their jungle-like tactics only added to the already stressful conditions. The youngest, Jake, exercised the most self-control and seemed to
be the most joyful. “I want to act mad, too,” he said, “but I'm not going to.”

Acknowledging one's anger is difficult. We all like to pretend that we don't feel it, that we're above such small emotion. Even if you don't admit it to yourself, your children see it. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” You are wiser in your children's eyes when you no longer take your frustrations out on your family.

When your son leaves a mess on the kitchen counter, be kind to him. When your daughter keeps talking even though you've asked her to get off the phone, ask her nicely again. Your children have circumstances that you don't know about. Being mature means rising above your knee-jerk reactions so that you can come to a deeper appreciation of your children's struggles.

If you want to help your child manage his own anger, you have to be able to manage your own. Before you can help your angry child, you'll need to calm down yourself.

From guns at school to neighborhood gangs, youth violence has become a hot topic. Yet if parents recognize the less sensational, more common types of aggression, perhaps we can prevent problematic acting out from becoming a habit. A little aggression, biting, pushing, grabbing, hitting, kicking is normal for a two-year-old; most will outgrow it as they learn social skills and acceptable behavior. A child who doesn't learn to control his impulses, however, becomes increasingly aggressive. By the time a child is seven or eight, you can start to recognize a pattern. Soon he's fighting in the schoolyard. Kids with other types of anger problems retreat, becoming more isolated, lonely, and hostile.

Following is a list of warning signs that your child is becoming violent:

1. Loses temper on a daily basis.
   
2. Frequently engages in physical fighting and vandalism.
   
3. Threatens to hurt others; hurts animals.
   
4. Is intrigued by guns and carries weapons.
   
5. Uses drugs and alcohol increasingly.
   
6. Has difficulty making friends or has unruly, aggressive friends.
   
7. Isisolated and lonely.
   
8. Doesn't express feelings.
   

The following factors may contribute to violence in children:

1. A parent who is violent and aggressive.
   
2. Presence of firearms in the house.
   
3. Drug and alcohol abuse by parents.
   
4. Exposure to verbal and physical abuse between the adults.
   
5. Physical and/or sexual abuse.
   
6. Repeated exposure to violent videos, movies, games.
   
7. Parents who condone or promote violence.
   

Persistent childhood aggression can become a lifelong issue. Adults who have problems with aggression demonstrated similar behaviors
when they were children. Kids aren't born to hurt others; they learn it from the adults around them.

All these symptoms are cries for help. If you recognize these conditions in your family, please seek professional assistance. We all want to be appreciated and belong; your child wants that too. Don't turn your back and pretend you don't see that something's wrong. Don't convince yourself that it's not as bad as your gut feeling is telling you it is.

You won't be judged as a bad parent if you go for help, but you might be judged as a bad parent if you do nothing. Prevention is always better than punishment.

I like the idea of the talking stick that some cultures and groups use when discussing complaints, upsets, and concerns. I have two talking sticks that I use as reminders to my clients to pay close attention. One is a thick tree branch decoratively wrapped with leather straps. The other is a fluffy magic wand made of lace, beads, and glitter.

The talking stick is a tool of communication that makes talking about emotionally charged subjects more satisfying. Just holding the stick seems to gives the speaker the courage to say the truth and speak from the heart. The kid or parent who holds the stick has the floor until they've said all that they want to say. After the kids have finished, the parents might take a turn. As long as the person is holding the stick, no interrupting is allowed. The talking stick gives the speaker a chance to talk it all the way through, to speak of her true feelings, and to reveal what's beneath the surface.

Except for the socializing, fourteen-year-old Olivia says she hates school. She fights with her parents about homework and makes excuse after excuse about why she forgot to bring her books home, why she can't spell, why the teacher doesn't like her. It's always someone else's fault or the circumstances. “It was raining and I didn't want my books to get wet so I left them at school.” Her parents are mad at her for not being responsible about her schoolwork, and she's angry at them for expecting her to be. The family talks about it, but they never really hear each other. The conversations take place in the middle of doing something else, on the run, or the participants interrupt each other.

Using the talking stick, Olivia talked about school and homework. At first she blamed the teachers, the desk, the stupid subjects that she'd knew she'll never need, her parents for bugging her, and on and on. She was plenty mad. As she continued to hold the talking stick, she talked more about what she was feeling, how unfair it was, how bored she was, and how afraid she was that she couldn't ever please her parents.

Most of what Olivia said was not new information. Olivia's parents had heard it before, but until that time in my office I don't think they had ever comprehended that Olivia was afraid that she could never please them. That was the beginning of a turnaround.

The talking stick is not magic. The magic happens through listening, hearing, listening, and hearing over and over again without threats or
lambasting, without rebuttal or criticism. I don't like constructive criticism, either. When parents preference their remarks with “This is for your own good,” children immediately brace themselves for something bad. Children respond best to options. When you give children choices, they're immediately less angry and more hopeful. They have a sense of power and a way to proceed.

Asking your child why he feels angry is a question of torture. Instead of asking “Why,” say, “Help me understand.” Then listen without interrupting, giving advice, freaking out, criticizing, butting in, or lecturing.