"Anger ventilated often hurries toward forgiveness; and concealed often hardens into revenge." ~Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
This week's Parenting Challenge was inspired by a number of comments and subsequent discussions that were brought up in the comments section of the first Parenting Challenge. In particular, a number of us made the point that trying to be playful during conflicts or discipline episodes is so hard sometimes because we're just too damn angry to feel playful. When we feel angry, we don't WANT to come up with a cute little "pretend" scenario that will gently pull our child into complying with our wishes. Some people observed that the "playful parenting" solutions like trying to involve our children in pretend play may only work in more calm contexts in general, rather than the more heated temper tantrums or times when we're over-the-top sleep-deprived and at our wit's end.
This week's Parenting Challenge comes from Ginott's classic, Between Parent and Child. This book has a ton of explicit and implicit parenting gems (while at the same time feeling very dated in some of the examples, language, and so on). One of the most useful discussions I found in the book was the one on parents' own anger and how to deal with it. Ginott says that ALL parents feel angry at their children sometimes, and oftentimes it is completely justifiable. The problem begins when we try to completely deny those feelings. Usually, our children feel our tension anyways, so the first point is that when we try to swallow our anger, our children feel some strange vibe in the air that is unsettling at best for them. The second point Ginott emphasizes is that anger in and of itself is not a bad thing — it is an emotion that signals both to ourselves and to our child that something is amiss. LACK of anger in some contexts can in fact communicate indifference to the child… not such a good thing either. The feeling in and of itself isn't so bad, it's what we do about it that can have either beneficial or harmful effects. Finally, Ginott makes the point many of us have acknowledged: like it or not, angry feelings INEVITABLY arise when we're parenting. Figuring out how to deal with it best is what we can aim for (rather than the complete elimination of this "basic" / biologically-based emotion).
Here's the challenge then: Let's try to actually EXPRESS our angry feelings, instead of completely quashing them. But let's try to do so with Ginott's prescrption:
"Anger should be expressed in a way that brings some relief to the parent, some insight to the child, and no harmful side effects to either of them."
Tall order, I know… But the idea is that we don't want to express that anger such that it ESCALATES our bad feelings or our child's bad feelings. But we DO want to communicate our frustration in a way that opens up the possibility for repair and connection, with some learning potentially thrown in. I'll talk more about repair (either this week, if that feels right, or next). But I think before we think about how best to repair interactions when they go awry, we need to first think about how we can express those negative/angry feelings in the first place.
So, there are a few tips given in the book about communicating anger:
- Accept, WITHOUT ANY GUILT OR SHAME, that we will get angry at our children sometimes.
- We can express our feelings of anger as long as we don't do so by attacking our child's personality or character (e.g., avoid saying things like "I'm so angry because you're a lazy / slow / stubborn / mean / bad / stupid / etc. child.").
- Use "I" statements when expressing anger: "I feel frustrated when you don't listen to me." "I'm getting more and more angry the longer you take to pick up your toys." "I'm angry at you because it took me 30 min to cook dinner and you just threw it all over the floor."
- If the first mild expression of your anger gets no reaction, elaborate and express your wishful actions: "I'm so angry that you dumped your toys out of the bin right after I cleaned them all up. It makes me so, so angry that I don't want to play with you now." "When you hit your baby brother, I see red, that's how angry I get. It makes me want to stomp upstairs and not let you play with baby brother."
The idea here is that expressing your authentic feelings of anger does two things: (1) communicates your dislike for some behaviour you'd like your child to change in a way that is more "real" and, thus, more easily understood and respected by your child and (2) allows for you to move on from that emotion, because it's expressed and you no longer have to expend so much energy to suppress it. This is energy you could more productively use to flexibly figure out a solution to the conflict.
Again, I'll refrain in this first post from giving a bunch of theoretical background why expressing anger with our children might be important. I do want to add my own developmental thoughts (preliminary as they may be): (1) Very young children who can't understand the words for particular emotions are going to have a tough time with this one, but it's not impossible to start even with them. A one-year old may not fully understand the words you're using, but she may still get your facial expressions and your intentions to communicate something important, so all is not lost on the very young with this approach (and obviously, we parents are still benefiting from being able to express some of our frustration and practicing how to do so in a safe, non-insulting way, so that when they ARE old enough to understand our words, we'll be more versed at this strategy). (2) Children around the age of 2.5 years old will be able to really understand emotion terms and get their impact. Before that, you're not wasting your time, but it's more like you're setting the stage. After that, there will be variability in terms of how interested children will be in learning what you're teaching them (just like there's variability in how interested kids will be about numbers, letters, trains and dolls). (3) Children in "sensitive windows" of development, particularly the 18 – 22 month and the 3.5 – 4 year old stages may be particularly vulnerable to our expressions of anger because of the emotional challenges they're dealing with (e.g., struggles with autonomy vs. independence with the 18-month old; battling with potentially overwhelming feelings of shame and/or jealousy with the 3.5 year old). That doesn't mean we shouldn't still try to express these emotions, but being aware of our children's increased vulnerability may help us temper the manner in which we express ourselves. (4) Children over the age of 3 or so, or children with older siblings, may particularly benefit from watching their parents express anger in a non-violent, non-explosive, but nevertheless authentic way. Their cognitive capabilities are such that they may even initiate repair strategies with us… not a bad outcome.
As usual, I could go on and on with elaborating why this might be a tough strategy to implement, the kinds of contexts that it would be impossible to do so, and the different types of children for whom it might work or blow up in our faces. But I want to leave most of that discussion to you. Let us know: Do you express your feelings of anger to your children? Do you think it's a good or bad idea to do so? When you try to communicate angry feelings, how does your child react? What makes it difficult for you to talk about your angry emotions? Were your parents able to communicate anger in a way that was not terrifying or soul-crushing?
I really like this week’s challenge. I often feel like I am bad at expressing anger in situations where it’s justified, and I would like to give my children the skills to do better than I have. (Unfortunately, it’s tough to teach someone skills you don’t have.) Oddly, I think I am better about expressing my anger to my kids than to anyone else because I don’t fear retaliation. Your strategies for doing so in a healthy way make me feel like maybe that’s okay as long as I am respectful of them (I’d say I run about 50/50 on that at this point, so I’m glad to have a way to work one it.)
We’ll see if this week’s challenge goes better than the pretend scenarios did for my family. The 2.5 year old loved the games, but she really seems to respond better to clear instructions than she does to pretending.
Boy can I relate to the opening quote. It took me years to learn to express ‘pissedoffness’ and anger to my husband, but I’m a wizz at it now. In fact I’ve probably turned into a nag as any time the poor guy bugs me, out it comes.
However with the kids, I do not have this problem. We practise emotional coaching ( most of the time) here as hubby uses it in his job as a program manager. He doesn’t always practise what he preaches unfortunatley, but when he does, he is great at it. The kids are great at putting words to their emotions too. My problem though is my MIL who throws a spanner in the works prefering to suppress all forms of negative emotions (like crying as I have mentioned before)
BTW, if anyone is interested, on the Thomas and Friends web site (www.thomasandfriends.com) there is a game called ‘emotions game’ which teaches young kids to identify some basic emotions in a fun ( for kids not adults) way.
I know that I raised a friend’s eyebrows (pregnant but no children yet, which I think is significant) when I would express my irritation or frustration. I do raise my voice. I am not entirely praise based. Sometimes I’m cranky and it has nothing to do with my children. I talked with a friend about it (who happens to be a family therapist), she suggested that it can be beneficial for a child to have experiences that allow them to learn how to deal with people in the world who can sometimes be cranky and it might have nothing to do with them. THat really resonated with me because I tend to have a terrible time with assuming that I am the source of all irritation in the world. If my husband is cranky, I assume I did something wrong even if he only just got home. On a related note, learning how to deal with anger and frustration both when someone angers you and when you have angered someone else, seems to me to be a strong part of learning resilience. It took me a long time to learn how to not become a gibbering idiot when faced with criticism or anger and I still struggle with it. I’m teaching my children that I can get angry at their BEHAVIOR (I’m very careful to only address behaviors), they can change it and it’s all cool. Even while angry, I still love them, we can still have snack, the world doesn’t come to an end and they are still wonderful people that I like a lot. Of course, the trade off is that I have to be ok with my children getting angry with me. That can be a touch pill to swallow.
this is perfect timing. My older child last night said to us during bathtime, “Why are you always angry? I don’t like it that you are always angry now.” And I am spending a lot of my energy grinding my teeth because the younger won’t sleep. I like the idea of practicing talking about anger in a way that’s not yelling.
This is going to be a good one for me, because I have recently noticed my daughter copying my angry reactions.
For instance, I tell my husband that “you’re not helping!” when I’m angry at something and he cracks jokes. SO now, my daughter tells her toys “you’re not helping!” when they won’t stand up the way she wants them. This is cute, but I’m not sure it is healthy… And worse is the tendency to hit things when mad (things, not people, but still)….
And she totally knows when I’m mad. She’ll ask me “Mommy, what happened?” or “Mommy, why are you mad?” And I’ll try to tell her, and it usually sounds so silly when I put it into words.
@fahmi- 9 times out of 10 right now, the honest answer to my older daughter’s “why are you mad?” question would be “because I’m TIRED!” Our baby is in a bit of a sleep regression right now.
My 2.5 year old twin boys are experts at identifying anger and frustration.
I had a moment in the car last week where I realized I had forgotten to finish a task at home and made some kind of noise. My little guys asked, “You mad, mama?” After I tried to explain why I was frustrated with myself he apologized. Eek.
I like my boys to take responsibility for their action and notice how they effect others, but I don’t want them to take responsibility for other’s/my stuff. I hope they pick up on that fine line soon.
My son is only 19 months old, but he realizes already when he’s done something wrong. Mostly because to my shame, I often try not to react negatively until I get to the point that I yell.
As for how my parents reacted. Let’s just say most of the time it was soul-crushing with my father. My mother would sometimes say “I love you, but right now I don’t like you” whenever I expressed a negative emotion or did something wrong. She thought she was doing something right, I’m sure when all she really did was give the impression that only when you do everything right and don’t express negative emotions do people like you.
@fahmi & Cloud & Lindsay: This is just a hunch, but I think that if our kids see that we get mad for OTHER reasons than what THEY do, it could be a very good thing. I worry that expressing anger ONLY at them will make them more afraid of the emotion in general, it’ll feel overly personal. So, if they see me get angry when I drop all the freaking hot rice on the floor (ahem…), or when my husband comes home late AGAIN, they kind of get that anger can be expressed without annihilating anyone in its path.
@Lindsay: My kids used to do the same thing. It is TOTALLY age-appropriate for 2.5 year olds to not be able to figure out the finer points of blame, intention and so on (all aspects of a situation that are central to anger). They really “get” this much better at around 3.5. Now, at this age, my twin boys are constantly making sure of where my anger is being pointed: “You’re angry at R, right, not me?” “Are you just grumpy, mommy, or are you mad at us?”
@Mary: I yelled more during the 18 – 22 month stage than at any other age put together. I remember the wave of shame that would hit me: It sucked to feel like I was yelling at little babies. Something about that period of INSANE neediness mixed with blatant defiance almost destroyed me… And soul-crushing is NOT good. That sounds really tough.
One of the things I’m learning from this parenting challenge is that my kids also get into communicating more clearly with me if I talk about my angry emotions honestly, but without freaking out totally. So, they’ve asked me to clarify WHY I’m angry, and that has led to 2 really great discussions about WHY ignoring me/not listening drives mama batty. Once the anger was expressed, I got a chance to hear that they didn’t really get what I was rambling about in the first place. So, for example, last night I said to them, “It makes me really mad when you pretend like you don’t hear my voice and keep playing when I call you to dinner 10 trillion times.” They simply responded, “But WHY does that make you mad?” This immediately dissipated most of the anger because they looked genuinely interested. They were, in fact, finally LISTENING. So, it was easy to carry on and explain what it feels like to be ignored, or excited to see them eat and be left alone in the kitchen, etc. Then I tried to give them an example: “When you say mamamamamamamamamamammamama and I don’t respond, how does that make you feel?” That actually didn’t get any great insight, so all I had to do was wait 2.5 seconds for the next time one of them tried to get my undivided attention with “mamamamammama” and I tried the lesson again, while it was fresh in their mind. Point is, we had a BETTER discussion and felt a whole lot closer afterwards because I actually admitted to being mad at them and let them sit with that idea for a short time. I have NO IDEA if that’s actually going to help them listen to me better/more promptly… that’s a whole different challenge.
@cloud
I’ve heard the 5 year old saying to the 3 year old ‘I’ve had it!’ with perfect intonation AND in the right context. And the 3 year old actually backed off!!
I don’t know whether to be thrilled or cringe.
This is the biggest thing I got from “Between Parent & Child”. I’ve been using this since my daughter was around 2, she’s 3 now. I find it incredibly liberating to be able to just *tell* her that I’m angry, or frustrated, or grumpy. Then I follow it up with why I’m feeling that way, and a plan for what to do about it. (“Mama’s grumpy…I need coffee”, or “I’m angry, I’m going to my room to calm down, and then I’ll be back”).
This works with tired too. The other night she woke up needing some attention just as I was going to bed. My husband was there, totally willing to help, but she won’t put up with him when she can have me at her beck and call. I started feeling a bit frantic because I was really exhausted and was dreading the 30 minutes it was going to take to coax her back into bed when I had a brilliant idea – “Mama’s tired…come tuck me in and then Daddy can get you a snack and put you back to bed!” Worked like a charm. She totally understood that I was tired, and because I let her be involved in me being tired (by tucking me into bed), she didn’t wind up feeling left out.
This challenge couldn’t be more timely for us. We’ve been using the Ginnott book for a few months now so we’re getting pretty good at acknowledging our anger (both mine and my son’s).
This week though I totally lost it in terms of anger. I actaully shrieked at him (and I’ve never heard that sound coming from me, not even in childbirth!) and locked myself in the bathroom to stop myself from putting a fist through a wall or something.
This is all because he’s started hitting me lately. I don’t know why he’s doing it, but he’s doing it with the intention to hurt (and he’s successful). It’s driving me crazy for various reasons and I just snapped that day. It was truly awful.
One small saving moment though – just before he fell asleep that night he said, meeting my gaze and holding my hands tightly, “I’m sorry I hit you mummy.”
I don’t think we’ve ever been as close.
Anyway, sorry about the long comment but it’s been a huge thing for us. And really I need to know more about how to handle this better.
I think I’m justifiably angry at being hit but I’d like to control myself better of course. And is his hitting me a way of expressing his anger?
I had some success at stopping him yesterday by turning it into a joke (if he hit me I tickled him mercilessly) and that difussed things. But I can’t help feeling that doesn’t address the actual hitting.
First of all, that is a fantastic quote at the beginning of this post. Delurking to join this great conversation – I am a frequent commenter at Ask Moxie, and I love your “Bedtiming” book and this blog.
When I express my feelings of anger to my son (27 mos), I try to do it in a thoughtful, Ginottian way as others have said. I think it is important to be our authentic selves with healthy boundaries whenever possible – and honestly after a certain age/ phase of child development I don’t think tough emotions like anger should be covered up. The discussion of the impact of parents’ “faking” their emotions towards their teens in the first part of the book “Parental Effectiveness Training” really crystallized my way of thinking about this issue. When I communicate angry feelings, my 27 mos old son reacts as if he is interested in learning the “rule” behind what made me angry – he’ll keep repeating the “no, no, we don’t do X” part of whatever I said. He may keep doing X anyway, but it seems like things are starting to sink in for him more and more.
It is maybe not as difficult for me to talk about my angry emotions because my own mom was a rageaholic who often did and still does this horrible kitchen-sinking routine about once every 2 weeks where she flies into an uncontrollable rage (as her child it was both terrifying and soul-crushing) usually starting with my dad and (when I lived at home) continuing on towards me, when I really didn’t do anything to provoke her except be present at home during one of her moods. So I know well that part of the personal work I need to keep doing is to talk and think about how I process anger so that I can break the sad pattern I grew up with.
I have thought a lot about why my mom lacks the ability to “get angry like a normal person gets angry.” She had a less than stellar childhood, and was the eldest daughter in a family of 7, and was pegged as “the good girl” forced to take on quasi-parenting roles at too young an age. I bet she was not allowed to express any negative emotions growing up, hence her missing out of the chance to learn those skills. Plus she has never owned her problem or expressed any remorse about it, and my father is a total enabler. Therapy would be a godsend for them – I know it has been for me.
@Today Wendy- I love, love, LOVE the idea of having my daughter tuck me in. Because yeah, if Mommy is around, she wants me, not Daddy.
This works beautifully for my 2.5 year old. I talk about my feelings with her all the time, both the good and the cranky. She can identify her own feelings now too although sometimes she still doesn’t know why she is feeling that way. Saying “I am cranky because I am tired and I want to go night-night” actually helps her stop dragging her feet about going to bed herself. I am enjoying reading about how readers’ boys react to this type of thing – because we all know that myth about boys/men not being able to express emotion. It almost seems like you guys are helping your boys flout that myth. I’d like to say I did that with my 9 month old boy too (when he’s older).
@Flo: Yup, usually hitting expresses some level of anger or frustration. But “at what” is the real question usually. It can be really tough to pinpoint, and sometimes it’s just a general sense of the world being wrong — mom’s not around enough, I’m not getting the attention I want, I don’t know how far I can push the limits, I’m hungry/tired/sick, I’m tired of keeping it together for so long in daycare, the freaking moon and planets are misaligned… I can’t remember exactly how old your child is, but it DOES pass, if you keep letting him know you won’t tolerate it.
@hush: Thanks for joining in the conversation! I’ve long been reading your comments (and loving them) on Moxie’s site. I think the kind of reflection you do about the roots of your own anger and extending that empathy and understanding to your mother is so valuable. It’s bound to be such a bonus for your son in the long run. I don’t talk that much about my own experiences of being parented, but as I mention in the next post, they’re important to the way I’m trying to figure out my own angry reactions… and what to do about them.
@J: So far, I see very few sex differences in the extent to which little boys and girls express their emotions (although I should look up the research to see when these differences start to emerge). I have no doubt my boys will be given the message later on that it’s not “manly” to talk about how they feel. But my moody, sensitive, INSANELY self-reflective CLINICAL psychologist of a husband will probably disabuse our boys quickly of the idea that boys don’t express emotions honestly. Poor guys will be BEGGING to repress a little bit of their emotions with two psychologists for parents;-)
Now that we’re a little more than halfway through this challenge, I’ve made one interesting observation. Distinguishing between irritation and real anger are important to me as a parent. I get irritated by lots of things every day (yogurt spilled all over the floor while I’m trying to make dinner, general not listening, the toddler making a mess in the baby’s room while I’m changing a diaper.) If I express my irritation at all those little points, my girl ends up feeling picked on and bad all day. If I consciously repress a little over small things, I get better results when I am really angry and we all have a better day.
@anon: GREAT point. This is so true for me too. Interestingly, I bet it’s equally relevant to my marital relationship: I didn’t nag or winge about all the little things so often, making my husband feel picked on and defensive, then he’d probably pay more attention when I am SERIOUSLY upset or angry about something. Hmmm…
I love this week’s challenge. Can’t do much about it as K is only 9 months old but this is a real skill I need to work on. My Mom was a wonderful mom in a thousand different ways but not in expressing anger or frustration. She would withdraw. You never knew what went wrong, only that she went into her room for a while and/or stopped talking to you. My sister got the silent treatment for a week when she was 16 – that was a tough one. I’ve slowly been getting better at communicating frustration/anger with my husband but having these guidelines will definitely help with K. And let’s be honest with life in general. I know she doesn’t understand a word I’m saying but I think she’s getting my tone as she sure stops whatever she’s doing when I stop and discuss my frustration with her. Thanks for this.
I do this one now and then and it does work for us. Last week, I told him I was frustrated that he destroyed the art project he had just begged me to make. He said he was sorry and then said he would give me a hug and make it better. I told him I was still frustrated, but that yes, the hug did make me feel a lot better. It was a pretty great moment
I like this one because I feel like it’s helping him recognie anger so he’ll know it and have some ideas of what to do when he encounters it in preschool in the future. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking though.
I’ve been doing this for quite a while now, having read this book months ago and it feeling natural to me prior to that–probably because my mom read the same book when I was little! I think it’s so important to express the emotions, including anger, and let the kids know what they have done that makes others angry… blah blah blah… really love this technique, etc. I’m been really concentrating on it all last week (and this week), which has helped me deal with some tantrums and emotions.
However, my issue is that the expression of being angry and why does not seem to do much for my daughter at this age/stage. As in, what is the outcome? At this point, her behavoir doesn’t change 9 times out of 10. She will pretty much always repeat the offense that makes me angry at some point.
I figure it’s a development thing, and she will eventually put it together. Doing X makes Mommy mad because of Y. I keep doing this, because I think it’s important, that she will learn eventually and it feels right to me to do this.
I appreciate everyone’s stories, especially yours Isabela. Hearing about how your boys are now interested in WHY the behavoir made you angry gives me hope that my girl will start to wonder about that too, when she is developmentally ready.