Anger tends to be the emotion that really gets a bad rap. We parents are not supposed to get angry–anger is something to be tamed, squelched and eliminated if we are to be loving, super-parents. Well, who says? If we are to accept ALL of our children’s emotions and help them to learn how to use and manage anger in a healthy manner, then we need and get to use and manage our own anger in a healthy way…
I once heard an experienced parent (one whose children were all grown) say that anger was incredibly useful as a parenting tool–he said that a parent just had to harness anger and make sure that they were getting mad for the right reasons and in the right way. In other words, anger is natural and the fact that we are reacting strongly to something our child has done or that is going on in our family life means we are engaged and we care. HOWEVER, how we use and manage that powerful emotion is the important part.
In many cases, letting our children know that we are angry about something is far healthier than trying to pretend we are not. The mismatch of reality and what we say is reality can create a dysfunctional situation. It is important for us to own our anger and take control of it. For example, instead of saying “You make me so mad!” we need to own our emotion with something like: “I get so angry when you leave your skates on the front porch!” We are then taking control and ownership of our emotion and not causing our child to feel as though he or she is actually the responsible party for OUR emotions.
Letting our children hear us differentiate between our emotions is good too. What may seem like anger might actually be frustration or exhaustion and we can verbalize and share that with our children. “I’m not really angry, but I sure am frustrated by how messy your room is.” Or, “I sound angry, but I’m really very scared when you are late and I don’t know where you are!”
Anger isn’t something that we parents are exempt from or something we can ignore. Instead, we need to find healthy ways to use and manage our anger in order to help our children develop healthy emotional intelligence and keep our families functioning.
See Also: Learning to Set Healthy Examples With Your Gift Giving and When Our Children Feel Sad