How To Handle Your Anger At Your Child

All parents get angry at their children.

It doesnt help that there are always the endless
pressures of life: appointments were late to, things
weve forgotten until the last moment, health and
financial worries -- the list is endless. In the middle of
that hectic momentum, enter our child, who has lost
her sneaker, suddenly remembered she needs a new
notebook for school today, is teasing her little brother,
or is downright belligerent. And we snap.
In our calm moments, if were honest, we know that
we could handle any parenting moment much better
from a state of calm. But in the storm of our anger,
we feel righteously entitled to our fury. How can this
kid be so irresponsible, inconsiderate, ungrateful?
But no matter how aggravating we find our child's
behavior, that behavior doesn't cause our angry
response. We see our child's behavior ("He hit her
again!), and we draw a conclusion (He''s going to be
a psychopath!") which triggers other conclusions
("I've failed as a mother!"). This cascade of thoughts
triggers a run-away train of emotions, in this case fear,
dismay, guilt. We can't bear those feelings. The best

defense is a good offense, so we lash out at our child

in anger. The whole process takes all of two seconds.
Your child may be pushing your buttons, but he isn't
causing your response. Any issue that makes you feel
like lashing out is a deep issue, with roots in your own
early years. We all enter the parenting relationship
wounded in some way from our own childhoods, and
our kids surface all those wounds. We can expect our
kids to act out in ways that send us over the cliff at
times. That's why it's our responsibility as the
grownup to stay away from the cliff.
WHY We Get So Angry At Our Kids
Parents and kids have the ability to trigger each other
as no one else can. Even as adults we are often
irrational in relation to our own parents. (Who has
greater power to annoy you? Make you act childish?)
Similarly, our kids push our buttons precisely because
they are our children. Psychologists call this
phenomenon ghosts in the nursery, by which they
mean that our children stimulate the intense feelings
of our own childhoods, and we often respond by
unconsciously re-enacting the past thats etched like
forgotten hieroglyphics deep in our psyches. The fears

and rage of childhood are powerful and can

overwhelm us even as adults. It can be enormously
challenging to lay these ghosts to rest.
It helps to know all this, if we are struggling to cope
with anger. Just as important, because it gives us
incentive to control ourselves, we need to know that
parental anger can be harmful to young children.
What Happens to Your Child When You Scream
or Hit
Imagine your husband or wife losing their temper and
screaming at you. Now imagine them three times as
big as you, towering over you. Imagine that you
depend on that person completely for your food,
shelter, safety, protection. Imagine they are your
primary source of love and self-confidence and
information about the world, that you have nowhere
else to turn. Now take whatever feelings you have
summoned up and magnify them by a factor of 1000.
That is something like what happens inside your child
when you get angry at him.
Of course, all of us get angry at our children, even,
sometimes, enraged. The challenge is to call on our

maturity so that we control the expression of that

anger, and therefore minimize its negative impact.
Anger is scary enough. Name calling or other verbal
abuse, in which the parent speaks disrespectfully to
the child, takes a higher personal toll, since the child
is dependent on the parent for his very sense of self.
And children who suffer physical violence, including
spanking, have been proven to exhibit lasting negative
effects that reach into every corner of their lives.
If your young child does not seem afraid of your
anger, its an indication that he or she has seen too
much of it and has developed defenses against it -and against you. The unfortunate result is a child who
is less likely to want to behave to please you, and is
more open to the influences of the peer group That
means you have some repair work to do. Whether or
not they show it -- and the more often we get angry,
the more defended they will be, and therefore less
likely to show it -- our anger is nothing short of
terrifying to our children.
How can you handle your own anger?
Since youre human, youll sometimes find yourself
in fight or flight mode, and your child will start to

look like the enemy. When we're swept with anger,

we're physically ready to fight. Hormones and
neurotransmitters are flooding our bodies. They cause
your muscles to tense, your pulse to race, your
breathing to quicken. It's impossible to stay calm at
those points, but we all know that clobbering our kids
-- while it might bring instant relief -- isn't really what
we want to do.
So commit now to No hitting, No swearing, No
calling your child names, No meting out any
punishment while angry. What about screaming?
Never at your children, that's a tantrum. If you really
need to scream, go into your car with the windows
rolled up and scream where no one can hear, and don't
use words, because those make you angrier.
Your children get angry too, so its a double gift to
them to find constructive ways to deal with your
anger: you not only dont hurt them, you offer them a
role model. Your children will certainly see you angry
from time to time, and how you handle those
situations will teach them a lot. Will you teach them
that might makes right? That parents have tantrums
too? That screaming is how adults handle conflict? If

so, they'll adopt these behaviors as a badge of how

grown-up they are.
Or will you model for your child that anger is part of
being human, and that learning to manage anger
responsibly is part of becoming mature? Heres how.
1. Set limits BEFORE you get angry.
Often when we get angry at our children, its because
we havent set a limit, and something is grating on us.
The minute you start getting angry, its a signal to do
something. No, not yell. Intervene in a positive way
to prevent more of whatever behavior is irritating you.
If your irritation is coming from you -- lets say
youve just had a hard day, and their natural
exuberance is wearing on you -- it can help to explain
this to your children and ask them to be considerate
and keep the behavior thats irritating you in check, at
least for now.
If the children are doing something that is
increasingly annoying -- playing a game in which
someone is likely to get hurt, stalling when youve
asked them to do something, squabbling while youre
on the phone -- you may need to interrupt what youre

doing, restate your family rule or expectation, and

redirect them, to keep the situation, and your anger,
from escalating.
2. Make and post a list of acceptable ways to
handle anger.
When you feel this angry, you need a way to calm
down. Many people can harness their biology and get
it under control just with awareness: Stop, breathe,
remind yourself it isn't an emergency. Shake the
tension out of your hands. Take ten more deep
breaths. If you need to make a noise, hum.
You might try to find a way to laugh, which
discharges the tension and shifts the mood. Even
forcing yourself to smile sends a message to your
nervous system that there's no emergency, and begins
calming you down.
If you feel you need to physically discharge your rage,
put on some music and dance. Some people still
follow the timeworn advice to clobber a pillow, but
it's best if you can do that kind of discharging in
private, because watching you clobber that pillow can
be pretty scary for your child. He knows perfectly
well that the pillow is a stand-in for his head and the

image of crazy hitting mommy will be seared into his

memory. I should add that I personally think this is a
questionable strategy, because research shows that
hitting something -- anything -- confirms to your
subconscious that indeed this is an emergency and
you should stay in "fight or flight." If you can breathe
deeply and tolerate the angry feelings, you will
probably notice that right under the anger is fear,
sadness, disappointment. Let yourself feel those
feelings and the anger will melt away.
3. Take Five.
Recognize that an angry state is a terrible starting
place to intervene in any situation. Instead, give
yourself a timeout and come back when you're able to
be calm. Move away from your child physically so
you won't be tempted to reach out and touch him
violently. Just say, as calmly as you can, I am too
mad right now to talk about this. I am going to take a
timeout and calm down. Exiting does not let your
child win. It impresses upon them just how serious the
infraction is, and it models self-control. Use this time
to calm yourself, not to work yourself into a further
frenzy about how right you are.

If your child is old enough to be left for a moment,

you can go into the bathroom, splash water on your
face, and do some breathing. But if your child is
young enough to feel abandoned when you leave, just
use the kitchen sink instead. Then, sit on the couch
near your child for a few minutes, breathing deeply
and silently saying a little mantra that restores your
calm, like "This is not an emergency.....Kids need
love most when they don't seem to deserve it.....He's
acting out because he needs my help with his big
feelings...This too shall pass."
It's good role
modeling for our kids to see how we regulate our big
emotions.
4. Listen to your anger, rather than acting on it.
Anger, like other feelings, is as much a given as our
arms and legs. What were responsible for is what we
choose to do with it. Anger often has a valuable lesson
for us, but acting while we're angry, except in rare
situations
requiring
self-defense,
is
rarely
constructive, because we make choices we would
never make from a rational state. The constructive
way to handle anger is to limit our expression of it,
and when we calm down, to use it diagnostically:

what is so wrong in our life that we feel furious, and

what do we need to do to change the situation?
Sometimes the answer is clearly related to our
parenting: we need to enforce rules before things get
out of hand, or start putting the children to bed half an
hour earlier, or do some repair work on our
relationship with our twelve year old so that she stops
treating us rudely. Sometimes we're surprised to find
that our anger is actually at our spouse who is not
acting as a full partner in parenting, or even at our
boss. And sometimes the answer is that we're carrying
around anger we dont understand that spills out onto
our kids, and we need to seek help though therapy or a
parents support group.
5. Remember that expressing your anger to
another person can reinforce and escalate it.
Despite the popular idea that we need to express our
anger so that it doesnt eat away at us, theres nothing
constructive about expressing anger to another
person. Research shows that expressing anger while
we are angry actually makes us more angry. This in
turn makes the other person hurt, afraid, or angry, and
causes a rift in the relationship. So discharge your

anger physically if you need to, but then calm yourself

and consider what the "message" of the anger is
before you speak with the other person.
Rehashing the situation in our mind always proves to
us that we are right and the other person is wrong,
which again makes us more angry as we stew. What
works is to find a constructive way to address
whatever is making us angry so that the situation is
resolved, and our anger stops being triggered.
6. WAIT before disciplining.
Make it a point NEVER to act while angry. Nothing
says you have to issue edicts on the fly. Simply say
something like I cant believe you hit your brother
after weve talked about hitting being against the
rules. I need to think about this, and we will talk about
it this afternoon. Until then, I expect you to be on your
best behavior.
Once youve taken a ten minute timeout and still dont
feel calm enough to relate constructively, you can say
I want to think about what just happened, and we
will talk about it later. In the meantime, I need to
make dinner and you need to finish your homework,
please.

After dinner, sit down

necessary, set firm limits.
to listen to his side of
reasonable, enforceable,
behavior.

with your child and, if

But you will be more able
it, and to respond with
respectful limits to his

7. Avoid physical force, no matter what.

85% of adolescents say they've been slapped or
spanked by their parents (Journal of Psychopathology,
2007). And yet study after study has proven that
spanking has a negative impact on childrens
development that lasts throughout life. The American
Academy of Pediatrics recommends strongly against
it.
I personally wonder if the epidemic of anxiety and
depression among adults in our culture is caused in
part by the aftermath of so many of us having grown
up with adults who hurt us. Many parents minimize
the physical violence they suffered, because the
emotional pain is too great to acknowledge. But
repressing that pain just makes us more likely to hit
our own children.
Spanking may make you feel better temporarily
because it discharges your rage, but it is bad for your

child, and ultimately sabotages everything positive

you do as a parent. Spanking, and even slapping, has
a way of escalating, sometimes into deadly violence.
Do whatever you need to do to control yourself,
including leaving the room. If you cant control
yourself and end up resorting to physical force,
apologize to your child, tell him hitting is never ok,
and get yourself some help.
8. Avoid threats.
Threats made while youre angry will be
unreasonable. Since threats are only effective if you
are willing to follow through on them, they undermine
your authority and make it less likely that your kids
will follow the rules next time. Instead, tell your child
that you need to think about an appropriate response
to this infraction of the rules. The suspense will be
worse than hearing a string of threats they know you
wont enforce.
9. Monitor your tone and word choice.
Research shows that the more calmly we speak, the
more calm we feel, and the more calmly others
respond to us. Similarly, use of swear words or other

highly charged words makes us and our listener more

upset, and the situation escalates. We have the power
to calm or upset ourselves and the person we are
speaking with by our own tone of voice and choice of
words. (Remember, you're the role model.)
10. Consider that you're part of the problem.
If you're open to emotional growth, your child will
always show you where you need to work on yourself.
If you're not, it's hard to be a calm parent. In every
interaction with our child, we have the power to calm
or escalate the situation. Your child may be acting in
ways that aggravate you, but you are not a helpless
victim. Take responsibility to manage your own
emotions first. Your child may not become a little
angel overnight, but his acting out will diminish
dramatically once you learn to stay calm.
11. Still angry?
Look for the underlying feelings. Dont get attached
to your anger. Once youve listened to it and made
appropriate changes, let go of it. If that isnt working,
remember that anger is always a defense. It shields us
from feeling vulnerable.

To get rid of anger, look at the hurt or fear under the

anger. If your daughters so obsessed with her friends
that shes dismissive of the family and that hurts you,
or your sons tantrums scare you, work with those
feelings and situations, and address them. Once you
get to the underlying feelings, your anger will
dissipate.
12. Choose your battles.
Every negative interaction with your child uses up
valuable relationship capital. Focus on what matters,
such as the way your child treats other humans. In the
larger scheme of things, her jacket on the floor may
drive you crazy, but it probably isnt worth putting
your relationship bank account in the red over.
13. Keep looking for effective ways to discipline
that encourage better behavior.
There are hugely more effective ways to discipline
than anger, and, in fact, disciplining with anger sets
up a cycle that encourages misbehavior. Some parents
are surprised to hear that there are families where the
children are generally well-behaved, although
physical force is never used and parental yelling is
infrequent. In fact, it is my observation (although the

research has yet to catch up because the numbers are

small) that families where there is no discipline or
yelling at all, but only empathic limits, produce kids
who take complete responsibility for their behavior at
an early age and are the best-adjusted emotionally.
We know that punishment is ALWAYS a negative,
and I would say that Discipline as we think of it is
punishment, and is therefore counter-productive.
14. If you frequently struggle with your anger, seek
counseling.
Theres no shame in asking for help. The shame is in
reneging on your responsibility as a parent by
damaging your child physically or psychologically.
Latest Posts

When Your Child Makes You Want To Scream:

10 Steps to Calm
"The hardest thing is still to calm myself down when
my boys get wild and my buttons get pushed. I end up
screaming despite my best intentions." - Mollie
"When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice,
safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out." -Erma Bombeck

Mollie's right. The hardest part of parenting is

regulating our own emotions. In our last post, we
talked about how to get angry less often. But what
happens when your child does something that makes
you want to scream, and a playpen won't work? What
are your options?
You can:
a. Scream and then feel remorseful later.
b. Resist screaming by calming yourself down.
In other words, you can escalate the upset, or you can
try to stay calm to settle everyone down.
Of course, you have more options if you take positive
action BEFORE you feel like screaming. Often when
we lose it with our children, its because we havent
set a limit, and something is grating on us. Some
parents are trying so hard to be patient they let things
get out of hand, and then snap.
The key is to set limits BEFORE you get angry. The
minute you start getting annoyed, its a signal to do
something. No, not yell. Its time to intervene in a
positive way to meet everyone's needs, including your
own!

But what if despite your best efforts something

happens that pushes you over the edge?
1. If necessary, intervene to move a child out of
danger. And, of course, tend to anyone who is crying
or hurt. But don't open your mouth to the child you
want to scream at. Whatever comes out will make you
sorry later. Bite your tongue. Just focus on making
sure everyone is safe.
2. There is no emergency. This is the critical
moment; your body has been hijacked by fight or
flight hormones and part of you thinks it's an
emergency. You feel an urgent need to act; probably
by clobbering your child. Repeat after me: IT'S NOT
AN EMERGENCY.
3. Take Five. Consciously speak in as calm a tone as
you can manage. "I need to calm down. I'll be back in
a minute" and move away from your child. (If one
child was being attacked by the other, take that child
with you to keep him safe.)
Maybe you're wondering how your child will learn
not to do such things if you stay calm. Research
shows that when we get upset, our kids get more upset
-- and the learning functions of their brains shut down.

Kids learn best through a limit given empathically so

that it lessens their upset, followed by a problemsolving discussion once they calm down. By
comparison, when we act like it's an emergency, our
child spins further out of control.
4. Do whatever calms you and defuses your anger.
Breathe deeply at least ten times to turn off your
body's alarm response. Shake the tension out through
your hands. Splash water on your face. Look in the
mirror and reassure yourself: "I'm a good parent.
This will be ok. Whatever happens, I can handle it."
5. Change your thoughts so you can change your
feelings. If you're thinking your child is a spoiled brat
who will grow up to be a bully, you can't calm down.
The truth is, your child is a little person who is in pain
and is showing you that by his behavior. Remind
yourself "He's acting like a child because he IS a
child....My child needs my love most when he least
'deserves' it."
6. Once you're calm, move back to your child and
set whatever limit you need to as empathically as
you can. You're role modeling for your child how to
regulate emotions. Hopefully, you're feeling calm and

kind enough now to help your child express whatever

emotions led to her outburst, so she can move beyond
them. But if you're still too upset, just say "I'm still
upset about what happened. I know you were upset
too, but you know it's not okay to behave like that.
We'll talk about this in a while, once we're both
calmer."
The disadvantage to waiting is that you aren't helping
her with her feelings now, while she's in touch with
them, and they'll still be driving her behavior. On the
other hand, if you're still angry, you can't really be
kind to your child, and anything you say will make
things worse. So wait to do the hard work of
connecting until you can empathize instead of attack.
7. When everyones calm, talk with him about
what happened. Your first goal is create safety, so
your child can process the emotions that led to the
behavior and move past them. That way those
challenging feelings won't drive more bad behavior in
the future. The key to this is for you to actually feel
compassion and empathy for your child's perspective.
Remember, actions must be limited but all feelings are
allowed: "You hit your brother...you must have been
very angry.....you get mad at your brother a lot....it's

hard to share me, I know....sometimes you wish you

didn't have a brother.....everyone feels that way
sometimes....you know that I could never love anyone
more than you.....you have a special place in my heart
just for you...."
8. Once you're both calm and feeling connected,
teach. Explore with your child how he might handle
such a situation in the future. "I know you were so
very mad, AND I will not let you hit your brother. I
know what it's like to feel that mad. ... What could you
do next time instead of hitting?....Use your words?
Yes. What else? ...Do you think you could call me for
help?... Stomp your foot? Great! Let's practice those
things...What could you say to your brother next time
this happens?" Notice you're not lecturing. You're his
coach, supporting him to be his best self.
9. Prevention is the best medicine. If your cup isn't
full, you're at the mercy of your triggers. One little
push from your three year old, and you've slipped
from the high road of parenting to the low road. You
can only give what you have inside, so keep your cup
full. Talk with a trusted friend about the trials of
parenting. Turn off the computer and go to bed early.
Make daily opportunities to laugh with your children.

Try to just stop and really enjoy your child, even with
all the chaos and mess.
10. Fake it till you make it. What if you find
yourself screaming before you can stop yourself? The
minute you notice it, just stop. In mid-sentence.
Close your mouth. You're not embarrassing yourself,
you're demonstrating the kind of self control you want
your child to learn. If you do this every time, sooner
or later you'll be able to stop yourself before you start
screaming. You'll be on your way to becoming a
parent who never screams. And you won't get
triggered nearly as often.
Easy? No. Possible? Absolutely. I've seen thousands
of parents do it. We're actually re-wiring our brains,
and de-activating those triggers from our own
childhoods. So the next generation won't have to.