How To Deal With Anger
Tips for Supportive, Positive Parenting—Part 1
All parents deserve a peaceful parenting experience,
and all children deserve a peaceful parent.
Our goal is to help parents like you find your superpowers—so you can become the positive parent you long to be!
This is a 3-part blog series, so watch for the next 2—to help you on your way to parenting practices that help you with your own anger, and help dissolve your kids anger, too!
In the last blog series on positive parenting practices in the COVID pandemic, we learned the following:
- Stressful or negative states are harmful to all aspects of our families lives.
- We would be wise to de-stress in the moment an upsetting state appears because after you’ve learned the strategies to dissolve stress, it becomes clear that stress, for more than a few minutes is optional.
- Using a positive parenting approach results in us experiencing emotional stability and uncovering our natural joy.
In this blog we will see that dissolving anger in us parents serves our emotional health so much better than defaulting to it. We can’t be peaceful, positive parents at the same time as we’re angry, stressed-out parents. The parenting tips in this blog will also help an angry, disruptive, aggressive child turn towards positive behaviors—because it’s natural and feels good.
The positive parenting solutions offered here will also help with other troubles in kids lives, like: anxiety in children, bullying, disciplining a child, temper tantrums, rebellious teenagers, fighting amongst siblings, and other stressful situations. We all want a healthy relationship with our kids, and getting rid of anger is a big step towards that goal. The stress management skills offered here will also help us adults with many of the same issues I mentioned above, and in becoming positive role models.
For every minute you remain angry,
you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
We all have some anger stored in us. How we know that is because every now and then, it rises up in us. The other person or situation didn’t reach in and install the anger in us. It is there because we (falsely) learned that it’s helpful to us—otherwise we wouldn’t resort to it.
We don’t need it anymore.
An Anger Eye-Opener
Think of a situation in your family (or otherwise) when someone got angry at you. Get an image of them in your mind’s eye.
Notice they are convinced they are right while acting—a bit or a lot—insane.
Notice they want what they want when they want it. The “I-ness” in their highness is present. The Buddha said wanting is our only problem. That’s because when we don’t get what we want, we get ugly. I suggest we stop wanting—and just go get—when it serves!
Notice they think they are establishing authority while appearing deranged.
Notice their threatening voices and stances. Those are their strengths.
Notice they think they are intelligent, though in the moment they are ranting, raving, and raging.
Notice they think it will resolve the situation, bring solution, and therefore bring about peace and calmness. That’s like saying anger will ultimately lead to soothing.
Notice they think getting angry gets things done.
Notice they think they have the right to direct their anger at others. They think they are entitled to get angry at others, but no one is entitled to get angry at them.
Notice how arrogant they are.
Notice that they are the judge, the jury, and the executioner.
Notice how they think they are exerting control by losing their own control.
Notice how powerful they think they are.
Notice how troubled and frantic they act.
Notice how much pain they are causing themselves.
Notice how ridiculous they look.
Notice how special they think they are and that they should get what they want. And when they don’t, they get mad.
Notice that they think they are reasonable but are really just warring.
Notice they are bags of wind.
Notice an angry person thinks he or she is coming from a mentally superior position. In truth, an angry person is really coming from a mentally inferior position.
Notice that’s us when we are angry.
Anger’s True Signature
To me, habitual anger is like sitting in a corner
with a dunce cap on.
—Louise Hay
Pondering Anger
Anger shuts down your heart
while opening your mouth.
—Unknown
As a person who wants to be a positive parent, try to find one good reason to be angry. I haven’t found one. I’m still looking. Well-being can’t be found near anger. As a parent, get weary enough of the anger to be willing to do the exercises to exorcise it.
If we don’t dissolve the anger, we
are agreeing to it.
Anger is hatred and puts our relationships, our own well-being, mental health, and our physical bodies at risk. Polishing our anger shrivels our hearts and anger hemorrhages our energy.
Become discontented with anger it’s not your birthright, peace is.
The power and control we are trying to capture by using an angry authoritarian parenting style doesn’t give us the kind of power that feels good and endears us to others.
True power is peaceful.
True peace is powerful.
Think of Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr. They were peaceful and powerful. That’s the kind of power that is helpful to humanity (and each of us). Power gained from anger causes dissention.
The Breaking Up Message
No one heals himself
by wounding another.
—Unknown
Use any one or a combination of these positive parenting practices and stress-relief tips when anger arises. Don’t judge yourself when you get angry. That hasn’t worked and won’t work.
- If you’re prone to angry outbursts, remove yourself from your family members before you react—for your own well-being and the well-being of everyone in your presence. Go do something physical; walk, run, garden, and so on until the anger disappears.
- John de Ruiter (a Canadian spiritual teacher) offers an effective method to stop anger on the spot: keep a note in your pocket that says, “I don’t need my raging story anymore.” Pull it out and read it every time anger arises. If you don’t physically keep a note in your pocket, keep it in your mind to imagine pulling out and reading when anger arises.
- Use Ho’oponopono on the anger. Say and feel what the following words when anger arises: “I’m sorry.” “Please forgive me.” “Thank you.” “I love you.” Repeat this until you feel relief and the anger has disappeared. This is an ancient Hawaiian healing system used by many to physically, emotionally and mentally heal themselves and others. It can be used on any stressful thought or emotion.
- Use Susi Lula’s strategy, (a self-care expert), “I need a moment,” and take a moment. Go into the next room, the bathroom, or anywhere, and focus on your breath until you can think, speak and act from a reasonable place.
- Put on a dunce cap. Make one and explain to everyone in your family that it’s one way to dissolve anger. Sit with the hat and the anger until the anger dissolves. You might even start laughing.
Once you experience relief with these peaceful parenting tips, teach your kids these ideas to help them emotionally self-regulate—for their own well-being.
When you bring stress reducing techniques into your conversations with your children, you are giving them an opportunity to go from stressed to blessed now and into their futures!
You are on the way to becoming a peaceful, positive Kid Code Parent!
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