We all get angry. Sometimes our anger is nothing more than simmering irritation. We chafe. Other times it is fire in our soul. Our ears burn and every cell tenses. Yet even as we ready for the battle, we have the sneaking suspicion that our anger is not good for us or for our unlucky target.
We are right. Anger is almost always destructive. But we don’t know what to do about it. We don’t want to leave scorched earth in our path, yet we don’t want to ignore problems, either.
The good news is that there is another alternative besides being a rager or being a patsy. We can make good decisions rather than have our anger or fear make our decisions for us.
This series is for normal parents—parents like you and me—who love our children but get angry too often and too readily. This series is for parents like us who have gotten so upset about some minor offense that we have launched into an endless lecture, heedless of the pain we were heaping on our children. This series is for parents who find ourselves struggling with the combination of stress in our own lives and the misdeeds in our children’s lives.
This series is for parents who want to have healthy, lifelong relationships with their children. This series is for parents who want their children to become good, caring, loving adults.
This series is for all of us.
You’re Not Alone
Haim Ginott, parenting genius and author, described our dilemma in his classic book Between Parent and Child. “No parent wakes up in the morning planning to make a child’s life miserable. No mother or father says, ‘Today, I’ll yell, nag, and humiliate my child whenever possible.’ On the contrary, in the morning many parents resolve, ‘This is going to be a peaceful day. No yelling, no arguing, and no fighting.’ Yet, in spite of good intentions, the unwanted war breaks out again. Once more we find ourselves saying things we do not mean, in a tone we do not like.” [i]
In fact, those of us who are most vulnerable to anger may be those who have stronger emotions of all kinds. We love more passionately, we live more joyously. That is a blessing. Along with the gift of fire (enthusiasm, passion, gusto, zeal), however, we have the challenge of channeling, managing, and training our fire. After all, fire can warm and cook, but it can also scorch and destroy.
Let’s begin by trying to better understand anger.
The Pleasure of Anger
There is something wonderfully satisfying about anger. Frederick Buechner said: “Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.”[ii]
Anger can be quite delicious—and quite destructive.
The excesses of anger are captured in a story I read about a woman who returned damaged merchandise to a store. She launched into the clerk with a vengeance. He listened patiently. Finally, after several minutes of listening patiently, he interrupted her and asked, “Ma’am, suppose we refund your money, provide you another one without charge, close the store, and shoot the manager. Would that be satisfactory?”
Anger tends to take us over. It is much like throwing a match into dry tinder. It starts readily, grows quickly, and is hard to stop.
The Assumptions Behind Anger
Even as we violate our consciences by insulting those we love, it is quite possible for us to feel virtuous. We may think, “You are wrong or bad, and I am helping you by straightening you out.” What a perfect design by Satan: We violate God’s laws while feeling virtuous!
Consider some of the common assumptions behind anger.
1. Anger is real. It tends to feel wonderfully authentic. “This is truth. I hadn’t seen it before, but now I do!” Maybe we discover that our child has stolen from a neighbor, hurt a sibling, or told a lie. We feel that familiar flash of indignation. Suddenly it all makes sense. The child needs rebuke. We would be irresponsible not to deliver it.
2. “I must be honest with you.” When we discover something awful, it seems as if we must deal with it immediately. We need to talk about it—we can’t seem to keep “the truth” in. And we cloak our anger in the virtue of honesty.
3. “I must deal with anger by getting it out.” “With all this feeling inside me, if I don’t get it out, I’ll burst.” This is the hydraulic theory of anger: The pressure must be released so it does not build up and cause an explosion. So, I tell my child just what she has done wrong—in angry, indignant tones that somehow feel authentic, necessary, and virtuous.
4. “After I get my anger out, I will feel better.” Most of us assume the expression of anger is cathartic. “After I have fully expressed my indignation, I will feel relieved and peaceful. I will feel better, and the object of my wrath will be wiser.”
5. “After I’ve told you what’s wrong with you, you can do better.” It seems that our child has been blind to some truth we have discovered. When we point out his error, he should be able to make better choices in the future.
Anger seemingly has all the satisfactions of a crusade: a worthy cause, plenty of emotion, an opportunity to make the world a better place, and a deep feeling of satisfaction.
Unfortunately for those of us who get angry readily, all of the five ideas above are almost entirely false. The crusade turns out to be a slaughter of innocents. The truths about anger are very different from the common beliefs that mislead us.
The Truth about Anger
Years of research have helped us better understand anger. It is generally not the positive, beneficial force many have believed it to be. Here is the truth about anger.
1. Anger is a liar. Our thoughts when we are angry are not calm, sensible, or balanced. They are narrow and frequently irrational and unbalanced. “Rare is the person who can weigh the faults of others without putting his thumb on the scales,” wrote Byron J. Langenfield.[iii] We get taken hostage by an unhelpful emotion and our reason and civility break down. Instead of seeking understanding, we begin to seek a conviction of the “enemy.” Research is clear: Anger narrows our thinking and limits our compassion. So, at the very time we need clear thinking and loving hearts, anger hijacks our souls and points us toward destruction of peace and love.
2. Angry times are bad times for honesty. Anger tends to focus on the negative, but the negative part is not the whole story, or even the most important part of it. The best time to say everything we are thinking is NOT when we are angry. Usually, saying all that we think isn’t “honesty”—it’s “fault-finding.” Anytime we’re tempted to say, “I need to be honest with you,” we would be wise to set aside the so-called honesty and work on our compassion.
3. There are ways to deal with anger besides pouring molten lava on those we love. The popular belief that if we do not express our anger, we or it will explode, is simply mistaken. Anger is a little like tasting very hot soup. We must allow it to cool a bit before we eat it or we will burn our mouths. There is nothing virtuous about assaulting those whom God has put in our care.
4. We often feel conflicted after we have “blown up” at people we love. After we unload our anger on a child, our mind may insist we were right and that the child needed to hear it. But our heart tells us we have violated the contract of love. We have turned against those we swore to bless and protect, to encourage and to teach. Francis Bacon once said, “A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.”[iv] Rather than try to justify or rationalize our anger, we would do better to repent.
5. When we get angry at our children, it often leaves them unmotivated, even despairing. Think about times you have been given an angry lecture. Were you energized and motivated by the tirade? It is more likely that you were hurt and that your first thought was counter-anger or revenge. You may have tolerated the other person’s anger, but you were probably not motivated or energized by it. The same is true with our children. When we unload on them, they don’t usually feel encouraged. They feel burdened, hopeless, and angry.
J. Golden Kimball made an astute observation.
Experience teaches me that when I have been angry, I am quite sure I did not have the Holy Ghost, and I was not in any proper condition to administer reproof. It took me quite a long while to learn that. When I became excited, fanatical, and over-zealous, I mistakenly thought it was the Spirit of the Lord, but have learned better, as the Holy Ghost does not operate that way. My testimony is that the internal fruits of the Holy Ghost are joy, peace, patience, long suffering, and kindess
J. Golden Kimball, in Conference Report, Apr. 1907, 81.
As a wise man has said, being angry is like drinking poison and waiting for your enemy to die. Anger destroys us. It also damages our most cherished relationships. It gives control of our lives to irrational, hard-hearted, unrighteous passion. It is like using fire to remodel our homes. It destroys indiscriminately.
In the articles ahead, I will further discuss the problems of anger and provide more than fifty alternatives to getting angry with our children.
Invitation
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