Anger often feels irresistible. A child breaks a glass or hits a sibling, and we erupt. Can that automatic reaction be interrupted? Can volcanic anger be replaced by calm helpfulness? In the moment, changing course can seem harder than turning the mighty Mississippi upstream. We feel helpless in the face of our own passion.
Anger rarely begins with the misbehavior that seems to trigger it. It usually begins much earlier—in the irritation, fatigue, loneliness, or discouragement already simmering within us. Too often our children pay the price for burdens they did not create.
There is another source of anger: the judgments we quietly impose on those around us. Each of us carries a script filled with assumptions about how people should act. When someone—especially a child—violates that script, indignation can rise abruptly.
When we act as if everyone should follow our rules, we set ourselves up for chronic frustration. There is a devious kind of pride in imposing our assumptions on everyone around us. In contrast, humility is a wonderful openness. We are freer to appreciate the diverse ways that people, including our children, think and behave.
Consider a mother who awakens on her birthday to the aroma of a delightful breakfast. She lingers in bed, anticipating a happy surprise. After a while, one of the children comes in and says, “As a birthday surprise, we cooked our own breakfast.” She could feel hurt that no one brought her a plate, or she could feel grateful for their growing thoughtfulness and self-sufficiency. She might even add, with warmth, that she loves eating with them and would be delighted to be included next time.
You can see the vital role of humility. When we are humble—when we don’t insist on having the world operate by our rules—we are less likely to be irritated by differences. We are less likely to impose our meanings on someone else’s behavior. Anger has deep roots—way down into our assumptions.
At the heart of much of our anger is a painful human reaction. A child spills a glass of milk, and somewhere in our souls we react: “How could you be so clumsy? You need to be more careful.” But behind the words may be a more self-oriented reaction: “Why should your clumsiness make me late for work or mess up my table or . . .” In other words, “How could you do this to me?” Anger is a self-centered reaction to inconvenience or disappointment.
Jesus Christ’s graciousness is in perfect contrast to our egocentric humanness. His focus was always on those around Him. He was, and is, totally tuned to our needs and our ways of seeing the world. Based on His perfect discernment of us, He acts to bless us.
If we follow His example, we might respond to spilt milk in gracious ways, such as: “Oops, the milk spilled. I’ll grab you a towel,” or “Too bad. We all spill sometimes,” or “Cool! I have wanted to do milk painting on the table for a long time. What shall we draw?”
When we act with the child’s needs in mind, we act very differently. When we understand that our children are doing the best they can in a big, confusing world in which they often feel awkward and powerless, we, like Jesus, can act redemptively. When a child falls short because of lack of wisdom or experience, we can teach rather than punish.
I love the compassion in this counsel from Jeffrey R. Holland:
When a battered, weary swimmer tries valiantly to get back to shore, after having fought strong winds and rough waves which he should never have challenged in the first place, those of us who might have had better judgment, or perhaps just better luck, ought not to row out to his side, beat him with our oars, and shove his head back underwater. That’s not what boats were made for. But some of us do that to each other.19
More than we realize, our anger hurts and frightens our children. It is much like clubbing them with oars. God recommends different behavior. “And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness” (Mosiah 4:14).
We do not teach our children to avoid fighting and quarrelling by fighting and quarrelling with them. We recall God’s counsel, “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
Anger is addictive. Christensen and Jacobsen describe the satisfaction of having someone to blame. “How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one’s nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right. You may be fragmented, but you feel absolved of all the blame for it.”20
Apparently, this is the way Cain felt after he killed his brother. In Moses 5:33, we read, “And Cain gloried in that which he had done, saying: I am free; surely the flocks of my brother falleth into my hands.”
In some sense, Cain was free—free as a fugitive and a vagabond. That’s pretty poor freedom! The natural man, unchanged by the Spirit of God, experiences many such empty victories. Does one feel better after delivering punishment? Can there ever be enough punishment to cure the child and justify our anger? Does wrestling a foe into submission bring peace? Or are hate and envy addictive? Does Satan laugh when he gets us swept up in battering each other with our rightness?
Let’s return to Frederick Buechner’s observation. In an earlier article, we quoted him describing anger as a feast fit for a king. He concludes his observation with the following words: “The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”21
Anger can destroy us and our families. God invites us to turn away wrath and be soft-spoken parents. Spiritual insight and scientific research point in the same direction: anger wounds the child, damages the relationship, and harms the one who indulges it.
The Science of Anger
Research shows that chronic hostility damages the heart. Those who are frequently angry are several times more likely to face serious cardiac problems than those who are not. Anger is not only bad for our souls; it is hard on our bodies as well.22
There are three parts to the anger that destroys us: cynical mistrust of others, frequent angry feelings, and aggressive behavior. For example, if a driver is following your car too closely on your way to work, you may at first wonder if he or she is stupid. Then you may feel angry, and then perhaps you will act to spite the person by deliberately driving more slowly. All the while, you are damaging your own heart.
The same thing happens in our relationships with our children. We may find that they have not washed the dishes or done their homework. We may find that they have picked on a younger brother or sister. Our first reaction may be cynicism: “What’s wrong with that kid? Sometimes he is so lazy!” “That kid never thinks of anyone but himself!” And we get angry. We feel indignant. We want to punish the child. (Anytime we are inclined to hurt someone, we should question the impulse. God declares that vengeance belongs only to Him.) Then we get verbally or physically aggressive, or both. We may lecture or yell at our children. We may spank them, shove them, or drag them to their rooms.
All of this is bad for our hearts. And it is bad for our relationships. As therapist Bernie Zilbergeld stated: “I cannot count the number of times that married couples tell me: ‘I’ve got all this anger bottled up and I need to get it out.’ Sure you do, and I’ll be happy to cater the divorce.”23 And as Carol Tavris observed in her classic book on anger: “Most of the time, expressing anger makes people angrier, solidifies an angry attitude, and establishes a hostile habit. If you keep quiet about momentary irritations and distract yourself with pleasant activity until your fury simmers down, chances are you will feel better, and feel better faster, than if you let yourself go in a shouting match.”24
The Mixed Blessing of Focus
Anger has a way of focusing, even narrowing—our attention. This may be very useful if we are preparing to fight off attacking wolves or marauding bandits. In those situations, the narrow focus can be very productive. It allows us to put all our resources and extraordinary energy into the service of defending ourselves.
That same focus is entirely unhelpful if you are dealing with a family member who spilled the milk or came home late. In those cases, the focus may over-energize an unwise and unnecessary attack. Rather than think of the misdeed as an assault on us or heaven, it is more helpful to think of the misdeed in the context of the child’s history, intentions, and circumstances. We need to take a broader view in order to respond helpfully. Tavris explained:
Because anger is fomented, maintained, and inflamed by the statements we make to ourselves and others when we are provoked (“What a thoughtless lout!” “Who does she think she is!”), [we can learn] to control anger the same way, by reinterpreting the supposed provocation: “Maybe he’s having a rough day”; “She must be very unhappy if she would do such a thing.” This is what people who are slow to anger do naturally: They empathize with the other person’s behavior and try to find justifications for it.25
When we are tempted to be angry with children, we can choose compassion instead. We can try to see the world through their less experienced eyes and understand their lives, challenges, and personalities. Even before we learn more formal skills, we can pause, question our judgments, and ask what response would truly bless the child. One of the most remarkable tools for doing that is emotion coaching, which I will discuss in the next article.
Invitation:
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19 Jeffrey R. Holland, However Long and Hard the Road (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1985), 71.
20 Andrew Christensen and Neil S. Jacobson, Reconcilable Differences (New York: Guilford, 2000), 17.
21 Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 2.
23 Quoted in Carol Tavris, Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 247.
24 Ibid, 159.
25 Ibid, 290.
