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When Your Kids Push Your Buttons:
The Newsletter
by Bonnie Harris, M.S.Ed.
Issue 40 - Anger: What's It Good For?
Greetings!
"True compassion arises from a healthy sense of self, from awareness of who we are that honors our own capacities and fears, our own feelings and integrity, along with those of others."
— Jack Kornfield
When we can't accept ourselves, it makes it very difficult to accept others. We don't have to like everything about ourselves, but if we accept our foibles and our feelings, we are more able to understand and accept them in others — even our children.
Discussion of Key Points — Anger: What's It Good For?
Because most of us grew up in homes where our anger was either disapproved of or denied ("Now you know you don't mean that."), we don't know what to do with our children's anger. Do we disapprove and deny, too? If we don't want to, then what do we do instead? Most feel that it is not okay for a child to yell in anger and especially to get mad at us. Even when we consciously decide that our children should express their feelings, the power of their anger can be quite intimidating. Usually it pushes a button. "How dare she yell at me like that! I have to put a stop to it." What is going on inside my heads is the unconscious realization that "I never would have dared say anything like that to my mother. I can't let her get away with it." If I had to obey my parents with no recourse for whatever I was angry about, it's likely that when my child refuses to back down, like I did, I will react harshly-even though that's what I said I wouldn't do.
We get so caught up in these ideas and fears, which quickly eject us right out of the moment. Connecting with my child and whatever it is that caused her anger or upset is out of the realm of possibility. I don't want to look at the fact that I may have instigated it-possibly by yelling at her in anger! So I deny my anger and send her to time out. Many more progressive parents will send themselves to time out. A step in the right direction.
We need to accept anger as a normal, healthy, human emotion — for all of us. It's what we do with it that is sometimes not healthy. When anger channels into violent, harmful directions, you can be sure that somewhere in the past, this person got the message that anger was not okay. We need to take responsibility for our anger and not blame it on others, especially our children. When we do, they learn to blame theirs on others — "It's all your fault." Once we take responsibility for ours, we can then accept our children's and help them to understand it. From, "You're really mad that you hit your head on the table," to "You're furious with me that I won't say it's okay to go to that party. I don't blame you. I'd probably be furious with me too. Sometimes a parent has a tough job," anger can be allowed and understood. It does not have to intimidate and coerce us into either succumbing or reacting.
Questions and Answers
I want your questions. Here's how it works: You email me a question, and I answer it right away. Then it goes in a newsletter at a later date.
Q. My 6 year old son is going through a difficult phase of feeling angry with the world and in particular me. I have a hard time dealing with his tantrums and get infuriated when he is manipulating me. This morning he seemed particularly fed up and first thing I heard moaning coming from his room. It transpired that he had "fallen" out of bed landing on his duvet (interesting) and hurting his feet to the extent that he was unable to walk without dragging himself snake like through the house. I reassured him, poor you etc. and by breakfast all was sorted. But I feel this is indicative of the way he feels about himself: chronically low self-esteem. He often says things like "Now no one likes me" after a tantrum.
A. I don't think you need to worry that this behavior indicates low self-esteem. His attention-getting behavior is for just that-getting your attention. My guess is that he wanted you to interact with him so he could be with you while getting out of bed and dressed. Many children use any ploy they can to get us to help when they have to do something they don't want. If it infuriates you, then your reaction will be negative and that why he is angry with you. Perhaps you need to adjust some expectations so that you actually expect that he will want to get you involved. Then when he does, it won't feel so much like manipulation. You will know that that is normal - annoying perhaps, but much less enraging. His claim that no one likes him after he has had a tantrum indicates that the reactions he encounters to his tantrums gives him that message. To help him feel stronger and more loved, you will need to have more understanding for the problem (whatever it is) that he is having that is causing the tantrum. If you think it is trivial (which it may be to you) or misguided or you are out of patience, then you will be angry about it. That anger translates to him as 'you don't like him.'
Q. Mealtimes are hard with my 3-1/2 year old. He'll come sit down with us and have a couple of bites, and then he's up and running around again. I've developed a bad habit of feeding him after we've finished our dinner in front of a TV show he's watching. I know this is not a good practice, but I worry about him not getting the nutrition he needs if I don't feed him. What should I do? I've tried not feeding him after he gets up, hoping he'll get hungry and go eat. But he never seems to want to eat what we give him-he only begs for cereal!
A. This is a good time to begin teaching healthy eating habits. You know you are setting up a bad habit by allowing him to call the shots on when, where, and how he eats and by actually making yourself his servant. We can all relate to your concern of him not eating enough to get nourishment. That is his trump card! It may seem cruel, but you will be serving him in the long run if you teach him good eating habits now. There can be rules about eating. You can let him know that now that he is a big boy, dinnertime is going to be different. #1 - It happens at the table. I don't think forcing him to stay at the table is a good idea for a very active 3 year old. Let him go off and come back but make it very clear that food stays at the table. #2 - Let him know that after dinner is over, you will not be fixing him anything else. He will eventually get hungry but maybe not the first night or two of the new rules. #3 - Make being at the table the most enjoyable place he can be. Have fun, play games, put food in bowls so the kids can serve themselves, give him a choice about one thing to have at the meal, always include something you know he will like. Perhaps a bowl of cereal he can serve himself from is one of the options. #4 - TV does not go on until everyone is finished with dinner.
Q. My son is 18 months old, is somewhat of a picky eater, and has fallen from 50th to 5th percentile in weight since his birth. My husband and I have both worried excessively about his eating, and mealtimes are often not pleasant. My attitude has relaxed, and I simply offer appropriate options for meals (including at least 1 thing I know my son eats) and let him eat (or not eat) what he wants. My husband's buttons are still getting pushed in a big way. Tonight when my son would eat only 1 of the items offered, my husband kept urging him to eat a different item. Eventually my husband sighed, huffed, rolled his eyes, "whined" at my child to eat, slammed the microwave door, and slammed down my son's cup. I feel tense, stressed, and exhausted when my husband reacts this way, and I don't think it helps with my son's eating. What can I do/say to help my husband relax?
A. It's vary hard to convince a spouse of something parenting related without coming off sounding as though you are trying to control him/get him to change-which of course you are, but he doesn't want to be told what to do. Perhaps sometime away from the dinner table, see if you can get him into a discussion of what eating was like in his family. If he has negative memories, you could talk about how important it is for the two of you to give your child positive eating memories. Acknowledge how hard that is when worry about his weight is an issue. See if you can share your deepest fears about what would happen if you did not work at getting him to eat what you want him to eat. Getting them up and on the table is a place for real communication to happen. Ask him what he would like from you and then tell him what you would like from him. I would imagine you both could agree that you would like mealtimes to be more pleasant. See if you can reach a compromise about how that can happen.
Stories from Readers
Story One: My daughter and I were on the front porch and I was trying to read something that was taking all my concentration. She was eating a tuna sandwich, walking in circles, and making really loud smacking sounds with her mouth and humming at the same time. Now normally this wouldn't have bothered me, but I was annoyed this time, because I couldn't concentrate and I was annoyed at what I was reading. I asked her to please stop making so much noise in an annoyed tone. So here's the good part. She didn't even miss a beat and in a sing song voice said, " sorry that's what kids to do" (she's only 3 so she still has that funny grammar). Anyway it was like, mom chill out would ya I mean really I'm a kid who is thoroughly enjoying her sandwich with my whole body, mind and spirit just living in the moment. I was so struck by her comment, and I said, you know your absolutely right, and you just keep on doing what your doing. I am going to remember that one as such a metaphor for life. Once again such wisdom that our children teach us.
Story Two: We had an incident this week that scared us badly but we used one of your techniques to try to keep it from happening again. Our seven-year-old son was being "watched" by his babysitter while he was swimming. She appears to have been reading a book and not watching him. He is a strong swimmer and with the aid of a "noodle" swam out into the middle of the pond. He was probably in 30 ft of water. The homeowner where he was swimming noticed him and got him into shore. The next day he and my husband and I composed a letter of rules that he is to follow at the lake. He had to read it and sign it. Now there isn't any mistake that he knows the rules and understands them.
News
I will be in Alberta Canada for a couple of weeks in November giving a professional training in The Effective Parenting Workshop for parents of 1-5 year olds near Edmonton. I'll also be giving a teacher training in two different locations as well as meeting with a parent group in Edmonton. For information contact Don McGillivray at dmcgillivray@phrd.ab.ca
A group in London is putting together a professional training for The Effective Parenting Workshop in January '08. If you are in the London area and are interested in attending, contact Morella at dereuver@btinternet.com
This newsletter focuses on some of the key points in my book with new thoughts and practical applications. Hopefully it will help the "swimming upstream" struggle we face in changing our parenting from what many of our friends, relatives, teachers and a good deal society expect from us.
What I ask in return is your help in spreading this message. Please forward this to any friends or family you think might benefit, encourage them to subscribe to the newsletter and to buy the book, When Your Kids Push Your Buttons And What You Can Do About It (Warner Books, 2003).
In order for this newsletter to be rich and interesting, I need your questions and stories. You can ask a question from your daily parenting life or you can ask me to elaborate on certain ideas from the book or any previous newsletter. Depending on the number of questions, I may or may not be able to get to all of them in the following newsletter. Your question might be the basis of the discussion of key points or might be in the question and answer section. Please make it as short and succinct as possible and give your children's ages. Many readers assume I have more questions than I can answer, so they don't ask — this is not true unless I tell you otherwise. Ask away!
Fondly,
Bonnie
Bonnie Harris Core Parenting
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Email Bonnie with questions or comments at bh@bonnieharris.com.
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© 2008 Bonnie Harris, LLC | P : 603.924.6639 | E : bh@bonnieharris.com
