I recently watched a child and his mother melt down in the grocery store. The boy’s words and actions were totally age appropriate. The mom’s? Not so much. She spoke harshly, shamed, and ultimately threatened to take away his electronic device. (I’m guessing the child was three.) Her tactics successfully avoided a full crisis (i.e., carrying a screaming, kicking child out the door while leaving behind a full cart of needed groceries) and triggered a host of memories for me.
I remember how ashamed I felt whenever one of our sons let loose with a public display of anger (a less desirable type of PDA). I felt judged by everyone within earshot. Part of why those moments felt so painful and overwhelming was that I had no clue how to deal with my own anger.
I learned how to be emotionally dishonest at an early age. As a child, any expression of anger earned me a one-way ticket to my room for a prolonged time-out. Afraid of breaking what appeared to be a fragile relational thread, I learned to either re-direct my anger or deny it.
This habit continued well into my forties. By that time, I had three young children and a husband who worked multiple, part-time jobs. I was constantly angry but didn’t know how to express what I was feeling without blaming or hurting others. So I continued denying it. But anger can’t be ignored forever and from time to time, it leaked out sideways, often when I was least expecting it.
One particular afternoon, I could tell that my anger was ready to breach the levy. I was home with all three kids and my husband would not return until after they were in bed. Feeling increasingly concerned about the damage my anger could do, I called my neighbor, told her what was going on, and asked if she could come over to give me a break. This was one of the most humiliating and smartest parenting decisions I ever made. It made me realize that I had to face my ambivalence about anger before I could help my children recognize and navigate through their own.
Because I denied the presence of anger for decades, it had morphed into the following behaviors and attitudes:
• Withdraw, both physical and emotional
• People pleasing (saying yes far too often in the hope of assuaging other’s anger)
• Compulsive activity (my athletic career was largely fueled by subterranean deposits of anger.)
• Depression
• Bitterness
• Cynicism
I don’t recommend any of these by the way.
Once I became more attuned to my own anger, I was then able to recognize it in my sons. There are infinite reasons why children and teens get angry, including:
Developmental delays
Health issues (including food allergies, undiagnosed hearing or sight problems, and lack of sleep)
Witnessing violence (even in the media) or experiencing some form of trauma
Feelings of frustration about their limitations
Inability to clearly communicate a legitimate need
Normal individuation (One of our son’s favorite comebacks was, “You’re not the boss of me!” Well, actually…)
An expression of being out of control
Anger essentially functions as a messenger trying to tell us that something is amiss. The initial step in learning what anger was trying to communicate involved training our sons to recognize it. Recognition was often linked to a particular behavior or tone of voice. “Your anger seemed to go directly to your feet. Could you feel that happening before you kicked your brother’s block fort?” Or, “When you talk loud enough for the neighbors to hear you, can you stop for a minute and take ten deep breaths?”
Step two included finding healthy options for expressing these feelings. Because the motivation to teach our children emerged out of our own dysfunction, we often felt like we were just one step ahead of them. I distinctly remember hearing myself say to son number two, “I want you to use your words when you are angry,” and sensing the Holy Spirit remind me, “That goes for you too mom!”
Because our children’s personalities are unique, what works for one may fail miserably for another. Our youngest son dissolved into tears when he was angry. Helping him process anger meant grabbing a book and snuggling in a quiet spot until he felt some measure of self-control and safety (or fell asleep). Our eldest son had no problem saying, “I’m really mad at you!” but our second son struggled to find words. One day we noticed him vigorously dancing to a certain song. The next time we recognized that he was angry, my husband played that song and encouraged him to dance it out. We called it his angry song and coached him to request it whenever he felt the need to process his anger. We did not know this back then, but when angry, if we engage our core muscles, it can help us to get out of our amygdala and back into our thinking brain. Our son seemed to intuitively get this.
Children as young as two intuitively understand anger’s power and typically do not know what to do with it. Their little bodies are seldom able to practice restraint when they are dis-regulated. Feeling safe and having self-control when angry are enormously important milestones for all children.
Doctors T. Berry Brazelton and Joshua Sparrow wrote in Mastering Anger and Aggression,
The emergence of angry feelings and the aggressive behavior that they sometimes lead to is hardly as eagerly awaited as a baby’s first words or first steps. But like those two critically important events, angry feelings and figuring out what to do about them are important ways for him to assert himself and to make a place for himself in his world. For the child, having a parent who accepts and understands his temperament is essential is if he is to accept himself.
As such, we need to set clear boundaries that protect them and others. Running inside our home or in the yard got a green light but door slamming did not. Raising their voices was acceptable, but name calling and swearing (or saying “I hate you!”) were not. They were never allowed to use an object (e.g., a stuffed animal or book) to destroy something but they could use their hands to “dismantle” it. Though the rules we established might seem whimsical or arbitrary, we actually spent a considerable amount of time thinking about our many options.
“We aimed to balance self-control with honesty.”
In our family, the final piece was forgiveness. Whenever the boys were doing poorly with one another, there tended to be an unprocessed offense. To tease this out, we helped them to rewind and articulate what happened. Inevitably, there had been harsh words spoken, acts of hostility or selfishness, etc., which gradually morphed into anger and resentment.
Early on, we had to script the process of forgiveness for them. “When you are ready, tell your brother you’re sorry for dunking his favorite stuffed animal in the toilet.” Specificity matters in these instances. A mumbled, “Sorry!” with emotional dissonance simply won’t work. The offended would then be prompted to offer forgiveness, again, being specific: “I forgive you for dunking Cuggie.” Washing their slates clean always allowed them to have a greater measure of self-control and more importantly, enjoy one another more fully.
Sending an angry child to his or her room is much easier than what I’ve described (and at times, it can be effective). However, in the long run, teaching your children how to recognize and constructively deal with their anger will better prepare them to live healthy, emotionally rich lives.
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My article To Have and To Hold was chosen by the editors of The Common Good Magazine as one of their favorites from 2023. I loved working on this piece. If you read it and enjoy it, shoot me an email or respond in the comments. I’ll pick three of you and send you a signed copy of Marriage in the Middle. (US residents only).
If you have a spare thirty minutes, give this podcast a listen. David Whitehead and Sheil Gregroire have a meaningful conversation about the many ways that Christianity does not support Christian nationalism, based on David’s new book, American Idolatry.
Thanks for your patience between posts. I’m smack in the middle of my first draft of Love the Women, a comprehensive look at how misogyny affects many aspects of American life for Harper-Collins. It’s taking every bit of my creative energy.
Photo taken in Harvard, MA, 2021. @dorothygreco. Header photo by David Knox, on Unsplash. A version of this article first appeared at Christianity Today.
Blessings for your new year.
Thank you for this, Dorothy! This is very resonant — as a child, I didn’t learn how to deal with my anger in a healthy way. And your mention of learning “how to be emotionally dishonest at a young age” is, admittedly, very relateable — oof. As you write, so often we learn to dismiss or deny our anger, and then it comes out sideways. So much better to develop skills to address anger in healthy ways. Thank you for sharing your wisdom in this beautifully-written reflection!
This is so well articulated, Dorothy. As a parent of young adults, I see how my inability to recognize anger in myself (due largely to upbringing that did not allow anger) stunted my ability to express it in a healthy way.
I also love the way you highlight that we as parents seem to be half a step in front of our kids in formation- I feel that!
Thank you for this.