Read The No Cry Discipline Solution Online
Authors: Elizabeth Pantley
to run. We envision orderly belongings, smooth schedules, and
peaceful surroundings. (Should I add chocolate chip cookies bak-
ing in the oven?) The reality is that most of our homes have far
more noise, mess, and chaos than we would like. Often we live
Father-Speak
“ Bad day at work, sales calls, things breaking, noise, head-
ache . . . it all leads to stress that leads to ARGHHHHH!”
—Alan, father to Leanne, age 3, and Timothy, age 5 months
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A Peaceful Home: Staying Calm and Avoiding Anger
with it day after day after day while wishing it were different.
Then, one day when the TV is blaring and the baby is crying, you
trip over a stray toy, discover a broken dish, or are startled by a
loud and annoying screech. Suddenly all your unhappiness comes
pouring out at once.
It can help to know and accept that while there are children
in your house it will never make the cover of
Better Homes and
Gardens
. Decide on what’s most important, set a routine, and relax your standards to protect your sanity. When your children grow
up and leave the nest, then your house will look exactly the way
you’d like: clean, neat, and organized. And you’ll miss them so
much you’ll wonder why you ever made such a big deal about the
clutter.
Children Are Childish
Children are inexperienced, naïve, and narcissistic. They have
limited knowledge about social rules and expected behavior. Fur-
thermore, they are separate people from us and they have free will.
As hard as you may try, you cannot
make
a child eat, sleep, pick up his toys, say please, or go potty. You can ask. You can nag, plead,
threaten, and beg, but your child is a separate human being and
functions independently from you. Children are not wise, rational,
or mature. They want to do what they want to do, and they don’t
give much thought to the past or the future, let alone how their
actions affect other people or things.
Children don’t always understand things the way we assume
that they do. We might think that they have learned a lesson, or
we might assume that they clearly understand a request, but many
times they
don’t get it
. This can be very frustrating to parents who think that something is clear as a bell, yet their child is going off
in an entirely different direction.
Why Do Parents Get Angry at Their Children?
149
Jordan, age 3
We can’t force children to be less childish, and we can’t hurry
the process of their growing up. And if we think about it, we
wouldn’t want to, because the same limits that frustrate us bring us
the most joy—watching our child’s joyful, unrestrained approach
to the world is endearing. However, when this juvenile existence
means that our children don’t, won’t, or can’t do something we
want them to do, and we can’t fi nd a way to
make them
do it, then parental anger is the inevitable result.
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A Peaceful Home: Staying Calm and Avoiding Anger
Wow! There Are Lots of Reasons for
Parental Anger!
Now that you’ve learned the many, many reasons that parents get
angry, you may begin to wonder how you ever get through a day
without being angry! It is a major feat to stay calm in light of the
many plates we must juggle and the many negative issues that are
thrown our way. So, yes, give yourself a pat on the back for every
issue that you handle with aplomb. And now, let’s begin building
your knowledge and your anger management skills up so that you’ll
know exactly what to do next time you fi nd yourself getting angry
with your child.
A
nger
is a term that defi nes a broad range of emotions from
mild irritation to rage. Not all of these emotions are bad or
dangerous. Less intense emotions can act as a motivation to seek
change and an impetus to fi nd problem-solving solutions. Lesser
degrees of angry emotions keep us focused and keep our children
“on their toes.” These emotions, such as displeasure or irritation,
can allow us to see that a problem exists, but they don’t thwart con-
trol over our actions. As emotions become more extreme, though,
they become harder to control and are more likely to result in uncontrolled reactions with no positive outcome.
Key Point
\A raised voice is not necessarily a bad thing—if it is controlled
and respectful.
One problem with anger is that if you don’t have control over
your emotions at the start you can unintentionally escalate from
mild anger to more extreme emotions, bypassing the point where
you can use your emotions in a positive way. In addition, the
angrier the parent gets, the more out of control the child gets—it’s
as if they are on two sides of a rolling snowball heading for a crash
at the bottom of the mountain. An escalating range of angry emo-
tions might look like this:
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5 Level 6
Displeasure Annoyance Irritation Exasperation Rage
Fury
151
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152
A Peaceful Home: Staying Calm and Avoiding Anger
Parental anger often starts out on the mild end of this emotion
scale but can build to an uncontrollable crescendo. The following
chart shows how this can happen.
How a Parent’s Angry Emotions Can Escalate Out of Control
Child’s
Parent’s
Parent’s
Action
Action
Emotion
Plays with toys
Notes that it is bedtime
Calm
and asks child to put
toys away: “Time to get
ready for bed.”
Hears but ignores
Notes child’s inaction
Displeased
parent, continues to
and repeats request:
play with toys
“Didn’t you hear me?
Put your toys away.”
Puts one toy away, but
Sees time is getting later Annoyed
brings out two more
but child is still playing;
and begins to play with pleads with child: “Get
them
busy! Time to clean up!”
Complains and begs for Demands obedience:
Irritated
more playtime
“Do it NOW!”
Whines and fusses
Raises voice and
Exasperated
threatens punishment:
(Upset)
“Just stop whining
and clean up or no
storytime!”
Falls to fl oor crying,
Yells at child and begins Rage-fi lled
ignoring toys scattered
to throw toys in toy
around him
box: “Why can’t you
just do what I say!! You
make me so mad!”
Different Levels of Anger
153
Child’s
Parent’s
Parent’s
Action
Action
Emotion
Grabs toys out of toy
Loses control, spanks
Furious
box, stomps feet, and
child, and drags him
cries
to his bedroom while
shouting at him: “I am
tired of this! Get to bed,
NOW!”
Cries to sleep in bed,
Feels frustrated, guilty,
Regretful
feeling unloved and
and ashamed
confused
You can see how emotions can escalate between parent and child.
Parents can avoid this escalation when they learn how to identify
anger at the milder levels and make precise choices about how to
respond to the angry feelings. Going one step further, parents can
also learn how to communicate to the child in ways that encour-
age cooperation. Before we move on to those skills, we’ll examine
why
and
how
angry emotions grow in their intensity.
Many parents unwittingly feed and grow their anger. As anger
begins to grow inside you, it prevents rational thoughts—it
shuts off the thinking part of your brain. The thoughts that begin
to run rampantly through your head are inaccurate and irrational
and based on mistaken beliefs. You view situations as fi nal and
defi nitive and see your child’s actions as intentionally bad rather
than seeing what’s happening as part of the natural process of
raising children.
Let’s examine some of the common mistaken beliefs and negative
thoughts that cause angry emotions to spiral out of control. Then
we’ll adjust the beliefs to refl ect a more accurate way of thinking.
My Children Should Never Misbehave,
So When They Do They Make Me Angry
You probably read that sentence and thought,
Well, of course that’s
not true!
Your rational, calm state of mind allows you to under-
stand that. However, when you are in the midst of an episode of
misbehavior you may shake your head in baffl ement at your child’s
actions and wonder what is wrong with him, or what’s wrong with
you. In reality, there is nothing wrong with him, or with you, either.
Children misbehave. Parents have the job of teaching their child
how to behave appropriately. If children were born knowing how to
behave in all situations, they wouldn’t need parents, would they?
154
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Your Anger: Do You Accidentally Make Things Worse?
155
Here is the unexpected and hidden concept behind the second
half of this mistaken belief—that when our children misbehave
they
make us angry
. It is
not
our child’s misbehavior that makes us angry because a child’s actions cannot
make
you feel or do
anything
.
You are in control of your feelings and your actions. Therefore, you
actually allow the anger to formulate. You create your own anger
by the way you interpret your child’s behavior. You are not alone
here, as this is the foundation for much parental anger. Here’s an
important fi rst step to anger control: You must accept responsibil-
ity for your own anger.
Key Point
\My child’s misbehavior does not cause my anger. I create
anger by my interpretation of the behavior and with my
response to that interpretation.
You may fi nd that learning more about child development and
what behaviors are normal at your child’s age will help you to avoid labeling actions as misbehavior when they are actually age-appropriate behavior. There are plenty of books available about