I love our Live On Purpose Parenting community. And a lot of you have been
asking about how to manage anger with your child. First of all, let's just get
rid of the guilt trip, okay? We all experience anger. Things trigger us, we
get tipped over, we lose our cool, anger is something that's going to happen, okay?
So, welcome to earth. That's how we roll here. Obviously, it can become a problem
if it's something that we don't learn how to manage it. Especially with our
kids. And when we get into a parenting role, it's like everything that we
learned through our whole life. Got a different set of rules we're dealing
with now. Things that we've never encountered before. And these little
people, these adorable little people that come into our life can drive us nuts too.
So, let's talk about some things that will help in terms of anger management
as a parent. Probably the first thing is to understand what anger is. You have
mechanisms built into your brain. Into the very Hardware of your neurology. That
cause you to feel anger. Here's what I'm talking about.
The limbic system in your brain. It's job is to keep you alive, to keep you safe.
And so it's constantly on the lookout for threats. When it detects a threat, it
actually triggers chemicals into your bloodstream.
These chemicals cause your body to react with what we traditionally call the
fight-or-flight response. You've heard of it haven't you? This is basically what
anger is. It's a manifestation of the fight-or-flight response. What it means
is that our body is trying to protect us from a perceived threat. Now, is your
child a threat? Don't answer that too quickly. But notice
that you react sometimes with a fight-or-flight response. If you want to
clobber this kid, if you want to just get out of Dodge,
then probably you've been triggered and your brain is just trying to take care
of you. Notice that. It's what your brain is supposed to do. Not an adaptive way to
handle a child however. Because what's gonna be a better option to run away
from your child or to beat them up? Yeah, either one's going to make it worse. And
I don't recommend either approach with children. But in terms of your own bodily
response, we can make sense out of it when we understand the fight-or-flight
response. Now, there's a lot of psychological tricks that we can do. In
fact, I'll share a couple of those with you here toward the end of the video.
Let's get focused for just a moment on what your job is as a parent. If you've
watched any of my other parenting videos you know exactly where I'm going with
this. What's your job? What is your job? It's to love them
no matter what and even if. That's it. We get tempted sometimes as parents to
start thinking, "Oh, my job is to make sure that they get their homework done. Make
sure that they are productive upstanding citizens. Make sure that they obey the
rules. Make sure that they, make sure that they..." Do you see how impossible that is?
You can't make sure that they anything. Your job is to love them no matter what
and even if. As soon as I say that, a lot of parents that I coach feel relieved.
It's like, "Well, yeah. I know." Yes, you can do this, can't you? That's what your job
is. To love them no matter what and even if. That alone is going to help. But it
will also put you in a position to reframe some of the stuff that's been
tipping you over so that you don't get bothered by the little stuff anymore. Now,
from that frame of mind, from understanding that our job is to love
them no matter what and even if. Let's give you a couple of other brain hacks
they you could use. You're going to love this
first one. Practice smiling. Practice smiling. Try it right now. That's not too
bad. Can you do any better than that? Nice.
Yeah, practice it. It takes more musculature in your face
to smile. And so it's going to be an intentional act on your part to
smile, Practice smiling. Now, why would I say that? When you're smiling, it's harder
to feel anger. And if you practice it, then you can pull it up when you're
feeling triggered. You can just start to smile and it's going to change the way
you respond naturally. It actually works, so just try it. It's a brain hack.
Practice smiling and you can choose to enjoy your child. Honestly, I can say this,
okay? Because my kids are all grown up now. Vicki and I are empty-nesters.
They all grew up and flew the coop. And we really love our adult children. They
are fun in their own right. We miss our kids. Children don't keep. Get that
perspective so that you can choose to enjoy them now. I was meeting with a mom
whose child passed away. What a tragic sad thing. And she was longing for a
chance to hear that child to irritate and annoy her again. Just realize what
you've got while you've got it. Connect with that. Children don't keep. So choose
to enjoy them now. Practice smiling. Here's one more hack for you. Practice...
Notice I start each of these with practice because they don't come
naturally. You're going to have to actually practice these. Here's the second one.
Practice saying, "This is good." Now, do it like I did. Raise
your eyebrows a little bit, a little little to your voice, okay? This is good.
And you're going to feel a little goofy doing that because there's another
argument starting in your mind right about now. Do you hear it? It's like, "What?
What could be good about this?" This thing that usually tips me over. Well, it's a
pretty good question. But it's usually not a question. It's a statement
disguised as a question. So watch your punctuation and get back to the question.
What could possibly be good about this? Friend of mine Kevin Claisen who's been
here on the show before, wrote a book about gratitude. That's absolutely
powerful. And he shared this example with me.
He got up at night to go into the bathroom in bare feet. He steps on a Lego
that's sitting on the hardwood floor. Now, if you don't know what Legos are, I don't
know where you've been for the last 20 years. But anyway, it's a little plastic
building brick. And that hurts to step on a Lego on a hardwood floor in bare feet.
As the pain is searing through Kevin's body, he finds himself looking for what's
good about this. He's practiced it and so he was able to do it in the moment. And
he realized in that moment of pain, "I have children. How awesome is that?" So,
what is good about this? If you can't find anything else go to Kevin's answer.
You've got kids. What? That is so amazing. You are so richly in abundantly blessed.
That's pretty cool. Notice it. And children don't keep. So in that second
brain hack, say... Practice saying, "This is good." And then invite your mind to go
find out why. Why is this good? Those are some
powerful hacks for you. And I think it's going to help with the anger-management. I
hope you're finding these parenting videos helpful. I love our parenting
audience here at Live On Purpose. Thank you for your comments, for your requests.
A lot of our videos are actually made because you requested a particular topic.
So continue to reach out to us. And if you haven't checked it out yet, go to the
Parenting Power-Up. You'll find it at parentingpowerup.com. You're going to
find some other resources there that I think you're going to love.