We get a lot of our topics here at Live on Purpose TV from you the viewers and
many of you are wondering how to control your anger with your child? Let's jump
into that. In talking about anger, really knowledge is power. I have a good friend
that always says when you know better, you do better. That is a really great
saying. As we understand principles that gives us a higher level of control over
whatever that principal effects. Anger is driven by principles. Your brain is
designed to take care of you. To protect you and we have a natural
fight-or-flight response. This fight-or-flight response is usually
how we experience anger. Anger is triggered by threat - okay - Think about
that for just a minute. If you feel threatened, your natural response in your
body and in your brain is to fight or run away. And that's what anger is. A threat
is caused when what we expected doesn't match what we experience, okay? - okay. So
you're walking down a trail, okay? Just out maybe enjoying the weather, taking a
little hike and suddenly a big old bear jumps out from behind a tree. ahhhhhh- wants to
rip your face off. Alright well that's not what you expected, right? Your
experience didn't match your expectation and now you feel threatened. Okay, so how
does this work with parenting? What happens when what we expect from our
kids isn't what we experience from them. Yeah we have a lot of anger sometimes
it's like I told you to do X Y Z and you didn't do it - right. I now you're feeling
angry. Now first of all, did you really expect them to do it? Well, that's I guess
something you need to consider. Especially with the expectations. I think
that's where we really get stuck what our expectations and if we are expecting
our child to be at a stage of development that
they are not then it's really easy to become disappointed because they didn't
perform the way we wanted them to perform. Then when our expectations don't
match our experience, it triggers us into that fight-or-flight response. So Vicki
your point reminds me that sometimes our expectations can be very misguided or
inaccurate - mm-hmm - like we're expecting something from our
kids that they're not quite developmentally ready for, for example - or
perhaps they didn't even understand fully what they were supposed to do.
Right. We can't always change what it is we experience. In other words, you don't
control your kids and how they're going to respond. But you can change your
expectation - okay - and this is a little hard because we get used to thinking
that our kids should do this or should do that and we setup that unrealistic
expectation. We can change that and if we change our expectation, we're less likely
to get triggered. So help me understand this though. You can't just walk around
expecting less from your child all the time. So talk to us about that. Of course we're going
to hold an expectation that our kids will continue to develop and learn. We
had one of our little neighbor kids over here. Playing with some toys and he was
building a tower and the tower fell over and it struck me because he said,"It
happens." Remember that? It happens. He didn't get all upset. He just realized, oh
yeah, it happens and I was proud of his parents for having taught him that. What
if we were able to say that more with our kids? One of the things I wanted to
go into when I asked you that question is the expectation isn't necessarily
that our child can't perform. But it might be our expectation is that the
child may not perform the first time or of his own volition or that sort of a
thing. So that goes back you know we keep referring back to our stages of
development. But it's so important to go back to those. If a child isn't
doing what there you've asked them to do and they're being uncooperative, it
doesn't mean they're still not going to do that thing at some point. It's
something they're not in the stage they're in stage 1, they haven't moved
into stage 2. So your expectation is different. Your expectation can still be
that the dishes get done, right? Sure. It's not be that they do it willingly. Well,
what if you adjusted your expectation to be my child is on stage 1. I expect for
them to argue about this. I expect for them to be resistant or not cooperate
fully the first time. If you're ready for that as a parent and you have some
way - changes the way you respond- exactly and that's the whole point.
Because if my anger is tipping me over, it's because of my own expectations
around the situation. And you know what honestly, this is hard to do. Oh yeah. As a
parent, I got to learn this working on inpatient psychiatric units. Where I
didn't expect these people to cooperate. We had locked rooms and I worked on both
adult units and on children's units. But I learned this is just my job. This is
exactly what I expect from this person and I didn't feel angry - right. As a
parent, take a look at what your expectations are that are causing that
anger. It's going to really empower you. Vicki you and I were watching a Netflix
special from Brene Brown. Which I highly recommend
I love Brené Brown and her work. And she gave us a tool that I think is really
useful. When we feel frustrated or upset, it's usually because of a story
we're telling ourselves. So this ties right into the expectations that we've
been talking about. What if you were to ask yourself, what story am I telling
myself about this? That raises the awareness. It's a level that I like to
call metacognition which is thinking about thinking. What story am I telling
myself about this? When you acknowledge the story, it puts you in a in a position
where you can actually choose a different story
if a different story would serve you better. Right and that kind of goes along
with when you have a reaction to you know really because that's what anger is
it's a reaction right instead of an action. It's a reaction to way to the way
someone did something or that expectation that failed expectation. When
you have that reaction, you can look at it and rephrase in your mind how you
wanted that to go and practice a new response. And so I love
do-overs. As a mom, sometimes when I get mad at my child I'll say, "Okay, I just
would like to do our over here is how I wish I would have responded." Yeah
sometimes you can't have the physical do-over but if you rephrase it and play
it all out in your mind again, practicing a different response, a response that
doesn't include the anger, you have to kind of practice it because right you'll
go back to whatever path is already established. So if you want to do a new
one, a new path, a new response, you have to practice it. Either physically out
loud with your child in a do-over or mentally or in your bedroom on a do-over
without them if they're not willing to go there. Vicki and I are so honored to
be on your parenting team and we honor you as conscious, positive parents. Join
us in our positive parenting community at parentingpowerup.com where you can
also get access to a free training. Hope to see you there.