As parents, we are loving, stable, skillful until we get angry at our children. Then the next minute, we find ourselves all layers of decency stripped and are at our irrational worst yelling and shouting at our children.
WHY WE GET SO ANGRY AT OUR CHILDREN:
Parents and children have equal ability to peak their anger levels and chase each other as Tom and Jerry do. The rage and power of children are so intense it can easily overwhelm parents and drive them to far corners of frustration. It would be healthy for them to know how enormously difficult it is to tame an unreasonably angered child.
WHAT UPSETS THE CHILDREN MUCH?
Lack of harmony among parents, finding them arguing and shouting at each other.
Friendship problems,
Parents not giving quick attention to their problems
Unable to cope with school work and parents’ pressure
If you are raising a child whose angry outbursts have become a problem, how to help him manage his feelings a healthy way and learn a tip or two how to control our angry supply towards our children.
HERE ARE A FEW WAYS TO HELP TO CALM AN ANGRY CHILD:
Parents have to remain calm
We have to learn to control our bad moods when children turn messy and upsetting. Parents’ calm presence helps the child feel safe; we should not let our reactions take over us to react to scare our children.
Be careful of your body language
We must be wary of our physical expressions and stance; it should look less alarming, never pose over them with a menacing, twisted face. Our parental posture should never project as threatening and scary.
Communicate a reassuring and empathetic attitude:
Parents’ goal when a child is angry or upset is to restore a sense of safety that can only be reassured by your calm presence, and children need to understand that you are there to listen and help.
Avoid situations that invite angry provocations:
Children often exhibit regular bursts of irritation at very predictable situations, like homework time, when it’s time to stop playing, unnecessary use of force, and insulting words to control them, asking them to do what they don’t like. If we want them to listen with no tantrums plan to break the tasks down to one-at-a-time directions. Like ‘you have ten more minutes to play,’ ‘you complete your homework then go out to play, these small instructions if spoken softly can help a lot of heartburn to parents’ and child learn to listen to the parents’ instructions.
Don’t argue or reason with a child when he is sulking or choking in an angry outburst.
Never talk to the child giving a reason or rationale of the situation when he is red with anger, to appear that you are good or soft. A child doesn’t have that mental capacity to bounce back quickly as adults do. Instead, we have to wait until he calms down and then talk, so he listens to our reasoning or words of comfort.