I recently started this virtual course of conscious parenthood, in which I would like to include those skills that I consider basic to be the parents that our children deserve to have. We are going to talk today about anger and self-control.
He spoke in the previous topic about how important it is to know how to express and transmit the love we feel for our children. As important as the communication of this feeling is our self-control when situations overflow us. Anger, that emotion full of negativity and trigger of violence is a normal and human emotion, but I think we will all agree that we should not crawl through it and unload it in children.
Both external circumstances and the dynamics of our relationship with our child can lead us to feel anger, and carried by her, have aggressive or violent behaviors.
Then we can justify ourselves by telling ourselves that the child has surpassed us, that we were exhausted or that we have so many problems that our tolerance for frustration is minimal, or even to say that shouts or whips have not hurt anyone. But I think to know the causes of anger And learning to channel those negative emotions can be very helpful.
There can be many causes and situations that are associated with anger and its expression. The most interesting thing is to realize that it usually emerges quickly, without many times a previous cognitive evaluation is carried out.
Anger explodes before thinking or after thoughts that are like flashes: the reality is that anger is born from the frustration of our goals (in a general sense) or from an intense aversion to the stimulus or situation that is being lived. If we don't have what we want, anger may appear.
Frustration as a trigger for anger
Frustration comes when we don't achieve our goal. If the goal is impossible to achieve we can feel sadness, but if we quickly think that our actions can lead to it, anger emerges. A typical example would be that of a neighbor who puts the music very loud and does not let us rest and we punch the wall. Taking this to the upbringing, the example would be, for example, that of our son clutching our leg without letting us walk, or interrupting any conversation with a constant chatter, or crying disconsolately without knowing what to do to calm him down. A fire is lit inside and we just want to shout at him furiously.
Transgression of the norms
Another of the triggers of anger is the observe that our rights or those of others are violated. Just as we feel anger when we read a story about a murder, the same process triggers anger if we see someone sneak into the supermarket queue. The rage of injustice inflames us.
Sometimes anger is fair, we can say. But this same mechanism triggers anger if our son violates a rule that we consider basic, such as when, in a mistake, he has taken a marker and painted the entire wall of the room. Or worse, if he hits his little brother every time we turn around.
As parents, we have to understand the emotion that invades us. the anger, but also modulate its expression, not letting ourselves be carried by it screaming or hitting the child, and, incidentally, assess whether the norm transgressed is really important.
Extinction of contingencies learned
This cause of anger means that something we are used to happen congruently With our actions, it doesn't happen. A good example is that machine that gets stuck when we put coins and we end up saying swear words and even giving it a kick. It also happens with children: when they do not want to eat what they always eat, when they resist dressing or when they do not want to fall asleep once we have done what we do every night (bath, tit, story ... whatever).
Adverse situations
To be living a physically unpleasant situation It makes us more vulnerable to anger. An example would be the chronic stomach ache sufferer, who is always in a bad mood and everything bothers him. This can also happen to us in parenthood: if we are exhausted, we have a pain or a disease or if the environment is unpleasant (it is very hot, cold, we are hungry ...)
When this happens we should be able to identify the cause of our anger, which is rarely the child himself, who is simply being a child and also living his emotions and frustrations (which have them). You have to stand and breathe deeply, realizing that this anger more than wanting the child to hurry, is because we are not well.
And, although anger is an emotion that inflames us before assessing the situation cognitively, we can control it and not unload it in children.
Not everyone reacts the same
Not all people react the same to anger. The higher your self-esteem and the lower your narcissism the more easily you will control your angry expression and the less you give you will react with aggression or violence.
Further, the collective sanction of anger It has a lot to do with the ability to self-control. If our context considers the loss of control valid, we will have less resistance to let ourselves go. That is why, for example, and already referring to paternity, the way in which parents react when the child frustrates them depends a lot on the environment: when there are no spectators, if our friends are not supporters of the cheek, we will control ourselves better; If, on the other hand, the environment is not very sensitive to the negative expressions of child frustration and advocate being hard on them, the lesser our restrictions to the anger in the child will be.
The formulas to control our anger There are many towards children and I assure you that they work. Contact with our inner child, break the frustrating situation, consciously empathize with the child and surround ourselves with people who do not discharge their anger in their children are some of the best results.
