A lot of parents who reach out to us have reached out because they’re concerned about their child’s anger. They reach out because their child spends a lot of time yelling, screaming and pulling hair, their child uses their anger to control others or because their child is spending a lot of time threatening physical or verbal violence or is actually hitting out and trashing the place.
What we notice most about these stories is that there is a lot of misunderstanding about the feeling of anger, what it is and what it’s communicating to us.
In this blog post I dig deeper into the feeling of anger. I explain what it is, what it can look like and what happens inside our body when we become angry.
But before I get started, let’s look back and reflect.
When was the last time you felt angry?
The last time I remember feeling angry was in the later half of last year. Up until this point I’d been lucky to live in a community where we have pretty much been Coronavirus free and for a long time now we’ve mostly been able to get on with life.
It wasn’t until when we had a wake up call when a person who was infected with the virus chose not to follow directions, sending half of our state into a brief period of lockdown.
Initially I felt incredibly frustrated and annoyed, but these feelings soon moved to anger.
For weeks I had been looking forward to a child free weekend. We don’t get this very often, so when we do we like to make the most of it.
We planned to get in our weed jungle of a garden and give it a tidy.
We planned to go out somewhere for a meal (probably somewhere with a Chicken Parmie!)
We even planned to watch something on our TV that wasn’t ‘Blippi’ or ‘Cocomelon’ and was actually adult.
All that was gone because of choices somebody else had made.
A pretty valid reason to feel annoyed and angry right?
You had a valid reason to be angry too, right?
I’m guessing you thought you had a pretty valid reason to be angry too.
So, what if I said to you with a pretty disapproving facial expression and tone,
‘Oh, stop it!’
‘Go away, I don’t want you near me when you’re like that.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
How would those messages get you feeling?
Pretty sad.
Even shameful.
Maybe you’re second guessing whether you shouldn’t have felt angry in the first place.
Maybe you’re starting to think that it wasn’t THAT bad and others had it worse off than you (I even thought like this writing this blog post! I wonder if that’s showing me how in-grained my own stuff is).
Perhaps you’re thinking that there’s something wrong with you.
Perhaps you’re beginning to feel like that part of yourself isn’t acceptable, so you feel like you want to hide it.
If you’re feeling like this, imagine what it must be like for some of our little people…
So, what is anger…really?
The emotion of anger is a normal, healthy emotion. It’s a symptom or an indicator that the autonomic nervous system in our body is in a hyper-aroused or a sympathetic activated state. This happens when we perceive a threat, a danger or some sort of challenge.
The feeling of anger is a normal biological response that becomes triggered when our sense of safety, our beliefs, ideas and understanding of the world or when our own sense of self becomes threatened or compromised. Sometimes these threats can be physical threats, like we’re on the receiving end of violence for example (or threat of becoming unwell with Coronavirus). Other times they can be psychological threats (like disappointment, rejection and shame).
What happens in our body when we become angry?
Anger in our body can feel like:
- our face feeling hot
- our heart beating fast
- our chest becoming tight
- our breathing changes
- our muscles become bigger.
All of these physical sensations mean our body is preparing itself to fight because it feels that we’re big enough and strong enough to fight the threat off. There’s a flood of the stress chemical cortisol flowing through our body, not to mention all of that adrenaline.
So, why do we (and our kids) behave in certain ways when we’re angry?
Given all of this sudden energy (cortisol and adrenaline) that’s now in our body, we need somewhere for it to go.
As a way of moving this build up of this energy we grunt, sigh or make other primal noises. We stomp and wave our arms about. Our kids might want to roll around on the floor, kicking (you might even do this too!). It can look like hitting, biting, snatching, kicking, yelling or becoming violent towards ourselves through self-harm. It can even look like we’re behaving defensively or lying about things in order to protect ourselves and our sense of self.
What we’re really saying when we tell our kids to ‘stop it’ when they’re angry?
So when we dismiss or reject other’s feelings and expressions of anger or their efforts in regulating all of that build up of emotional energy within their body, what we’re really teaching them (including our children) is to not trust what their brain is telling them and what they feel in their body.
We’re teaching children to disconnect from their body.
We’re telling them that those parts of themselves are unacceptable and that we are placing conditions on our love of them.
The biggest thing of all, we’re missing important information about their needs, what’s important to them, their beliefs and their sense of self.
What next?
Do you find yourself responding to your children’s expressions of anger in maybe ‘not so great’ ways?
If so, first of all, give yourself compassion. Like your children, you’re experiencing your own survival response and your brain and body have gone into ‘fight’ mode.
It’s a huge step in naming that something is amiss in itself, what’s even huge-er is deciding to make small, simple changes.
You can do this by:
- Joining our email list by clicking here and leaving your email. I’ll help you parent in ways that promote safety, connection and attunement by giving you tips and strategies that you can easily practice and bring into your every day parenting.
- Refer yourself for parenting education and support where we can work together building your skills to parent in ways that feel good to yourself AND your kids.
- Refer yourself for the Circle of Security Parenting program where we can work together one on one going in depth into learning about what your child is needing, how to ‘be with’ your child during their emotions, learning how to tame your own survival response when your child triggers you and how to repair inevitable ruptures in your relationship in ways that promote safety and security.
