When Mom Has a Temper Tantrum
Two
top parenting experts share strategies to help parents
stay in control.
By Melanie Howard
http://www.clubmom.com
Each month, my five-year-old son's
kindergarten class compiles a "book of days,"
in which the children share their daily home experiences
with one another. The next month, the book gets
circulated to all the parents. Imagine my chagrin when
James brought last month's book home, and therebetween
"Mollie and her mom made brownies" and "Jeremy
helped his dad take out the trash"was "James's
mom was angry with him this morning." My temper, in
writing, laminated and distributed for all the world to
see.
Worse yet, I realized that almost all our recent
mornings had degenerated into Mommy screamathons over
seemingly minor mattersdawdling, misplaced gloves,
sibling bickering. I felt terrible, and obviously James
did, too. How could we break this angry pattern?
"Yelling is
usually a sign that a parent has no strategy," says
Thomas Phelan, a clinical psychologist in Glen Ellyn,
Illinois, and the author of the popular 1-2-3 Magic:
Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (Child Management,
Inc.). At a loss for what to do, moms may resort to
yelling out of anger or frustration. But the end result
is that parents feel guilty and children get the
emotional message that they are bad.
It's because we
love our children so dearly that they are able to provoke
such strong feelings of anger in us, according to Nancy
Samalin, a New York Citybased parent educator and
the author of Love and Anger: The Parental Dilemma (Penguin
Paperbacks). But that doesn't make expressing that anger
through hollering or put-downs appropriateor
effective. Samalin, who has conducted workshops for
parents of toddlers through teens for more than 25 years,
says the key is to feel and acknowledge your emotions but
not let them control you and make you act irrationally.
Samalin and Phelan
recommend drawing on these following strategies when your
kids are driving you up the wall:
- Exit or
wait. When you feel your anger getting the
better of you, briefly withdraw from the
situation until you calm down, Samalin writes in
Love and Anger. Phelan agrees: He suggests
stepping out of the room, counting to ten, going
to your bedroom, and closing the doorwhatever
it takes to restore your cool.
- "I,"
not "you." Avoid attacking your
child with "you" statements"You
are such a slob!" or "You'll never
learn." Instead, think in terms of "I":
"I don't like picking clothes up off your
floor every day" or "I get upset when
we're not on time." These are less hurtful
and inflammatory.
- Put it in
writing. If you are too angry to speak, don't.
If your child is old enough to read, express your
feelings in writing. Sometimes just the time
required to find pen and paper will help you to
cool off.
- Stay in the
present. When your child makes you angry,
don't work yourself into a tizzy by listing every
offense he has committed in the past week and is
likely to commit in the future. Stick to the
issue at hand.
- Restore
good feelings. When you do lose it, reconnect
with your child as soon as possible. That may
mean saying you're sorry and giving a hug and
kiss to a younger child. For an older child, you
may want to offer an explanation of why you were
angry along with an apology. Don't worry that
apologizing will diminish your authorityit
won't. It shows your child that you respect him
and teaches him that everyone can be wrong
sometimes.
- Recognize
what the problem is. Is it really your
child's messy room? Or are you sleep-deprived?
Feeling overwhelmed at work? Mad at your husband
or mother or boss? Be aware of when you are more
vulnerable to anger and resist the urge to
transfer negative feelings to your child.
- Make
yourselfand all family membersaccountable
for lashing out. Institute a "no losing
it" rule to make kids and parents aware of
the times they go ballistic. But do it with a
light touch. For instance, make a chart and tack
on a sticker when one of you has an outburst. If
one family member is accumulating a lot of
stickers, it's time to talk about it.
- Carry a
tape recorder. When you feel yourself about
to blow, turn it on. If you explode anyway, play
back the tape and imagine yourself as the child
on the receiving end.
- Use
cognitive therapy. This technique is
sometimes used to calm fearful fliers. Analyze
your thoughts and put them in perspectiveor,
as Phelan puts it, "deawfulize" the
situation. (Fliers learn that their fear is of
crashing, not flying. And since crashing is
unlikely, their fear is not reasonable.) Ask
yourselfwhen your children are fighting,
sayif it's really that horrible. Think of
the situation as aggravating but normal behavior
that merits a calm, rational parental response.
Melanie Howard is a
writer and a mother of two. She lives in Alexandria,
Virginia.
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