As a new father and mother, when facing our baby, we all hope to be reasonable, considerate, gentle and kind.
However, the reality often backfires. Our children seem to have a kind of super ability. They can always arouse our anger [easily] and make us irritable and mad in one second.
Why on earth is this?
Why can children always annoy me easily?
1. We have unreasonable expectations
Perhaps it is because our children behave too sensibly that we will forget that they are only children who have just arrived in this world for a few years.
We may subconsciously regard them as adults, ask them to behave according to adults’ standards, and talk to them according to adults’ communication methods.
When they don’t do it or listen to us, our expectations are broken and we become especially angry.
2. Children’s behavior has become the fuse of our anger.
Sometimes, the real reason for our anger may not come from our children.
The real reason may be that you are not satisfied with your work today, that you have quarreled with your husband, or that you are just in your physiological period.
Our anger has no place to vent, and the child has just done one or two small things wrong, which has become the fuse that arouses our anger. We [are on the verge of eruption], and the child has become a poor [scapegoat].
3. Childhood Trauma from Our Own
We, who have always been calm in front of outsiders, have become grumpy in front of our children, sometimes determined by this special parent-child relationship between us and our children.
When we are with our children, it is easier for us to recall some bad experiences that we have almost forgotten in our childhood, such as being beaten, scolded, abandoned or even abused by our parents. These past experiences will imperceptibly affect our attitude towards our children.
Fear and anger in childhood are sometimes very strong. Although we are not aware of these, when children accidentally touch our wounds, we will unconsciously repeat the upbringing style given to us by the previous generation.
Should we lose our temper with our children?
Of course, it shouldn’t be.
Anger is terrible. Abuse, personal attacks and even violence (including spanking) on children accompanied by anger will have a lasting negative impact on children.
Research shows that children who suffer from physical violence are worse in IQ, academic performance and social performance, and are more prone to drug abuse, addiction and other bad behaviors, and even criminal behaviors.
Maybe some parents will say, “My children are not afraid of me losing my temper with him at all. They always show that they don’t care.”
In fact, they don’t care at all, but it is probably because they have experienced it too many times. Out of the instinct of self-protection, they have begun to build a solid barrier between your attack and themselves, thus creating a defense against you.
The consequence of this for a long time is that when he needs help in the future, he will be more inclined to seek help from his peers than from you.
The higher the frequency of your anger, the stricter his defense will be. Anger has formed an insurmountable gap between you and your child.
What should we do when we feel angry?
The first step is to suppress your violent impulse.
When you are angry with your child, you may uncontrollably attack him in various forms, not only physically, such as slap, spanking, forehead poking, etc. This kind of attack is more often reflected in the language:
No-you can’t do this little thing well! You can’t!
Insult-are you a pig?
Curse-you are stupid!
Perhaps you will think that this is only a temporary angry remark, but for children, this is the most vicious remark that the closest person says to himself.
Don’t think that children are still young and what doesn’t understand them. In fact, they are all very sensitive. They are at the stage of self-exploration and will integrate what kind of person they are according to their performance and the evaluation of others.
Therefore, they also pay special attention to the evaluation of others.
And you are the most important [other] to your child. Your evaluation of him, even an angry word, deeply affects his opinion of himself.
Like other emotions, anger has its meaning. For example, it allows you to express your thoughts and defend your rights. However, if it is uncontrolled, it will cause irreparable damage to children and family members.
Therefore, no matter how angry you were at that time, please resolutely do not use violence!
Step 2: Give yourself time to calm down
In a state of anger, any of your actions cannot solve the problem well, let alone achieve the goal of educating children.
So when you realize that you are so angry that you are about to start getting angry with your child, shout [pause] to yourself and take a minute to calm yourself down.
You can choose to take a deep breath or simply leave for a while. When you are calm, come and discuss your problems with your children.
Step 3: Ask yourself why you are angry
Behavior in anger is generally irrational. When you calm down, you can think about it. Is what making you feel so angry? Can you do something what to change this situation?
Sometimes the problem does lie with the child, for example, he does not finish his homework on time, or he is always very slow, or he does not respect you.
If this is the case, then you need to communicate calmly with the child when you are calm, express your thoughts, let him realize what he has done wrong, and find a solution to the problem with him.
But sometimes, you will be surprised to find that there are other reasons for your bad temper, perhaps just one of the above three reasons.
When you think about it and look back at what your child is doing, you will not be so angry.
Step 4: Express your anger verbally
If you take the first three steps but still feel angry (sometimes children do do something that makes us furious), you need to express your anger in verbal ways.
The so-called verbal way means that we describe our anger to our children through words, rather than using offensive words and behaviors. When expressing in words, we should pay attention to the following two points:
1) Evaluate the event itself, not the child.
You can say: [You didn’t pack your toys today, it is wrong to do so.]
It is better not to say: [You are so untidy that you can’t do your own things.]
2) Describe your emotions and give reasons instead of expressing them directly.
You can calmly say: “Mom did a lot of work today and was very tired. When she came home, she saw that the baby didn’t pack up her toys and didn’t help her share the task. Mom felt a little sad.”
Instead of yelling at the child: “Don’t you know how tired I am today?” Can’t you let me stop freaking out for you? ]
In this way, we not only expressed our grievances, but also let the children really understand the reason why we are angry.
After completing angry communication, the next thing to do is to help children form better habits. However, this is not what this article is going to talk about today, so I will not repeat it here.