LISTENING TO THEIR ANGRY FEELINGS

ANGER

It seems like one or the other of our children is angry all the time lately. Every attempt to soften their hard edges results in more hostility. They seem determined to stay angry and refuse to be comforted. As we work to develop more patience, we’re getting better at accepting to our children’s feelings. We’ve even learned to stop telling them how they should feel. When we are patient with them, inviting them to share their feelings, they eventually relax a bit, open a little and melt some of their frozen animosity. While we don’t always understand why they are angry, as we gradually become more accepting, they become more talkative.

This is a hard lesson. When our children are angry, we feel distressed as well. We feel anxious even when they’re not angry with us or anyone in the family. Anger was not acceptable when we were children. Before we began our recovery, we believed that parents were supposed to keep their children from feeling angry, or at least from expressing anger openly. Back then we believed that children were supposed to obey us by not feeling angry.

We’re learning that in healthy families people own their own feelings. They even encourage children to express those feelings, including anger. That means being patient with them and saying it’s okay to feel angry. It also means letting our children know what we’re feeling.

Today I will draw out my children’s buried feelings, even if it means accepting their hostility and anger.