Tuning in to Kids’ Anger

By Super-Mom, Venus Taylor

When my daughter turned 3, she changed from a sweet, agreeable little angel, into a moody, angry, petulant monster.

OK, it wasn’t that bad, but she did display serious bouts of anger that I did not know how to handle – crying fits over getting dressed up for family pictures, violent screams of “NO!” when asked to put away her toys (which had never been a problem before).

It would have been easy to just see these outbursts as challenges to my authority – opportunities to set her straight about who’s boss.

That’s what my mother would have done.  As much as my mother truly loved me, she was also deeply committed to not raising a spoiled, misbehaving child.  So, if I “acted up,” she “whooped” me.

Although they were well-intended, my mother’s “whoopings” kept me from learning how to express my feelings.  Before I could talk, the only ways I could express that I was upset about something was through crying or tantrums.  That behavior, along with my belief that I had a right to my upset feelings, were beaten out of me.

Even as an adult, I had no mature, productive way of expressing anger, sadness, or disagreement.  I stuffed my feelings down deep, and pasted on a smile just to keep the peace.  Then, periodically, I’d erupt in a violent rage, annihilating whatever relationship seemed to be stifling me.

Underneath my daughter’s outbursts, I sensed a genuine, seething rage.  And for some reason, it seemed directed at me.

Instead of punishing her for her behavior, or enforcing my power over her, I wanted, desperately, to help her find constructive ways to express her feelings.  But how?  I still didn’t know how to handle my own anger, how could I possibly teach her how to handle hers?

Besides, she was only 3.  And, yes, she was a genius (in my humble opinion), but she didn’t seem to know how to tell me what she was feeling.

Until she could develop the language to express her feelings, I at least wanted her to know that I respected her right to have them.  I wanted her to hold on to her anger.  To feel it.  To own it.

I trusted that, as soon as she could, she would be able to use her words to tell me what was going on inside of her.  Until then, I promised myself I would not do anything to shut her anger down or disconnect her from her feelings.

One day, it hit me.  I knew exactly how to give her an outlet for her anger, until she could express it verbally.

I connected a microphone to the boom box in the living room.  I stood her on the coffee table, and played the Alanis Morissette song, “You Oughta Know.”  (It was 1988, and that song was still topping the charts.)  She didn’t know the words (thank goodness, they’re kinda vulgar).  But I had noticed that, riding in the car, she would nail the emotions of the Alanis CD as she sang her own non-sense lyrics.

She sang her angry little heart out, yes she did.  I handed her that microphone anytime she wanted it, and played Alanis, and let her rage into the microphone.

After about 6 months of this, my daughter admitted to me, “Mommy, I don’t like how you always cuddle with Buddy first.”

We practiced the family bed.  When she was the only child, I nursed her to sleep every night.  (God bless my patient husband.)

When her brother was born, she was 2 ½.  Suddenly, I was nursing him to sleep while she would “cuddle my back.”  Then, I would turn around and cuddle with her after her brother fell asleep.

By the time she could tell me this, she was 3 ½.  Her little brother was 1 year old.

I was moved by her sweet sincerity.  Of course, I thought.  She became angry with me soon after he was born.  And why wouldn’t she?  I took the nursing and the cuddling away from her and gave it to him.

That night, we began “Taking Turns.”  Each night (until she turned 7, and quit the family bed), we would alternate who got first cuddle.  From then on, her outbursts ceased.  No kidding.

Today, she is 15.  And she is the sweetest, most agreeable, angelic teenager you could ever know.  And when she’s upset about something, she trusts that I will listen with an open heart…even as she struggles to find the words.

I feel like I have given her the gift ownership over her feelings.  They are hers.  She has a right to them – whether they inconvenience me or not.  And she will have healthier adult relationships because she knows how to express them constructively.