Parenting Mad

Anger, rage, wrath… we’re here for it. Many of us have complicated relationships with anger, and for good reasons. This read is all about why anger is so dear to us and why we believe it’s such an important emotion to nurture. 

Why we Anger

Simply put, anger is a cue to our bodies that a wrong or injustice has occurred. It is also termed as an activating emotion, because it can motivate us to act on these messages. This is actually key - our emotions are separate from our responses to them. The presence of anger is distinct from all the behavioral displays of it. We’ll return to this momentarily.

And we also don’t experience just one emotion in isolation. The “anger iceberg” has been used to depict what is just beneath the surface. Anger is often more attainable and protective to settle into than other emotions. For many, anger conceals more vulnerable emotions such sadness, jealousy, grief, and shame. 

In short- anger is protective and the presence of it is valid. It is a natural, human response to the perception and presence of threat. 

How it Shows Up

Still, if anger is not always what it seems, it can be difficult to discern what is bubbling up for you and for our children. 

For our developing children, multiple factors contribute to how anger is expressed. Children’s brains are in constant development from before birth and into early adulthood. This means that children do not have the full capacity to regulate, inhibit, or exhibit self-control, and actually depend on their attachment figures to support co-regulation. Children will present with anger through behavioral displays of hitting, yelling, biting, blaming, throwing, withdrawing, tensing up, etc. 

Tuning into escalating cues of anger help us to assess our child’s growing understanding of their experiences and what antecedents contribute to their anger. But this can get complicated - because our own relationships to anger can get embroiled. 

As important as it is to understand your child’s experience of anger - this practice benefits both you and your child equally. Exploring your own cues of anger, which may present similarly, can deepen your understanding of what is happening for your child. 

Too Hot to Touch?

But this can be deeply challenging. Moving into anger exploration can prompt reminders of held beliefs and societal messages about what it means to experience or express anger. Typically, because anger and its expression are so often conflated, anger is presented as “bad.”

This in turn can contribute to lack of exposure to anger and or minimal experience of it being expressed in healthy ways. Not having practice working with anger can also lead to discomfort, a felt sense of threat, and overwhelm. Moreover, a history of trauma can impact our own expressions of anger and dysregulation, possibly leading to shame and avoidance of confronting our histories. 

Importantly, gender and race play a role in how we’re socialized to express (or suppress) anger. Often, anger is policed and villainized - further exacerbating harm to individuals. Acknowledging these barriers is so important because it validates the weight that parents carry in meeting their own and their children’s experiences of anger. Anger can show up in big ways - but understanding why is an important step in moving towards.

How to Work with It

While it’s possible that many of us did not receive support in navigating anger through childhood, it is also possible to support our children with this important emotion. 

If you’ve gotten this far, then you’re already acquainted with the skills. Anger is a valid human experience that your child is allowed to feel and has the capacity to experience. Helping them to understand the function of their anger takes time and is supported through compassion and curiosity. It is also important that your child is provided healthy and developmentally-appropriate outlets for expressing their anger. This may be co-established with your child, or with the help of a professional (i.e., therapist, school counselor, teacher, occupational therapist, etc.). 

As co-regulation is critical to this work, it also requires that you care for yourself so that you can show up as a stable, safe, and consistent presence in your child’s life. Caring for yourself before, during, and after your child’s expressions of anger are ways to build increased confidence to take on mad, and even begin to welcome it. Your child is working to understand what is and isn’t okay for them, and you play a powerful role in giving them safety, patience, and agency to express themselves.  

What more support for working with emotions? Check our course: Emotions: How and Why to Feel Them and downloadable: Working with Big Emotions.