Angry Child
I do have a question. How do I deal with an angry child? When he doesn't get his way, when I fix a breakfast he's not fond of, he acts angry and blames me.
He often tells me that spankings only makes him angrier. What am I missing? CH
There is only one reason that he would express anger when he did not get his way; because such displays have, at least occasionally, caused him to get his way. He is manipulating you. The fact that he continues to do it tells me that it occasionally works. You give in. You have successfully trained him to respond as he does.
You feel guilty and inadequate, and he knows it. He knows you are trying to work the anger out of him, so he assures you that your responses only make matters worse. You believe him, so he wins again. Smart kid.
The big problem is that he is a little fish in a very little bowl. He is learning to respond to life in a manner that will not work later in life. He controls his weak mother, but the world is not made up of weak mothers. There are some “couldn’t care less” people waiting out there who can also get angry and act quite irrational. Cops are trained to deal with angry boys, even 250 pounders.
I regularly go to a prison that has over 1200 men in it. Many of them were just like your son when they were his age. No one could control them, that is, until they met a don’t-care cellmate and a don’t-give-a-blankety-blank security guard, surrounded by several razor wire fences. If you don’t like the food, and few do, you don’t have to eat it. No one will feel guilty when you go hungry. If you get angry and they throw you in solitary, they are not impressed if you say, “That only makes me angrier.” Such talk won’t even interrupt the discussion the security guards are having as they escort you to the cell in your cute little white jacket with your arms tied behind you. One minute out of the cell, they won’t remember your angry threat.
Funny thing, 1200 men will go all week without one fight. If you get angry at the wrong person in a prison, you may die with a sharpened toothbrush sticking in your throat. Angry little boys never say, “Don’t do that, it only makes me more angry.” Who cares? When no one is listening and no one is impressed, threats are useless.
I am not calloused to your dilemma. But the big problem is in your own mind. You are not free to be forceful and bold. Your son needs to run smack dab into a big, high, unmoving fence of authority. You, mother, are a pushover, a sucker. Your need is a renewed mind. Now that I have plowed your fallow ground, I will plant the seeds of understanding.
