Anger Management

On Saturday we went to a "Strengthening the Family" seminar at our church. One of the classes Nathan and I attended was one on anger management. Not because we are angry all the time, but because the class on keeping your kids safe on the Internet was cancelled due the police officer teaching it couldn't come. Plus we wanted to get some tools to use with our nine year old son. Our easy going nine and half year old is starting to experience some pre-teen hormone surges. Fun for us!

So we went to the class and learned a few new things and were reminded of a few old things. Then at our weekly family meeting yesterday one item on the agenda was to discuss these anger management tools. Here is what we taught the kids;

1. Anger is a secondary emotion. When you are feeling angry it is because your mind is trying to cover up what you are really feeling like loneliness, sadness, disappointment, frustration, tiredness, etc. So when you start to feel angry, stop, and think, "What am I really feeling?" and then deal with that first emotion. I am usually feeling tired!

2. Use the "I feel____about____because____." formula to talk about our feelings. This way we are owning our own feelings and not blaming others for it. It also helps us communicate. For example, "I feel overwhelmed about the messy kitchen because it is a lot of work to clean up." Then my family knows to either stay out of my way because I am feeling overwhelmed and need time to complete the task or to pitch in and help me.

3. Our #1 anger rule. The teacher in the class we took said this was their family's number one rule and now it is ours as well. "NEVER touch any other human being when you are feeling angry." Not at home, at school, anywhere. How perfect!

So after our family meeting there were a couple of situations that showed me how much these things sunk in. Here they are;

1. Nick was sitting on the couch in a spot that Ben wanted to sit. Ben was being very difficult last night. So Ben got mad and grabbed Nick's shirt and tried to pull him off the couch. I heard Nick say, "Ben! You can't touch me when you're angry!" Ben let go and just looked at him like, "oh, okay" and sat beside him.

2. I heard Tiana say from the other room, "I am feeling frustrated about Ben because he won't leave me alone." Pretty good for her first try.

3. A little while after that I hear Nick tell Tiana, "You aren't suppose to touch people when your angry (talking about touching Ben), now say you're sorry. She did.

4. Nathan was frustrated with the computer and then he turned to me and said, "the rule says other human beings, but it says nothing about beating the crap out of this computer, right?" It lightened his mood to just joke about it. He brings up a good point, how often do we feel like throwing our computer across the room. I think we should have a ball sitting next to the computer that we can throw, it would be a soft ball so it wouldn't cause any damage, but it would make the sound of breaking glass when it hit the wall! Ahhh. Stress relief!