Learn to Control Your Temper With Your Kids
I have a secret. My secret is very difficult to share. I have a temper. Like a blow the roof off the house temper. And it’s something I’m so ashamed of because I know it damages my relationship with my kids and hinders my efforts to enact positive parenting. I think overall I’m a very patient person, but once my kids do push me past the point of no return, I lose control. I yell and scream and completely overreact. Unfortunately, this has become more frequent over the last four months since I’m parenting a 3 year old and experiencing pregnancy hormones. And oddly, I’ve only developed a temper as a parent; I don’t struggle with it in other places of my life.
I work hard at my temper. I write lots of parenting articles on my blog promoting good parenting, and to me, losing control over your temper does not belong in the realm of good parenting. So I try time and again to tame my temper. I have tried tens of tips over hundreds of hours to find tactics that actually work. And it’s not as simple as “Count to 3 in your head” or “Take a deep breath.” The problem with that is, you’re assuming the person with the temper is in control of their emotions enough to stop before yelling and enact this tactic. If you truly have a temper, you know it’s very hard to stop once you’re close to blowing up. The common advice just doesn’t work. So I figure I must not be alone. Learn to control your temper in ways that ACTUALLY work and read on.
1. Write Down the Offense
After every time you yell at your kids, write down why. What did they do? I write down everything that makes me yell after the fact. I do this exercise in bouts, but I should do it all the time because it works. When I start writing down, I usually write about five things a day (this is yelling, not losing it). Within a couple days I’m down to one or two. This is because writing it down holds you accountable. It makes your temper tangible, the same way writing a to-do list makes you more productive.
This is an example of one of my weekly lists.
Once you have a list of the offenses that caused you to yell, you can start to avoid getting into those situations. You can also look for patterns and decipher what they mean. On my list there was lots of “Lily not listening after I asked the same thing 3 times” and “Nick not sitting in time out after I told him to.” These instances exemplify that my kids have a lack of respect for what I say. They don’t take what I say seriously. I think finding this pattern is what helped me determine what causes me to lose my temper above all else, and it was achieved by writing it down.
2. Have Your Words Taken Seriously
I first read about the “Asked and Answered” technique from a blog article on positive parenting solutions. As I just explained, I most commonly lose my temper when I repeat myself numerous times and my kids do not listen. In order to make your words carry more weight, answer the child’s question, then any further pleading or nagging, respond with a simple phrase: “Asked and answered.” Read more about it in the link to the article. Basically you only answer your child once and then repeat “Asked and answered” until they take what you said seriously.
I read more about only saying things once in the book “Have A New Kid By Friday” by psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman. He acknowledges the number one reason parents lose their temper is because their words are not respected.
He writes, “If you want your child to take you seriously, say your words only once. Only once. If you say it more than once, you’re implying, ‘I think you’re so stupid that you’re not going to get it the first time, so let me tell you again.’ Is that respectful of your child?”
If you tell your child to clean up their room, do not remind them or yell at them for not doing it immediately. Simply wait until they want something from you (a snack, outside time, etc) and tell them no. They will start to take your words more seriously if you refuse to do anything for them until they have done what you asked of them. These two tactics have tamed my temper IMMENSELY because I’m no longer cajoling my children to listen.
3. Apologize For Losing Your Temper
The type of parent who constantly loses it with their kids is usually an authoritarian. I was raised by a parent like that and I skim the line between authoritarian and authoritative often. One thing an authoritarian can do to control their temper is actually apologize to their child after yelling at them. This is deeply difficult for an authoritarian parent because they are status-oriented, and expect their orders to be obeyed without question simply because they are the parent. Apologizing for any behavior undermines their feeling of authority and makes them feel as though they are giving control to their children by asking them for forgiveness.
But, here’s the thing. Losing your temper is not okay. You obviously are ashamed of it, otherwise you wouldn’t have read this far into my article. If you want respect from your children, you need to respect them. And losing your temper, yelling and screaming at them, is not respectful. Would you feel respected if an adult did that to you? Some day your children will be adults and model the behaviors you taught them. Imagine if you had to apologize to your child every time you yelled at them. If you have a bit of an authoritarian in you like I do, you can bet this hurts your ego enough to get you to stop. I never want to be in a position of asking my child for forgiveness, but I believe losing my temper justifies that. Now I lose my temper a lot less to avoid giving apologies.
The other important thing to remember if you struggle with a temper is that you’re not alone. Learn to control your temper by reaching out to other who have the same goal in parenting their children. Make friends with people who are good at implementing positive parenting and make sure you take their advice as helpful, not judgmental. Every day you live with a temper that puts you in guilt, but it can change if you try. Every day your children have to see the angry version of you. Here’s a bonus tip: take a picture of your angriest face, or even of you yelling. It isn’t flattering, let me tell you.
Is that how you want your kids to remember you?
Feel free to share your thoughts, your struggles, and ask questions. I’m in this blogging business to help others!
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First, I want to complement you on your wonderful blog! I enjoy reading your perspectives on parenting and life, including topics that aren’t always addressed. As a mother of two (age 4 and 2), I have experienced many of the same situations and feelings that you have discussed.
In particular, one thing I want to comment on is the very honest and candid way that you discuss managing your anger as a parent in your most recent post. I don’t know if you’ve received any feedback on this issue from other parents, but I really want to you know how refreshing and relieving it is to read about other mothers’ struggles with anger. Unfortunately, I have always possessed an awful temper myself, but I never really knew how bad it could be until after I had kids. At times, they bring out the absolute worst in me. There have been many moments where I literally felt myself becoming violently angry, having to physically remove myself from the situation in fear that I would do something I would regret. In these moments (or at least afterwards), I always find myself feeling guilty and frightened, wondering what was wrong with me or what I was doing wrong as a parent. I can’t tell you how much it means to read about your experiences and to know that there are others out there who experience similar situations. I encourage you to continue writing candidly about these experiences, because even though I imagine it may feel personally revealing to open up about your emotions in this way, I assure you that it is extraordinarily helpful to other mothers out there (at least to me!).
If it’s not too personal, I’d like to know more about your experiences with anger, how you feel when you’re losing your temper, and how you go about bringing yourself back under control. These are things I really struggle with every day. I constantly feel that I want to improve, for my kids and husband’s sake, and I feel that understanding more about your experiences might help me to move in a positive direction. Feel free to email me and we can talk.
Again, thanks for blogging. You’re doing a great job and I encourage you to keep shedding light on these tough parenting issues. It’s incredibly valuable!
Maddie, I can’t tell you how touched I was by your comment. Thank you for reading and complimenting! It is difficult to write personal experiences sometimes, but I do it for people exactly like you. I do it because I want to help and inspire and advise and console. As I said in my “Meet the Woods” page, it is amazing to reach out and help someone you may never have met. I’m so glad I’ve helped you!
I plan to send you an email. I do think going into a lot of personal details about my angry mistakes as a parent would be too difficult for me to share publicly. However, it sounds like it would be helpful to you and so I am willing to share privately. Look for an email from me, soon. Thank you again for dropping a note, I hope you stop by to read more again soon!
Melissa