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Ever come across children fighting or heard your own kid's bickering getting louder and louder?
Often when we hear our children fighting or arguing we are quick to intervene and shut down their hostile emotions. Keen to restore peace and order we can be very fast to ride roughshod over our children's feelings. We know that they can play in ways that allows for the interest of others, they can cooperate; so we sometimes adopt a quick adjudication approach and expect the quiet life can be restored quickly. Sometimes we can even find ourselves getting angry when they refuse to back down or seem to get more frustrated by our desire to return to smooth sailing. However if we are reflective on our own experiences, we know that it can take time to walk away from anger, process our feelings and find a better place to respond. We need to help our children develop these skills; skills we hopefully can demonstrate in our own relationships.
As a performer to children in my live show, called Anton’s Antics, I often look for emotion in Bible stories. Reading emotion gives the key to character expression and enables you to draw a character in a way that captures the action in the story. Most notably Jesus got angry. Was it wrong for him to be angry? Anger is an emotion. If people didn't get angry, slavery would never have been abolished; Third World poverty would remain unchecked; anger can be a useful emotion it can tell us that something important is going on (or not as the case may be) .
However, from time to time we might find our children leaping from zero straight to 10 in a scale of frustration and anger. We need to see the triggers and options available and help them manage their emotions. Recently I went to a very useful component of a seminar on managing children's emotions held by Interrelate. The presenter drew our attention to the Bible and in particular a passage from a letter to the Ephesians. In chapter 4 verse 26 the apostle Paul says, ‘be angry but do not sin’. As we teach children about how to handle relationships and situations the Bible encourages us not to shut down or ignore anger. It is okay to be angry but we must avoid doing evil.
What wise words these are and what comforting words. It's impressive to see the Bible’s relevance to contemporary culture and children's behaviour. Three suggestions were given to us as to what it might mean for a child (or ourselves) to be angry but not sin:
First- don't hurt anyone or yourself
Second- don't break anything
Third - don't be rude or hurtful in how you speak to others
Our first response should be to recognise and empathise with a child’s anger rather than trying to turn it off or ignore it. We need to acknowledge that a child is angry. We need to be a companion and understand from their point of view what has made them angry. Denying their anger or brushing over it will only lead to further frustration and anger. Often anger will have stemmed from something that has happened that perhaps shouldn't have happened or something that didn't happen that should have (at least in the eyes of the angry child). Thwarted expectations can often lead to anger. So it's important that we try and acknowledge the trigger that has created the anger for the child. The child will have trouble moving forward if their anger is ignored.
Second, we need to help the child identify what would have been a better solution or perhaps a different expectation should expectations have been a little unrealistic or unreasonable.
Third, to deal with the anger we need to encourage children to do something physical that will release the built-up energy. For example climbing stairs or running.
Fourth, with time to expend energy and calm down a little, we can help the child express their emotions directly with the situation and person or people involved. It is better that we help them express their frustration and anger constructively so that they can feel understood and be able to foresee and work toward a compromise.
Stephen is a school chaplain and writer and performer of his kids show, Anton's Antics; for more information go to www.antonsantics.com
For more information about interrelate courses and services go to http://www.interrelate.org.au/
