When Kids Are Angry
What should we do with angry kids? I’ll tell you one thing you should not do. Don’t try to talk to them. Here’s why: when a child gets angry they cannot see the situation clearly and they certianly cannot think clearly. It is actually a chemical reaction. The brain releases something (sorry, I wasn’t that good at science). This chemical that is released actually scrambles the brain so that your thoughts are not clear and logical. It is not possible to talk rationally to someone who is angry. The only thing you can do is to wait until they calm down and sometimes that can mean waiting for half an hour or even longer.
We had a small mishap with our family last night. My 14 and 16 year olds decided that they wanted to come out with me, even though it was their week end at their father’s. I do know how difficult it is for them coming and going. They rang me when I had already arrived at church, and they were begging me to come and pick them up. I dropped what I was doing and drove back to pick them up at the appointed pick up point. But when I got there, there were no kids waiting.
Now I had just made myself very late for church and I was not impressed when my teenagers were not there waiting for me. I texted them and waited for a reply. Nothing. I waited for a good five minutes, then decided that they had inconvenienced me enough and I left without them, after trying to text them one more time.
To cut a long story short, they turned up a couple of minutes after I had left and they were a little bit annoyed that I had left without them. But I was also annoyed that when I had dropped what I was doing to come and pick them up, they couldn’t make the effort to be at the pick up point on time. Now I had every right to be unhappy because I had spent my valuable time coming to pick them up.
Everyone was unhappy last night. When I eventually found my teenagers they were locked out of the house. Their dad had left for his church and they didn’t have a key. So they sat on the door step in the dark until I eventually rescued them. It was a total disaster! When we finally caught up with each other sparks started to fly. I thought I had every right to be annoyed but the kids seemed to think that it was all my fault as I didn’t wait long enough for them. But who was right? It was obvious that nobody was in the right frame of mind so I said to the kids “OK, have something to eat and get ready for bed. We can talk about this in half an hour when we have all calmed down a bit.”
Half an hour later we came together to discuss the events of the evening. We all had a chance to share why we were feeling so angry about the events of the evening and then we tried to problem solve. What could we do different next time? And this is the key: if you can figure out what not to do next time, you have learned a valuable lesson and can move forward. Because I chose not to address the issues straight away my kids had a chance to calm down. And this is what you must do when your child is angry.
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