Oy. How many times have you just blown it? You know what I’m talking about…even though we all come about it a little differently, and show it differently. You have been mad before, and you haven’t managed your anger well.
The authors of this book believe that “mismanaged anger is behind many of the broken relationships between parents and teens.” They say that love and anger are opposite sides of the same coin, that “love seeks the good of the other person and so does rightly directed anger.” They also say that “the purpose of anger is to motivate us to take loving action; that is, to do something to try to turn the teenager or parent in the right direction.”
So, anger by itself isn’t the problem…what we do with it is where we can have problems. Much of this chapter walked through breaking bad habits with managing our anger. First, the authors say we need to admit the truth: I have mismanaged my anger. Second, we need to develop a strategy and have a plan of what we will do when we feel anger. There were some great ideas in the book. Third, we need to carefully look at our options. Either we need to release our anger…because it is our problem to work on, or we have a misunderstanding, or we need to have a positive conversation to resolve the situation. Of course, that is an art in itself.
As a group, we had an interesting discussion about whether we personally explode or implode in anger, and how that influences how we parent. We realize that we have quite a burden of responsibility in this area because we often teach our teens how we deal with our anger. Of course, this also is very applicable in a marriage relationship and the same perspective and strategies would be very useful.
I guess I need to get healthy first. J
Next meeting we will discuss chapter 10, Love and Anger: Help for Our Teens. More good stuff. Then we will take a break for Christmas.
See you Thursday! ~k
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