In Defense of Anger

This one isn’t easy.

I’m going to come right out and say that.

Some of my other blog posts are way easier to write.

This one is a bit of a challenge though because it means confronting some long-held beliefs.

I’ll just jump into it.

I think we parents need to do a better job of teaching our kids how to be angry.

I wanted to write, “We need to do a better job eliminating anger” or “We need to raise more peaceful kids,” but I think other people have already written about that.

I think a lot of people have an anger problem, and the problem is that we don’t know how to be angry.

We tend to think any anger of any variety is wrong. When we teach our kids that, we create a weird cycle. I’ve felt it in my own life. Here’s what happens:

I get angry.
I feel guilty because anger is bad.
Feeling guilty makes me feel angry.
I feel guilty again because anger is bad.

That circle continues until I’m angrier than is appropriate.

So, what’s the fix?

It will take more than one blog post, but here’s my challenge to you today.

Ask yourself, “What am I teaching my kids about anger?”

Is it an emotion that has room to breathe in your house? Is it okay to feel angry? Do you have words and actions that diffuse it? Is real peace something you seek by working through the anger or is fake peace something you force by pretending anger doesn’t exist?

We might not like it.

We might personally feel bad about it.

But the truth is that anger is an important emotion for your kids to understand if we’re going to teach them how to create peace.

Start the discussion in your house today.