How parents overcome their anger

Before the children, she always thought she was a relatively calm, even-tempered person, a mum friend recently told me. «And now I hardly recognise myself sometimes,» she added.

Parenthood brings with it many things that drive us to impatience and anger more quickly: more stress, more responsibility, less time for yourself, your own needs and your partnership, more noise and disorganisation, pressure of expectations from inside and outside, and for many families also financial bottlenecks. And there are always moments when parents feel abandoned, helpless or overwhelmed.

Even though few parents still strive for absolute obedience, we often measure success as parents by how diligent and well-adjusted the child is.

This reality is often at odds with the desire to refrain from scolding, threatening, punishing and shouting when dealing with children. If we once again fail to implement all our good intentions, feelings of guilt are not long in coming.

There are situations and behaviours of children that drive us up the wall. If classic tips such as «breathe deeply into your stomach» or «count to ten inside» alone are not enough to calm us down, it's worth taking a closer look.

Unfavourable beliefs that act as anger amplifiers often take effect in such moments. You will learn about three of them in this article.

«He's doing that on purpose. He's trying to provoke me!»

Anger is the typical emotional reaction to a situation in which someone wants to harm us. Whether a child makes us angry depends very much on how we interpret their behaviour. Suppose you call your child to dinner and they don't react: how do you explain this?

If you assume that your child is so engrossed in their game that they don't notice anything else, this may annoy you a little. But if you think: «He's just tuning me out! He never listens to me! Doesn't he care about me at all?», and thus accuse your child of malicious intent, the same behaviour will make you fly off the handle.

If a thought pops into your head like «He's doing that on purpose!» or «She's just trying to provoke me!», you can pause for a moment and ask yourself: Is that true? What other explanations could there be?

Is the child perhaps tired, hungry, overstimulated or bored? Was it simply clumsy? Or busy with something completely different? Does he still lack the necessary skills to react differently? In most situations, we will recognise that the child is not trying to provoke us - and can let go of some of our anger.

Sometimes, however, you come to the conclusion that the child is actually acting with a certain intention. In this case, you can ask yourself what good reason is behind the behaviour. What is the child trying to achieve? Is it defending itself against a perceived injustice? Are there unresolved conflicts between us?

Does it feel rejected at the moment? Is it seeking contact through its behaviour? Or is the child taking out frustration on me that has built up elsewhere, for example because they are being bullied at school? Such considerations help to reconnect with the child. Anger and indignation can be replaced by understanding.

Powerlessness and shame make parents go on the attack

Good mums and dads who bring up their children properly have their children under control: as flat and old-fashioned as this sentence sounds when you write it down, it is so deeply rooted in many of us. One piece of negative feedback from school, one emotional outburst from a child in public, one's own father shaking his head and remarking «we wouldn't have had that in the past» - and you feel ashamed.

We feel inadequate and believe we are failing in our parenting. Powerlessness and feelings of shame are then often so unbearable that we almost reflexively go on the attack: The child should now do the right thing - after all, it is their fault that we are now in this awkward situation.

Children are personalities that we can accompany on their journey. We cannot mould and control them at will.

Although few parents today strive for absolute obedience as a parenting goal, we often unthinkingly measure our success as parents by how hard-working and well-adjusted the child is. Mothers and fathers receive congratulations and compliments when their child is polite, brings home good grades and knows how to behave when visiting relatives. On the other hand, a child who is impulsive, wild, shy or somewhat dependent is quickly criticised: «No wonder you take everything off his hands and let him get away with everything.»

This is based on the erroneous assumption that children's behaviour can be traced back to a single cause: If the child is too dependent at school, it must be because the parents are doing everything for them at home. If it is wild and fidgety, mum and dad are probably not providing enough exercise - and so on.

Of course it is important how we treat our children. But it is dangerous if we ignore the fact that there are always other forces acting on our children - for example their innate temperament or the environment outside the family. Children are personalities that we can accompany on their journey. We cannot mould and control them at will.

You give and give and can't find a way to top up your energy tank. Children then appear demanding and ungrateful.

If we manage to let go of the conviction that we have to have our children «under control», feelings of guilt, shame and pressure will at least partially fall away from us.

This makes it easier for us to keep a cool head in stressful situations. Instead of angrily insisting that our child «spurt», we can look for solutions that suit the situation and their personality.

«It's never enough! And where does that leave me?»

After all, anger also indicates that our boundaries are being overstepped or our needs disregarded. Sometimes parents lose themselves in the belief that they always have to be there for their child and do everything right. You give and give and can't find a way to refill your own energy tank.

At some point, the children just seem demanding and ungrateful: «Now I've given so much and it's still not enough!» Frustration and dissatisfaction spread.

«Where am I staying?» This thought needs to be taken seriously. However, you may be in a phase in which you actually have hardly any time and space for yourself and can do little to change this.

One single mum found it helpful to think: «What do I miss most? What used to give me a particularly strong feeling of being with myself and doing something good for myself?» She quickly realised that she really wanted to use the few child-free gaps in her everyday life to get creative again.

What do you miss most? Who should you tell about it? And how can you get some of it back?