Anger is like trash. Everybody has it. Some have more, some have less. Some know what to do with it. Some don’t. But, it’s stinking up your home and your kids are starting to play with it. Time to take the trash out!
Building a happy and healthy home has everything to do with controlling your anger.
Parents who don’t to control their anger create children who can’t control their anger.
Control Your Anger
If you want to do your children, your home and our society a favor, then learn how to control your anger. Healthy and happy homes have parents who have learned to control their anger. This scenario is real and it’s played out very often in many many homes across America. Mom or dad has a bad day at the office, gets bad news or is disappointed, then comes home and takes it out on everyone at home. For some reason they can be controlled in a public environment, but in their home they become unglued and their anger is like a flameflower leaving charge remains of everything it touches. Even worse, mom and dad can no longer contain their anger over something like a baseball game or a soccer game and they inject their explosion in full view of everyone to the shame and embarrassment of their family.
Parents, control your anger. The Bible says, “A fool gives full vent to his anger (rage), but a wise man quietly holds it back” (Proverbs 29:11). Parents, you become fool when you can’t control your anger. You are dragging your family into awkward situations, shame and embarrassment. If your children don’t become like you and your anger, then they will get away from you when they have a chance. Anger changes the communication dynamic. Your children as they grow will not be open and transparent with you, because your they are afraid of your reaction. Your children should be able to anticipate your reaction, but you need to create a climate in your home of openness and transparency. Anger is a repellent. It stinks. The one exercising it, doesn’t smell it, but everyone around you does.
Two Types of Anger: Controlled & Uncontrolled
The Bible is clear, “Be angry and sin not” (Ephesians 4:26). There is a type of controlled anger that does not lead you to sin. This is an anger that is under control with a flame that is quickly extinguished if it flares up when it should not. Make no mistake, there are things that should make us angry. If someone injures a child, someone who steals or someone who spreads lies and rumors, and things that are immoral or unrighteous, then these things should make us angry. Even then there must be a control or a governor on our anger. You are an imperfect person living with billions of other imperfect people, but as a parent you are living among highly impressionable little people – – your children. The most impressionable group of people on the planet are your children.
Your uncontrolled anger leaves a deep impression upon your children. But, it is the wrong kind of impression. It’s a depression that becomes a scar, a wound or a bent that creates a weakness in their life. One of my heroes, Dr. Johnny Hunt says, “What you do in moderation, your children will do in excess.” This certainly applies to anger. A little uncontrolled anger in a parent, can become a lot of uncontrolled anger in a child. Uncontrolled anger is rage. Rage clouds your vision, limits your understanding and escalates your actions.
Anger is either controlled or uncontrolled. Many people believe that they don’t have an anger problem because they don’t express their themselves or their anger through rage or explosive outbursts. However, these individuals often struggle with the more duplicitous and diabolical form of anger called bitterness. Bitterness is a poison. It rots the soul of the one who is angry. But bitterness is an anger that never keeps to itself–it always spreads. Bitterness is a toxin. It spreads quietly, but deadly through your life and into the lives of those around you.
Anger is a Choice
No one makes you angry, you chose to get angry. Stop saying, “You make me so angry “or “That made me angry!” Nope, you chose to be angry. You could have chose to remain calm. But you allowed yourself to escalate your feelings. What this means is that you were actually choosing to be angry and choosing to stay angry. This choice will have devastating consequences both to you and to those around you if you choose to remain angry. Blaming someone else is excusing your own inability to control your anger. Do not create this in your children by telling them that you that they make you angry. Stop blaming people, situations, circumstances and your past for your anger. First, you must take responsibility for your anger and the consequences of your anger.
Don’t Use Anger to Tip The Scales In Your Favor
Don’t discipline when you are angry. Don’t punish when you are angry. Don’t respond when you’re angry. Give yourself a time out if you are angry. Anger doesn’t solve problems, it creates bigger problems. Anger clouds the vision of the one that is angry and puts the other person or people on the defensive. Too many parents use their anger to “tip the scales” in their favor. We learn as parents that sometimes that we can get results if we get angry with our kids. Don’t yell. Don’t get angry. Get serious. Stay calm and follow through on your word. Don’t make threats. Threats are just fuel on your fire of anger. Threats lead to an explosion. Simply give your children instructions. If they don’t follow through on the instructions, then get up and go see why they didn’t follow them. Yelling doesn’t solve problems. Yelling is a short-cut in communication and it creates instability in the home. When you get angry to get your way, you are inadvertently teaching you children that the solution to some problems is to get angry. You are teaching them to use anger to solve their problems and control people with anger.
The Results of Uncontrolled Anger: Explosion or Implosion
Uncontrolled anger does two things: explosion or implosion. Everyone is familiar with the explosion. Explosions come from rage and outbursts. It is when anger builds up over a period of time or escalates quickly and explosion happens. Explosions create great instability and an facilitate an unhealthy home. The other outcome of anger is implosion. Implosion happens through bitterness. Bitterness is passive anger, where rage is active anger. A bitter person is actually exploding on the inside, but has come to the realization that they can’t or won’t explode on the outside. These internal explosions or implosions are like cave-ins. Cave-ins block you up on the inside. They block of your thoughts towards others and they block up your communication with others. Neither rage or bitterness are helpful to building a healthy and happy home.
The Keys to Overcoming Anger: Forgiveness & Self-Control
For many people the key to overcoming anger comes through forgiveness. Forgiveness is not forgetting that things have happened, but rather releasing the one or the thing that is causing you injury. You can’t do mind wipe, so don’t try. But, try to see things in a new light. As a Christian, this new light comes through Jesus Christ. Just as he chose to forgive me, I must chose to forgive others. Forgiveness means release. In order to overcome anger, to not be a prisoner of anger and hold others hostage by your anger, you must learn to release your feelings of frustration, disappointment, loss of control, failure or embarrassment that are pouring fuel on our pride. When our pride gets injured we get angry. Learn to release things and people. Self-control is when you take responsibility over your feelings and emotions and apply that control to the decisions you make, the words you say and the actions you take.
Forgiveness and self-control help your internal thermostat. These qualities help regulate bring you back to “room temperature.” When you can stay at room temperature, you can see things more clearly, you can control your feelings and read others feelings better. Bitterness is an icebox. Rage is a sauna. Happy Homes are neither iceboxes or saunas. They are homes, where parents and children live at room temperature.
Anger is like trash. Don’t forget to take it out.
It’s stinking your house up, get rid of it. Everyone likes living in a clean house.
“Without fuel, the fire goes out“
Proverbs 26:20