How do I curb my own anger?

[Nillarilla]

My ds and I have similar personalities and often clash in a battle of wills. He's 4 in April and we have been working on allergy issues because of his aggression and other issues. My problem is when he hits, bites, kicks, throws things especially towards his little sister it makes me so angry. I can't be in the room with him when he is having a tantrum because he lashes out at me or his sister or the dog. He also has broken things in his anger. So right now we physically carry him to his room and ask him to stay there until he feels better and is able to not hurt anybody. However he often won't stay and I find myself having to repeatedly bring him back in and all the while he's physically lashing out and screaming and throwing things. Usually I end up furious and yelling. It's not a good scene.

His consequences for hurting and throwing right now are losing the toys he's thrown (they go to the salvation army) and apologizing for his hurting. He's also not allowed to have movies with any bit of violence in them until he can stop hurting.

I need some new tools. I really don't have time to read any books on the topic at this moment though I am going to get the raising cain dvd out of my library. Any helpful tips on curbing my anger and helping him express his in a safe manner?

[SallyN]

go to www.professionalparenting.ca/articles.html

Judy Arnall has several on the topic of how to get more patience, deal with your own anger (especially while LOs are pushing buttons) and strategies for getting a parent time out with little ones around.

And kudos to you for recognizing the role your own feelings play in how you're able to parent your son! (I've found that more often than not, the conflicts b/w my oldest daughter and I are significantly affected (frequency and intensity) when *I'm* having challenges dealing with my own anger.)

[hakeber]

I have these issues too, sometimes. You're only human, so don't beat yourself up. Have you tried telling him. "I am really angry right now, I need you to be in a safe place until I calm down." rather than just putting him in his room for HIM to calm down alone (especially since that isn't working out so well?)

Here is what I do. I make sure ds is in a safe place where he cannot hurt himself and I go cool down, or have a soda, or whatever I need to calm down, then I calmly go back to him and approach it from a rational point of view. It also REALLY helps to have DH, when I am losing it, he steps in and says "I'll take over from here!" and when/if I protest he says with a look that means business "No, honey, I WILL take over from here." and sometimes I do the same with DH. No judgment, just a partner recognizing that their partner has reached their limit of patience for the day and needs help. Do you have a partner? Can you ask them to help you sometimes?


Also this

Originally Posted by Nillarilla

His consequences for hurting and throwing right now are losing the toys he's thrown (they go to the salvation army) and apologizing for his hurting. He's also not allowed to have movies with any bit of violence in them until he can stop hurting.

made me go "what?!"

A) The losing the toy in question to Salvation Army seems a bit harsh and also makes it seem like donating toys is a punishment. Is that the mentality you want to set up around charity for your kids? If you got angry and threw something, would you have to give it away, too? This sounds like a Nanny 911 remedy. I don't know that I agree with that logic. I would definitely take the toys, all the toys (because afterall, can't he just grab another toy?), and put them in my room until he was calm, and if he did it again, until I felt he could be trusted with the toys again, but I don't think I'd make him give them away unless he was doing something really ugly like teasing a toyless neighbor with all his toys, then I might consider it.


B) that second part...I would just cut out all TV and movies that have violence until he was much older, and maybe all TV full-stop because a lot of the commericials have violence when you least expect it. I thought ds was fine watching Discovery kids, but the ads for Burger King right now as an example show toys from the movie AVATAR and show the battle scenes...it's a very grown uo movie IMO, why in the world are they marketing toys to pre-schoolers (the main audience of the DK network)? I don't know, but there it is. I would just put your TV in your room, or cancel the cable until the kids were older.

Hope you find some help here.

[milkmamamerina]

This all sounds so familiar.
I tried deep breathing/ counting to ten, but ultimately he would just trigger my anger just as I was beginning to calm down.

Finally, I found this article
http://mothering.com/food/feingold-s...drens-behavior
then check out the symptoms list
http://www.feingold.org/pg-symptoms.html

We started Feingold (for him and myself) and have been a much happier family ever since.

As for TV. I understand how TV can sometimes feel like the only thing to get your active/aggressive child to just sit still or at least distract him from trouble for a little while, but when we started Feingold it enabled us to cut the TV time way back and we can now see that it is a trigger for the wild/destructive behavior. I found that it isn't just the shows that depict violence, but also the over-bright/flashy/actiony shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Backyardigans, Wow Wow Wubbzy, etc. We switched for shows like Little Bill, Little Bear, and Charlie and Lola.

[crowcaw]

My 4 yo was very much like your ds and I was very much like you describe yourself. It was spiraling and I finally called a family therapist on the day I came extremely close to slapping dd. The therapist first helped me with tools to get her and my behavior under control and once things were calmer we started addressing the roots (i.e. my problems as well as needs of dd that I was not meeting) of what had become a relationship issue between dd and me.

What worked to get the behavior under control was rewards for not exhibiting the aggressive behaviors that were unacceptable. Specifically, at many points throughout the day and on a schedule she received a 2 little trinkets if she made it through the period without hitting, name calling, rudeness, etc. If in a time period she did do something aggressive, one of the trinkets she had was taken away and put back in the mix to be earned back. If there was more than one incident she lost a trinket for each incident. I was very very consistent with it. She quickly responded, which showed she was able to control it, and the process kept me from getting so angry I think because there was a clear action I could take that required no cooperation from her so when she was aggressive there was no escalating confrontation. It's not something I ever thought I would do because I wanted to parent in a more completely UP fashion, but I had become incapable of doing so. It took 3 or so weeks for dd to almost completely stop reacting aggressively and the behaviors have not returned. It's been probably 4 or 5 months since we did this. Since then I have learned more about her and the things she needs. I have also learned that she and I have the most conflict over things where the boundaries are not clear. Not that it isn't clear that she's not supposed to hit, but what was causing her to get angry enough to hit (and still causes her to become angry) is inconsistency on my part mostly because I'm not always sure what the boundary should be.

BTW, dds diets have always been entirely non-processed foods made from whole food ingredients and they've never watched any tv or videos or even played with computers. Not that those things can't be culprits, but in our case there wasn't a chance of it.

[Nillarilla]

Thanks for the responses
hakeber thank you for pointing out that the consequence/punishment was too harsh for the situation. It has been escalating and I have been struggling to find something that will work and then felt I needed to be consistent with it. I do not however want him to feel that way about charity.
I am not blaming tv for his behaviours just have noticed that certain programs will cause him to escalate. He really watches about 1/2hr a day on average with none some days and up to an hour other days. Sometimes it's the only way he will sit still.....
crowcaw thanks for explaining what worked for you. It really does sound like a good plan and an excellent starting point.
Thank you all for the articles I will read them in a few days when I am off work.
Gentle discipline is definitely not second nature to me it was not what was modeled in my home and while reading is fabulous it does not always address specific situations.