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Dealing with Anger (Part 2) – Why We Choose Anger

In Part 1 of Dealing with Anger, we explored the  “WHAT” aspect of Dealing with ANGER. That is important because before we can deal with ANGER, or anything for that matter, we need to first understand what it is, so we can overcome it effectively. 

In Part 2, we will look at the “WHY” aspect.  Why do we get angry? Why do we choose ANGER over whatever it is covering up?

Why is there ANGER in the First Place?

In the previous part, we have seen that ANGER exists to protect us.  But how does our body or brain know we need protection? It is because ANGER is the response we have to things that fall outside our OB markers. And things fall outside our OB markers because we deem them bad, dangerous etc.  They are things that could threaten our well being.

Some people may say they get angry at things that are wrong, not when they are in danger.

Well, why would we consider anything wrong? It’s when those things, behaviour, etc break certain rules or decorum. And what happens when rules or social sensibilities are broken? If EVERYONE follows suit and decides to do the wrong thing, there will be disorder and suffering. All hell can break loose, and our well being will be threatened.

Hence, if we decode ANGER a little deeper, we will realise that ANGER is actually triggered by FEAR. ANGER is a mask for FEAR. 

The question is, why does FEAR need a mask in the first place?

What Happens When We Are Gripped By FEAR?  

When we are gripped by fear, most of us feel our hearts suddenly turning cold. We feel blood draining from our faces and our limbs, especially our legs turning to jelly or lead.  Our minds suddenly go blank and we don’t know what we do. Instinctively, most of us feel like crouching into a fetal position and staying there.

Why Does Our Body React That Way To FEAR?

Interestingly, like ANGER, FEAR also triggers a rush of adrenaline into our bodies. But unlike ANGER which leads to quickening of our breaths and gushing of blood to our face and head, FEAR leads to blood being drained from all our extremities back into our core (or trunk). That’s why we feel our hearts turn cold, our limbs feel heavy and we freeze up. Yet, instinctively, we know we need to survive if we were attacked. Hence, we feel the urge to curl up like a fetus so we can protect our core. 

Anger and Fear: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Both ANGER and FEAR trigger the release of adrenaline. 

Unlike ANGER which prepares us to act against the danger, FEAR makes us freeze so we appear invisible to the danger. Both emotions are necessary for our survival.

Unfortunately, our society sees inaction, or freezing, as cowardly.  So we, humans, begin to associate FEAR as “useless”.  As a result, we tend to convert FEAR to ANGER since the latter makes us appear stronger and gives the sense that we are doing something about the danger.  

Therefore, ANGER is the “proactive” twin of FEAR. FEAR makes us shut down.  ANGER makes us act against (be it run or fight) whatever it is that we fear. They are two sides of the same coin.  

How Does It Apply To Parenting?

Now, imagine our children have been constantly distracted by their electronic devices.  We know they can do well in school if they put in the effort but they just don’t seem to care. And their results show they have done badly.

In this case, most parents will explode in anger. Some may scold their kids and some may add caning or hitting to the punishment.  Why? 

The reason is simple.  We fear that our children will end up doing low-paying menial work instead of high-paying jobs.  In other words, we fear for their future.  But, as we know, FEAR is useless, non-productive.  Freezing and not doing anything is not an option. Hence, most parents will naturally and instinctively turn that FEAR into ANGER so they have an emotion that will help them DO something. That’s why parents will yell and hit their children. They think they are doing it out of love to help their children amend their ways.  But actually, they are releasing the FEAR that has gripped their heart by exhibiting ANGER.

When something happens, our mind interprets it and depending on our interpretation, an emotion arises which leads to a behaviour.But if the first emotion is deemed ineffective, gradually, our minds do not even register them (faded in the diagram below) and register only the resulting emotion. That’s when we feel as if we went straight from seeing our child distracted by his device to the thought her future is DOOMED to feeling ANGER and acting angry.

What other FEARS do we have that we have masked with ANGER?

Most of the anger we have against our children boils down to our fear for their future. Some of it could be due to our fear of losing our own sanity or our fear of “losing face”. And our greatest fear is actually not death, but the fear that we are NOT GOOD ENOUGH. That’s why people are very easily triggered when they feel they “lose face”.

Conclusion

Now we understand what ANGER is, what it masks and why we turn to ANGER when what we actually feel is FEAR.  In the third part of the Dealing with Anger, we shall look at what are some of the strategies we can use to control anger.

Till then, continue analysing why you get angry and get to the root fear that triggered the anger.  Awareness is the first step.  Once you can identify a pattern in the fear, it will be easier to address it.  But that’d be a separate post. ;P

If you have enjoyed the Dealing with Anger series so far and have found it helpful, please share it with your friends.  Thank you all for spreading the love and awareness!  And if you haven’t already liked Decoding Your Child, do click “LIKE”.  

Happy Parenting!!

Update: You can read the other parts of the series here:
Part 1: What is Anger?
Part 3: How to Overcome Anger


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Dealing with Anger (Part 1) – What is Anger?

In my book, Decoding Your Child, I wrote about dealing with anger and tantrums in our children, including teens.  I shared that the exhibition of such behaviour was a result of their lack of maturity and their inability to control their emotions which could be exacerbated by stress, lack of sleep, hunger etc.  I also shared strategies on what we can do when our children throw tantrums.

However, I realised many parents also throw temper tantrums.  Despite knowing the strategies to overcome their explosive tempers, they have difficulty applying those strategies and overcoming their anger when it grips them.  And because they cannot control their anger, their children too have difficulty controlling theirs.  After all, the children are just modeling what they see their parents do when the latter get angry.

Hence, I would like to DECODE anger a little more so that we can help ourselves, and in turn, our children, manage anger.

Why decode anger?  It is the same reason why we decode our children. To deal with an emotion (ANGER), we must first understand WHAT the emotion is and WHY it happens before we can effectively work on HOW to overcome it.

Anger management is a very big topic and there is a lot to share.  Even in my most simplified version, it is too long to be published as one blog. Hence, it will be released as a 3-part series.

In Part 1 of Dealing with Anger, we will deal with the aspect of “WHAT” and decode ANGER. I will explain WHAT happens to our body when we get angry and why our body reacts to anger the way it does.

In Part 2, we will analyse the “WHY” aspect and understand WHY we choose ANGER instead of the emotion that it is hiding.

In Part 3 of the series, we will look at the “HOW” and practice a very simple strategy we can use to manage ANGER.

Angry Parents

Truth be told, many parents have anger management issues towards their children. Some are oblivious towards that anger and think it is normal to yell at, curse or hit their children.  However, most parents are often shocked, embarrassed and guilt-ridden by their exhibition of anger towards their children after they cooled down even if they don’t admit to anyone.

I have met many parents who told me that while they had felt angry before, they had never “exploded” in anger in their entire lives until they became parents. As a result, they never knew they had so much anger in them. And they cannot comprehend why the people they loved most, the ones they would willingly die to protect, became the people who faced their worst wrath.  

So what is the matter?  Why do we exhibit so much anger (and violence) towards our defenseless children? 

Decoding ANGER

To understand the “whys”, we need to understand the “whats”. To resolve anger issues, we need to first decode ANGER. WHAT exactly is ANGER and WHAT purpose does it serve?

What happens to our body when we are angry? 

When we “get angry”, most of us suddenly feel our hearts thumping against our chest. We will also feel a heat rising up from our necks to our face and head. Some people may find themselves clenching their fists.  Some feel their ears ringing and their minds going blank.  And most, if not all, will react instinctively.

Let us imagine for a moment.  You are walking on a sidewalk towards a blind corner.  Suddenly, a cyclist rounds the corner and comes charging towards you at high speed.  Before you can react, he swerves and narrowly misses you.  By this time, your heart is thumping like crazy and your brain is buzzing. What will you do? Will you curse or yell at the cyclist? Or will you shake your head and continue walking calmly?

For most people, the immediate reaction will be to explode in anger, either cursing or yelling at the cyclist who is now long gone. Some may even chase the cyclist and attack him to “teach him a lesson”.

Why does our body react that way to ANGER?

Anger triggers a rush of adrenaline into our bodies.  That makes our heart beat faster which leads to quickening of our breaths and gushing of blood to our face and head.  That serves to prepare our body for fight or flight for the purpose of self preservation.  

All of us have a set of “out-of-bound” (OB) markers whether we are aware of it or not. Anything that is good and is of no danger to us is within the OB markers. Anything that we deem bad, dangerous, offending etc  is considered to have “crossed the line” and will be labeled “out-of-bounds”.  Hence, our OB markers exist to protect us, to ensure we are safe and happy. 

When something crosses outside our OB markers, it means we are experiencing something is labelled “bad” or “dangerous”. It then triggers ANGER to prepare our body to fight to get rid that offending thing out OR to run away from it. With all that extra energy gathered, we have to expel it.  The most efficient way is to let it out, through cursing, yelling, etc. So we “explode”. 

ANGER, therefore, is a form of self-preservation.  ANGER is there to protect us from harm.

Conclusion

So far we have looked at what anger is and why we react to anger the way we do. But ANGER is not the root emotion. It is actually a result of another emotion.

In the next part of this series, we will look at what anger actually masks and why we choose it over whatever triggered it.

In the meantime, should you burst into a temper tantrum against your child or whoever the poor soul might be, know that it is because your body had geared up for fight or run.  Then after you calm down, think about whether you really had to fight or run.

Till Part 2 of Dealing with Anger, 

Happy Parenting!

Update: You can read the next 2 parts of the series here:
Part 2: Why We Choose Anger
Part 3: How to Overcome Anger

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The Thing About Yelling…

Yelling. A very common parenting tool.

“LET’S GO!”

“PUT YOUR PHONE AWAY!”

“GO TO BED!”

“GO SHOWER!”

And the list goes on.

Unfortunately, yelling is not an effective parenting tool. Because if it were effective, we wouldn’t find ourselves yelling about the same thing over and over again.

Why is it not effective? Because it puts us on “fight” mode. Our children then see us as a threat which leads to them flipping on THEIR “fight” switch (they start rebelling more) or they flip on their “flight” mode (they start feeling depressed)

It is sooooo tempting to yell. I know. Cos I used to be a yeller. BIG TIME yeller.

Look, I didn’t yell for no reason. I knew constant yelling was useless because it only made the kids tune out, which meant I would have to get louder and louder to get their attention. No. I had reserved my yelling for when I needed their immediate corrective action.

I became a yeller when I first became a parent. And I yelled even more when I had my second child, C. I yelled because the kids weren’t listening when I talked to them nicely. They weren’t doing what they were told. I got tired of saying the same thing over and over again. I got mad. I felt my role as a parent being threatened. So I yelled, to get their attention, to show them I’m the boss, to tell them that’s it, no more warnings. And when I yelled, I typically startled myself. Yes, I was LOUD!

And one day, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. I saw something that should never be expressed in the eyes of young children. I saw immense fear in C’s eyes. She was just a tiny preschooler then. It was as if she had seen a monster. And I realised I was that monster.

Then I remembered. Yes, remembered because it is something I have always known but tend to forget when I am upset. I remembered my little ones were just children. They were still learning. Their brains were not mature enough to control their impulses. It was natural that they slipped up repeatedly.

I knew If I yelled every time they slipped up, they would start tuning me up. They might even start ganging up against me. So I ONLY yelled occasionally. But if I yelled when I felt it was the last straw, I became the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, unpredictable in my children’s eyes. I became my daughter’s biggest monster.

That was when I consciously veered away from yelling and researching for other more effective tools.

That was almost a decade ago. Did I still yell after that? Yes. With diminishing frequency, but yes, I still yelled. It took great discipline and self control on my part to not yell but teach and guide calmly.

In the last 5 years or so, I am glad I did not “explode” more than a couple of times. My breakthrough came earlier this year when I managed to control myself from yelling when I discovered my daughter (yes, the same one mentioned above) disregarded my rule for online safety and as a result became a victim of online grooming. 

My daughter, my C, taught me to stop yelling. She was, and still is, my teacher. In fact, all my children are my greatest teachers. Because of them, I have become a much better human being.

For that, I am grateful.

What about you? Have you learned something because of your children? Pls share in the comments below.

Happy Parenting!

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A Lesson On Competitions

Entering into a competition is all about winning, isn’t it? Otherwise, what is the point of competing?

What happens if your child enters a competition and does not win a medal? Did she fail? Was the competition for naught?

The Race With Multiple Medals

C had participated in three events at the National Junior Sprint Canoeing Championship (NJCC) in March this year. She did not have high hopes for winning any medals as she did not even manage to get into the semi-finals last year.

But we worked on psyching her up to have fun and simply do her best. Despite facing stiff competition, she persevered. At each race, we cheered ourselves hoarse. Amazingly, she won medals for ALL three events, including a gold. Understandably, she was elated. The medals were totally unexpected considering her performance the previous year.

As usual, we celebrated her success. More importantly, we debriefed on what she did well and what she could improve on. We concluded that the biggest gain from NJCC was not the medals, but the camaraderie and sportsmanship exhibited by the entire team. Even though they had several team members competing in the same race, they still cheered one another on and congratulated the winners who moved on to semi-finals, and subsequently, finals. They helped one another launch the kayaks before each race, and brought them ashore after each race. Even those who did not proceed to semi-finals and finals were all there to help out. It was such a heartwarming sight to behold.

The three medals C had won were but icing on the cake.

The Race With No Medals

Fast forward a month later. C participated in two events at the National Canoeing Sprint Championship (NCC). This time, she harboured hopes of winning at least a medal. After all, she had won three at the last competition the previous month.

Again, we reminded her to have fun and do her best. At the last light of the first day of the competition, she succeeded in clinching her place in the finals for both her events. She knew she had beaten her personal best (PB) timing twice that day, once during the heat, the other during the semi-final. She went home excited about the prospect of the following day.  The next morning, the race started bright and early. Despite giving all she had, she came in fourth in the singles event, and sixth in the doubles event.

Understandably, she was disappointed. But her recovery from disappointment was swift. Why? Because the top 3 single kayakers in her event were her team mates. She was so happy for them and marveled at their timings. Instead of being a sourpuss for not winning any medals, she displayed great sportsmanship and congratulated her team mates.

What is a Competition Without Medals

There are some for whom medals are all that matter in any competition. For us, medals are an icing on the cake. What mattered more was the relationship within the team. And to me, what mattered more was how C fared against herself.

Even though she did not get a medal this time, her timing from her heat on Day 1 of NCC was faster than her PB from NJCC a month ago. Not only that, she had beaten her PB from the heat the day before with her timing during the semi-final. To top it all, her timing for her finals was her fastest ever.

This was a competition with no tangible medals. But to us, she had won 3 gold medals for beating her own PB 3 times in one competition.

Conclusion

The best races are those we run against ourselves and win. When we help our children understand that, we help them eliminate envy or jealously of others. We can help them overcome disappointment by teaching them to aspire to be better and not beat themselves up. I told my daughter that she could hold her teammates who had won the races as inspirations to aspire towards. But at the end of the day, her true competitor, the one who will never ever leave, is herself. As long as she strives to be better than her previous self, she would have won the “competition”.

This is a competition with no medal. And it is the single most important competition we can take on a daily basis.

A 1% improvement on a daily basis will yield a transformation in no time.

Happy parenting!

– VIvian –

 

 

 

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LAUNCHED! Decoding Your Child Book

The months of writing and editing Decoding Your Child finally came to fruition with a successful book launch on Apr 8, 2018.

So many friends came to support the launch. We even had a young couple who saw the event advertisement online and turned up. They are not even parents yet! How wonderful it is for young couples to learn ahead what parenting entails. I am sure this young couple will be well equipped with parenting skills and know-how when they become parents.

The idea of being prepared for parenting is so critical to the success of our children. When we are prepared, our parenting journey becomes smoother.  Not only that, when our parenting journey is smooth, everything tends to flow more easily. Why? Because when we encounter problems with our children, our lives suffer, our relationship with our spouse suffers, our relationships with our parents and our parents-in-law also suffer. Parenting challenges affect our productivity and effectiveness at work too.

There is a Confucian saying, “Tidy up the family. Rule the country. Conquer the world.” In other words, to do great work, our family unit needs to be first taken care of. When our foundation is stable and strong, we can build “empires”. Hence, parenting is critical to our success.

Why Decode Our Children?

To parent successfully, and for everything in our lives to flow more smoothly, we need to decode our children. Why?

With decoding, there is understanding.
With understanding, there is empathy.
With empathy, there is acceptance.
With acceptance, there is patience.
With patience, there is tenderness.
With tenderness, there is connection.

And when there is connection…
…MAGIC happens.

When there is connection, there is cooperation.
When there is cooperation, there are less disciplinary issues.
When there are less disciplinary issues, parenting becomes a breeze.
When parenting becomes a breeze, life becomes easier
When life becomes easier, everyone is happier.

That’s when everyone is transformed.

And it all starts with DECODING YOUR CHILD.

Deepest Gratitude

I have so many people to thank for this successful launch.

Firstly, I must thank my family, without whom I will not even have a book to write. Juay has been my foundation, offering unwavering support and encouragement, doing everything needed to get the books printed and the venue all set up. My three children have done superbly as well. My teens helped man the various stations during the launch, registering guests and entertaining the children who were present at the launch. And my little one occupied herself and never once interrupted my talk and Q&A session. Thank you, darlings, for being the wind beneath my wings.

Next, I want to thank my sister Wendy Kwek. She is my mentor and sounding board for practically everything. She too worked hard behind the scene to help ensure the books turned out nicely and that the launch was a success. Thank you, jie, for always thinking about how to support my work and for covering my blindspots.

I also want to say big “Thank You” to my extended family who turned up for the book launch. Thank you, Michael and Susan Lau for the beautiful flowers. Thank you, Maureen Tan for your yummilicious cake. Thank you Angela Lau, Andrea Lau, Nicole Tan and Noah Tan for your purchases! It’s so heartwarming to be enveloped in your love and support during this milestone of my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

My deepest appreciation to many friends who chipped in to help: Patrick Koh for helping to find lost sheep and ushering them to the venue, Willie Yeo for helping with photography, Uantchern for the use of his cosy venue, and many many more who helped out but I was too distracted sharing with the guests and signing books to thank you individually. Thank you all for being such wonderful angels! 😛

The launch would definitely have not succeeded if not for ALL THE GUESTS who took the time on a Sunday afternoon to be there. So thank you, thank you, thank you, to each and everyone of you who were there! I was not expecting a full house turnout on a precious Sunday afternoon, but you guys came!! Thank you!!

Last but not least, my biggest THANK YOU goes to my mom, Doris Lau. How I wish she could be here to witness the book launch. She was the first person to ever ask me write a book years ago when I was sending her monthly journals of my parenting journey because we were living overseas. Mommy, I know you can see me from the heavens and I can feel your love. I love you and I miss you so much! Thank you for always believing in me.

GET YOUR COPY NOW!

Those of you who missed the Book Launch, fret not. The book is available for sale online. For a limited time, you can get yours at a special Book Launch SALE price.

Use the coupon code: BookLaunch2018. The coupon code expires on 16 Apr 2018 (UTC: +8:00)

Seize the opportunity!  Get your copy here: https://decodingyourchild.com/product/decoding-your-child/

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