Your child calls you names such as “stupid” and “idiot mom” and he keeps putting all his anger directly at you. You want a smooth relationship with him. But he deliberately goes out of his way to hurt you. And then he comes and hugs and kisses you and wants to be close with you. What the heck is going on?
Anger is oftentimes the secondary emotion. Meaning you see anger, but oftentimes your child actually feels sad. Or alone. Or both. Or something else entirely. But we won’t know what it is until you ask. There may be many other feelings hiding behind anger – shame, hurt, frustrated, guilty, lonely to name a few. Again, the best way to go about figuring this out is asking.
When you do ask your child about their anger, remember that they may feel ashamed (“I am bad”) and guilty (“I did something bad”) about how they have hurt you. They may not want to discuss it at all. And that is pretty normal.
Tell them: “I know it’s not the easiest thing to talk about your anger. I want us to talk about it because I think we can be better at this. And not get so angry and so hurt as often as we do. Sometimes anger is the BIG feeling. What other medium sized feelings do you also have when you feel angry? Let’s think about what happened yesterday and we can use that as an example.”
Remind them that they are not in trouble. Kids often get into trouble for big emotions like anger. So they shrink away from talking about it. The more you help them feel safe with words of encouragement like, “no one will get into trouble just because we are talking about it” the better.
You are likely the punching bag because you are the safest target. You can get hit, and you always forgive. Others in the house may not be as quick to forgive which is why you are the “soft target” for your child’s anger. Your job is to set limits. To help your child know what is okay (“talking to me when you are angry is great”) and what is not okay (“I am not okay with getting physically punched by you when you are angry. If you choose that behavior, you’ll have to deal with your anger alone in your room until you are calm enough to talk without punching.”)
