Productive Anger

Anger is such a strong emotion and it is very hard to channel appropriately. When it starts to bubble up, I have done a better and better job of channeling it into something productive - exercising, cleaning, etc. I know how difficult it is to control and I want my kids to start practicing it early so they can use anger productively.

One morning recently, my 6 year old daughter E was extremely upset. I didn’t hear what exactly the argument was about, but her and my wife had a disagreement about something. Sometimes I feel like I already have a teenager on my hands. When E came down, she was not happy. It spilled over to breakfast and I ended up walking her to school a bit early. I tried to set an appropriate pace so she wouldn’t be late, even with the early start. E would tail behind and start to leave more and more distance between us. This also made it really hard to talk to her about calming down.

I was trying to tell her to channel her anger to do something productive. She acknowledged it, but didn’t do any ring with the advice. She just kept pouring and being upset. It’s fair to feel the emotion, but I wanted her to start to control it. I ended up stopping and telling her that I would only walk as fast as she would walk. She could set the pace and if she ended up walking to slow, she could be tardy and deal with the consequences.

E’s pace changed immediately. She started walking quickly and then I would follow next to her. Then she would slow down and I would also. Then she should speed up again and so would I. Sometimes I left a lot of distance between us and then I would hustle to be right next to her. Pretty soon, she was laughing and it became a game of whether I could be her shadow or not.

We ended up getting some exercise out of it and those spurts of running made us both feel better. I told her that this was exactly how I wanted her to use her anger. We got some great exercise and it made us feel better. She agreed and I gave her a big hug and kiss when we got to the school drop off area. She begrudgingly let me, but I knew she wasn’t actually angry anymore - she was playing a role. Then she smiled and went to school. Hopefully she holds onto the lesson and puts this tool in her toolbox.