How to Deal with Angry People by Dr. Ryan Martin

Author:Dr. Ryan Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786787279
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

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One type of situation where this drive for revenge is particularly complicated is with parents and their children. Few parents would use the word “revenge” to describe their parenting approach, but listening to the way parents talk about their use of punishment often reveals justice-related motivations rather than educational or developmental motivations. When I have talked to parents about their use of punishments, including physical punishments like spanking, they often offer explanations that sound an awful lot like revenge. Parents routinely say things to me like, “Well they deserved a punishment” or even that their kids “had it coming.” Frankly, a number of people have told me that they were spanked as children because they “deserved it.”*

Yet this line of thinking doesn’t typically get parents what they want, which is to curb the problematic behavior. Take, for instance, a situation where a child gets angry at a sibling and expresses that anger in the way many young children do, by hitting. Parents routinely respond to this sort of behavior through a combination of scolding, punishment, or even spanking† (often using the justice/revenge rationale to support it). Instead, parents should pause to think about their desired outcome. What do you really want in this moment? Usually, the answer to that question is (or at least it should be) to help the child find different ways to express their anger. That outcome requires a very different path than scolding or punishment.

It requires modeling, support, and the teaching of adaptive coping strategies. Start, then, by modeling healthy anger expressions. Speak with them in the voice you would want them to use when they are angry (calm, firm). Encourage them to think about why they are angry and what they can do about it. Empathize with the feelings they are experiencing while also offering them other ways of dealing with those feelings, such as deep breathing, taking time to themselves, and assertiveness. If the goal is for them to express their anger in a healthier and more appropriate way, your response should be about helping them achieve that goal.

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