The No Cry Discipline Solution (34 page)

Why Do Parents Get Angry at Their Children?

137

We further pump up the volume on our anger with emotional

tunnel vision. We see, hear, and understand nothing beyond that

which is creating our anger, thus magnifying it beyond actual pro-

portion, building our frustration, confusion, and disappointment

into a mountain too big to move.

Unrealistic Expectations

There are three situations where expectations can become out of

sync with real life. The fi rst of these is our overall vision for fam-

ily life. Parents often begin painting a picture of
family
in their mind’s eye before their child is even born. During pregnancy or the

adoption process, parents will daydream about their future family.

This daydreaming focuses on the expected joys of parenthood,

Tristan, age 2½

138

A Peaceful Home: Staying Calm and Avoiding Anger

rarely including the unpleasant or mundane—which make up a

signifi cant part of real life. Reality often begins to take a sharp

turn away from expectations right from the start—a rough birth,

postpartum blues, a delayed adoption, sleepless nights, a colicky

baby, and so on.

Another area where expectations go awry has to do with daily

discipline and behavior situations. Although we’ve seen a mul-

titude of children throwing tantrums in our lifetime, although

we’ve witnessed children talking back to their parents, although

Mother-Speak

“ When my oldest was two, I was pregnant with our second

child. One day, we went out for a walk and she insisted on

bringing her riding toy. The only place for her to ride was a

good ten-minute walk from our apartment, so I told her that

I would let her bring it—on the condition that she ride the

whole time and that I didn’t have to carry it. Of course she

said yes. Of course she rode the whole way there, and of

course she got tired and refused to ride back. At this point I

should have realized that I was expecting way too much of

my little girl, but I was so absorbed with my own exhaustion

that I got extremely annoyed at her. I picked up her toy and

lectured her the entire way home about responsibility. Yes,

I know, that’s crazy. She was only two! But I did it anyway. I

don’t think any memory has ever made me feel quite so stu-

pid before! I guess we really should keep our expectations

of our children in step with reality, but in the moment that’s

not always easy to do.”

—Elana, mother to Choshen, age 5; Maayan, age 3;

and Shmuel, age 5 months

Why Do Parents Get Angry at Their Children?

139

we know that children fuss, whine, and fi ght, and although each

of us
has been
a child who misbehaved, we somehow have in our

subconscious mind the expectation that
my child will be different
.

We think that if we love our child enough, he’ll always love us

back by being
good
. So when our child has a tantrum, throws food

on the fl oor, or purposely breaks rules, we are thrown by the vast

difference between our expectations and reality.

The last of our skewed expectations has to do with our vision

of how we should be as parents. We often set high goals for our-

selves without even being aware that we are doing so. We create

these goals by viewing our parents, by observing other parents,

and by reading or going to classes. We may have hated it when

our parents screamed at us and vow never to do the same. We may

see other parents beg, threaten, or bribe their children and
know

we will never react that way. We might wholeheartedly agree with

the fundamentals of positive parenting techniques and plan to use

rational, well-intentioned parenting skills to raise our children.

Yet, there are times when we end up screaming, begging, threaten-

ing, bribing, and failing miserably at the techniques we so totally

believe in.

These discrepancies between expectation and reality create a

cavern that is often unwittingly fi lled with anger. The larger the

cavern, the more room there is for anger. In other words, the fur-

ther reality is from your expectation, the greater the chance that

the gap will be fi lled with anger or other unpleasant emotions.

Life’s Irritations Are Misdirected

At times, the anger that we take out on our children has nothing

whatsoever to do with them. We may have had an argument with

our spouse, a bad day at work, a problem with our computer, or

any number of other issues that annoy us. Along comes our child,