Just the other day, while driving and making a legal right turn onto a 2-lane road, a woman made a U-turn from the opposite direction, cutting across the two lanes in order to be in front of me. This all happened rather quickly and I remember her angry face yelling at me from within the confines of her vehicle. Not only did she yell and glare, just as soon as she cut across the lanes, she swerved into a bank entrance. Bam! I'm glad I was awake or else.
I blinked and thought "Woa, she's one angry person" and continued on the way to my hair appointment.
Ever since this happened, I've been thinking about anger and the damage it can do when adults act out in front of kids. But what about when kids are mad? How can we help them work through it in a healthy way?
When my girl was 8, I married my current (and last) husband. He did things foreign to her like read with her, ask about homework, insist on seat belts and respecting the family by doing chores. Her birth father had been completely detached. She had never experienced what a father's hands-on care was like. After a few months, she was acting out in uncharacteristic ways.
So one Sunday, the three of us had a pow-wow. We sat around the dining room table, blew up a balloon and had her draw her birth-father's face on it. Then we lovingly asked her if she was mad at him. Yes. Since he had died, she could no longer speak to him, so we told her she could speak to the balloon as if it was him. Choking back tears, she yelled and stammered at the man who had so let her down. How could he have cared so little? We were all wiping away tears. After she felt she got it all out, we had a great discussion and release time. We closed with prayer and she got to pop the balloon.
Don't ask me where I got that idea, I know. It had to be from God. This next idea came from a dear assistant when our 5-year old son was so angry that his favorite friend was moving away he was acting out all over the place.
My assistant - a devoted grandmama - gave me the perfect idea for our active boy! She told me to take him to the lake and encourage him to pick up rocks and as he tossed them into the lake, yell out what part of his anger that represented.
So, off we went to the lake. Before we started, I told him we knew how upset he was and that by throwing rocks, he could give his hurt and anger to God. Each time he picked one up, he told me what it was for and then hurled it into the lake. We stayed there throwing rocks until he had nothing more to say and just wanted to throw rocks, period.
With both of these situations, we sat and prayed. We thanked God for caring about thoughts and feelings, and for taking away what hurts.
Kids are concrete thinkers, and this was a great way for them to deal with their emotions in a literal way. Both times, I cried with them, held them and when we were done, told them how brave they were and how much God loved them. Both times, that anger was truly gone.
Sometimes a counselor is necessary, sometimes we just need to enter their world and offer assistance.
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