Re-Parenting - Part 28 - Anger

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Parenting an angry child is extremely difficult. What tools help us do this?

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DISCLAIMER:
Tim Fletcher is not a doctor or licensed therapist. Tim’s videos are for informational purposes only to provide understanding, learning, and awareness about complex trauma. No information published here can replace professional evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment.

[catherinewilson]

The consequence of my first EVER anger with my mother was her responding; I can always send you back! (To social services. I was adopted.) For YEARS afterwards I was incapable of dealing with conflict - I would freeze and feel overwhelming fear.

[catherinewilson]

I think the only need that was met when I was a child was adequate nutrition. Today I have food issues because there was NOTHING else done for the rejected child I was.

[ranc]

This guy helped me process Complex trauma, last year - one year exactly july 2021 - I listened to his series for the whole summer, of how to deal with trauma. Excellent advice and help and instruction. And it took me time to process information.
Thank you.

I see anger as resentment, grudge.
We think we have got rid of it with "forgiveness" but resentment is parasitical emotion, it is very slick and morphs and hides inside - it has its own life and autonomy. Kinda like devil on the shoulder. I see it as evil.
Resentment builds toxic shame - which distorts our reality and thoughts.

"They repress that anger – they don't repress only anger, they repress cortisol in their body, now they have trouble concentrating, other physical symptoms – agitation, pain. It seems like it is working, but it isn't."
Yep.
We need to find way how to handle anger/resentment-grudge in proper healthy functional way - other than repressing it.

It is like we need to accept, integrate anger/resentment - but in functional manner.
When we reject it - we become perfectionists and we are easily manipulated by others and we end up with codependency - since we do not believe ourselves.

"If child never expresses anger, that is very concerning thing. Something else is going on there that is not healthy, causing them to suppress all of that anger."
CBT will explain to socially anxious people to ignore and suppress resentment - in fact they will not focus nor reveal that there is resentment and anger inside. This is making CBT extremely damaging therapy and psychologically very dangerous,
since it instructs us to suppress.

Also, we seen in 1960s-1980s that expression of anger leads to chaos and imbalance. Cursing, being violent, throwing temper tantrums etc. does not dissipate anger/resentment - it solidifies it and creates trauma to people on the receiving end and passer-byers.

I see solution to accepting the anger and resentment as part of life. Not something to reject or destroy with our trials and tribulations - we will make mistakes and we will create damage to ourselves and others with our actions, mistakes, flaws and ignorance. If we have no ability, capacity for anger or resentment - we won't learn from the evil that evil is wrong.

So solution is to make better life choices based on experience and knowledge - without having anger and resentment inside yet feeling gratitude and love for anger and resentment, for the evil and bad things - not to accept it or embrace it - but to see it as Stockdale Paradox - it is part of life, it is outside of our control. We simply do better decisions which are based on wrong decisions in the past. We see wrong decisions and bad experiences as contrast and as ground to walk away from.
If we do not do this, we will stay with the evil and try to change it. It cannot be changed, it is not our job to change evil.
We only can react in life, we are human beings, we are not gods. We can do only so much.
We cannot be the judge if we do not work in Court. We cannot put someone in prison if we are not working in prison system facilities.
We can only walk away from evil, retort to evil, warn, alarm and cut contact when our finances or shelter do not depend on toxic people.

"There are other ways to express anger that does not result in people getting hurt. There are other options in expressing anger that do not evolve hurting other people."
With complex trauma we learned that there are only two options:
1) drama, explosions, temper tantrums, fight response
or
2) fawning, self censorship, self blame, isolation and avoidance.

There is alternative to these.
I trust that with toxic shame we repress part of our persona and self that we labeled as evil - that to us appear as anger and resentment - and without these parts that are falsely labeled as evil and repressed into our shadow - we are unable to see alternative to reacting to toxic people who cause anger and resentment inside us.

"If you give into tantrum you just taught your child to use anger and tantrums to manipulate you. Now you fed a monster. Next time they have tantrum it will be more difficult to stop it. In their mind it will work again."
This is the opposite to what happened to people with complex trauma and social anxiety.
We were experiencing relentless criticism 24/7 that was unfair and we witnessed adult hysteria -
"If they lash out in hurtful way, there needs to be a consequence that is appropriate. It is not about I will hurt you, that is punishment, that will not help. Child needs to realize that decisions they make have consequence tomorrow."

"If they lash out in hurtful way, there needs to be a consequence that is appropriate. It is not about I will hurt you, that is punishment, that will not help. Child needs to realize that decisions they make have consequence tomorrow."
Again, this is the opposite from complex trauma and social anxiety - bullying that causes avoidance.
The abused child is programmed to think anything that child does is wrong - and thus toxic shame is born and inability to act.
Isolation and avoidance and fears and panic are the only resource and reaction to the order and command to be "good".

I see solution as realizing that our thoughts, opinions, decisions are not evil - as we were being programmed to believe.
We were being punished for expressing ourselves freely and now we repressed parts of our behaviour - which are totally normal and fine - and we need these parts in adult life - when we meet someone, in social life - when we go for interview, when we handle unknown and mysterious situations.

If we have social anxiety and complex trauma issues - it is crucial to realize that we have toxic shame inside us as fake persona and fake self. Fake self is easy to detect: when we are rigid. Being healthy means being flexible.

"Don't just make focus on their anger. Keep praising their good stuff. Give them a lots of praise for the other things in their life that they're doing well, it is important."
Yep, this is important to know when we are dealing with toxic and or difficult people, too.

I see that the lesson here is to learn how to handle difficult situation in life - from our intuition, that we do not need to learn specific steps. And I believe we have issues with anger and resentment - because we have virus in our mind that is thwarting our reality, it is like veil, black transparent veil over our face and we are unable to see reality clearly with clarity.
The grudge inside is this veil. It is well hidden and transformed and transmuted into different and transparent thoughts, like a chameleon, it blended with the background but it influences our thoughts and emotions as we make decisions in life.
The parasite needs to be removed.

[KiKi-teyd]

Such a great informative piece. Nailed it, thank you. My angry part wants to send it to my ex (who is too ignorant to be open to learning it)

[idoracruzinofre]

My anger is for those people who keeps on doing me wrong and hurting me, bitting me up and my father that abandoned me as a Fletcher and yes my biological father family last name is Fletcher but no one wants to help me to find him and it's really sad that no one wants to help but still keeps on damaging my life until now

[sanjaekmescic]

Thank you♥️ so helpfull and a real eye opener. This is a core issue of my depression and anxiety. It’s very hard to be a good parent to myself. How to find the right tools to use when in distress and emotional disregulated state🤷‍♀️very difficult😣 I feel like I am a parent to both my children and my parents😫and now also to my self. Very overwhelming.
Lifelong project…
Deep breath😮‍💨

[hippiechickie]

I've decided that maybe I should have some tools and probably someone around for support before I continue to watch Mr.Fletchers videos.Ive watched a few and he's awesome.Im learning so much..to much maybe?

[Oystermato]

But sometimes the anger is a reaction to an egregious hurt done to you. And perhaps the one who hurt you will also regret you anger, as your anger will also make you do things you’ll regret. Who did it first? Does Blame matter?

[bethanyvaughan]

Perfect Bible verse. I hadn't realised how dramatic he was. Sounds like me 😂

[catherinewilson]

This video is making me angry. If that doesn’t tell you everything, I cannot say anything else.

[davidcrawford]

My mother took her anger out on me, i dod the same to her when i grew up. I dont regret it, she's a terrible person who wanted nothing more than to keepe stunted under her control. Hope ahe ends up destitute and alone