human being, whether that person is a parent, a lover, a friend, a neighbor, or even someone he once considered an enemy. In the same way, if there ever comes a time that you doubt your love for your child who has broken your heart, remember that he or she was the same loving child who once whispered in your ears “I love you, mommy” or “I love you, daddy.” Give him or her a chance to say it again.
Though benevolence will inspire us to act with love and respect, we may still feel like there is one factor that keeps us from “doing it right.” That is the anger factor. For people like me who entered parenthood with “short fused” stamped on their forehead and “devoted parent” imprinted on their heart, parenting is bound to be an uphill race. Anger and parental devotion just do not mix; one of them will have to go if you want to save yourself from the pain and agony in parenting. My decision was to keep the devotion and try to conquer anger.
Two Opposing Forces
Benevolence inspires us to love and be kind to another person. Anger makes us want to do just the opposite. It makes us want to hurt the other person because the other person has caused us pain.
To manage anger with benevolence is to learn how to eliminate the desire to hurt another person. We can do this by cultivating benevolence in our heart. The calmness will then come from within and not just from diverting our focus to things outside of us, like music or a cool drink. The focus will need to be on our benevolent thoughts which will help us to find a way to love the other person who has irritated us. In confronting our children and their disobedience, benevolence will prompt us to understand and help them; instead of doing all we can to hurt them with words or actions. Consider this example.
Karen was the mother of an eleven-year-old boy, Charles. She had always wanted to give her best to her child and to become an excellent parent. She studied parenting books, attended parenting classes, consulted parenting experts and even went out of her way to learn yoga so that she could slow down and be more relaxed with life. She followed everything that she studied to the best she could and was happy to see that she was making good progress.
When Karen told Charles that she had programmed the computer to restrict and monitor his Internet use at home, Charles slammed the door in her face. When Karen demanded that he come out and apologize, he shouted, “get lost” from the other side of the door. This was totally unexpected, and Karen found herself holding her breath outside Charles’s room, with enough dynamite to blow the door open.
For a second, Karen thought she could handle this. She had learned from her parenting books about how to handle such a situation. She remembered exactly what some of her parenting books had taught her to do—take a time-out, go for a walk, take a shower, listen to some soft music, practice slow and deep breathing, stay calm, don’t reward your children’s misbehavior with your anger, think of a time you had good control, let your anger out slowly by talking with your child. . . . All these things seemed to have helped in the past but Karen’s hands were still shaking and her heart started beating faster and faster.
In the intensity of her anger, Karen started to think that maybe shouting back at her son might soothe things a bit for her, but all the books said that she should not react to her child’s bad mouthing. All the books said it was nothing personal, that the child just did not like what she had done, not who she was. But still, Karen could not stop playing and replaying the terrible scene in her mind. Maybe she should just “get lost,” take the easy way out, and let Charles ruin his life with all the evil temptations on the Internet. Karen felt her anger surging inside her until she finally said to herself, “Enough is enough. I am who I am.” It is so much easier to react to her anger and just do what feels good in that moment.
No matter how much Karen loved her son, it was a great challenge for her to keep cool under these circumstances. Telling herself that she loved her son was not enough for her when Charles slammed the door in her face. Having a child slam the door in your face and shout, “get lost,” is definitely not acceptable, and under no circumstance should a parent allow such rudeness. Yet, Karen needed to be patient and tolerant, not only with her son’s misbehavior, but with her own thoughts and action.
Anger was telling Karen to hurt her son. But if hurting a child verbally or physically were effective in correcting bad behaviors, then abused children would be the most well behaved children of all. This is obviously not the case. Shouting and hitting will only bring about fear or rebellion in a child. The child might behave properly only because he or she is scared. Ruling by fear only works as long as the child is still afraid of you and the punishment, and as long as you are in your commander-inchief uniform. Can you imagine what will happen when your child no longer fears you and your punishment, or that commander-in-chief is not around to watch over him? In addition, the damage done to a child in exchange for such obedience is enormous and irreversible.
Karen was left with three choices: She could react to her anger and hurt her son to make herself feel better. She could turn away as if nothing had happened and concentrate on her busy social life. Or she could practice the Three Steps of Anger Management with Benevolence (that we’ll discuss next) to calm herself down and get the best result.
The Three Steps of Anger Management with Benevolence
Step One
Cool off with Benevolent Thoughts
Benevolent thoughts in relationship to anger are like water to fire. The bigger the fire, the more water we need to put it out. The angrier we are, the more benevolent thoughts we need to calm us down. Yet having water and aiming incorrectly does not help put out the fire either. That is why we need precision, which can only be achieved with a clear mind. This is when we need to have a timeout. We need a timeout to clear our mind of the smoke and to see clearly what is happening so that then we can see how benevolent thoughts can help. There are four benevolent thoughts that can help and they are as follows.
1. Understand the Other Person.
Do not fret when the other person does not understanding you; Fret when you do not understand the other person.
(Analects 1.16)
You must try to understand why the person made you angry. In Karen’s case, Karen will need to understand why her child misbehaved and find a reason to be angry at the behavior and not the child. It is only by asking “Why” from the child’s point of view that we will understand why he acted the way he did.
In the previous example, Charles was rude to his mother because he was angry with her for controlling and monitoring his Internet use. He was also angry with her because he felt she had decided to take away, or at least reduce, his joy of life without even telling him about it. On top of that, he felt that she did not show any respect for his privacy by installing a monitor program in his computer without telling him anything about it in advance. Once Karen starts to understand the way that her son is thinking, her heart will feel less disturbed.
Can we do this in all situations? Yes. Even if we do not completely comprehend our children’s point of view, taking a practical look at the situation will help us understand our children a little bit more. Close your eyes and see your children as the individuals they are becoming and realize that they are not there yet. Depending on the age of the child, we should take into account that their immaturity is one great factor that drove them to do the “bad” things they did. A little understanding will go a long way.
2. Have Compassion.
