In an effort to help her anxious child, a mother starts the Ridiculously Effective Parenting Training and discovers more about HERSELF while learning how to love and help her son deal with his angry father.
Timestamps:
00:00 A mother describes her son's anxiety.
02:12 Mother began the REPT training.
03:53 Dealing with the ex-spouse's anger around their son.
05:06 Zero Tolerance for anger zone at home.
05:49 How son can deal with father's anger, role play examples.
10:49 Speaking up and repeating himself in the face of anger.
11:40 The risks we need to take to cause change.
Transcript:
The Effects of Living with an Angry Father
A mother writes me:
My son, Adrian, is ten years old. He’s very anxious all day, every day. Worries about everything. It’s getting worse. Now he worries to the point that he throws up before school and before some other things he has to attend.
He spends half his time with me, and I must admit I’m a pretty anxious person myself, so I know I’m not helping things. I take medication for anxiety, and when Adrian gets anxious, I try not to show it, but I know that he can feel my fears too.
Every other week he spends with his father—we’re divorced—and his father is angry all the time, about pretty much everything.
**Me: So let’s summarize: What a child needs most in all the world is to feel unconditionally loved, which enables him to feel worthwhile, safe, and even fearless.
You are occupied by anxiety or fear, which makes you incapable of loving Adrian unconditionally loving, and his father is angry all the time, which makes him incapable too.
The bottom line is that this ten-year-old child has spent ten years starving to death in a prison where no love is served. That seems like a harsh picture, but it’s also a true one.
This kid is literally starving to death, and he is demonstrating that more every day with anxiety, and now to the point that even his body is screaming rebellion by throwing up.
**(To all) This is not good. This child’s future is bleak indeed. I recommended to Mom that she do the REPT, and she began the training. She wrote:
“OMG. I’ve caused Adrian a lot more harm than I knew. So I’m talking to some other people who are learning to parent their children, and I’m beginning to see how this is going to make a difference in me being anxious all the time. Being loved feels pretty good.”
**No kidding. Keep going. This takes time and commitment and practice, but YOU can find Real Love, you can feel it, you can remember it, and you can begin to share it with Adrian.
What to Do About the Angry Father
Mom wrote again: “Question. In the meantime, while I’m learning to be less anxious around Adrian, he still has to spend half his time with his father, who is angry at Adrian and at other people all day. What can I do about that?”
**Your question—no criticism—is like asking, “I have just a small brain tumor. Could you send me a YouTube video that would tell me how to take it out myself?” You have to work on your own anxiety and on learning how to love Adrian unconditionally first. A lot. BUT no, you don’t have to stand idly by while your son is traumatized every day by his father’s anger.
- First, you could try to talk to his father and suggest that Adrian’s anxiety is getting worse, and you’ve found a way that you think will be effective in helping him. Then describe the Parenting Training. Just don’t EXPECT him to leap on board the train and change his direction. He likely won’t. If he does, great, but if not, let’s talk about another option.
- Second, You need to tell Adrian that in your home there will be a zero tolerance for anger or anything unloving. Tell Adrian what you’re learning in the REPT, and even have Adrian watch some of it with you.
One of the elements of the training declares that a happy family has a ZERO TOLERANCE for anger. It’s unloving and hurtful. Tell Adrian that he doesn’t have to put up with his father’s anger anymore. He still has to be obedient with his dad, and respectful, but from now on, no more anger.
I promise you that some people would find this horrible to tell a child that his father can’t be angry at him anymore. But excuse me?
Would you let a stranger beat your son up physically every day? Hit him with his fists?
NO
Would you let your husband do that? NO, in fact you’d bring in the courts and get full custody of Adrian.
Your husband’s anger is just as harmful as if he were physically hitting the boy—some say that the emotional pain is far worse (me too). So how can you just let it happen? You can’t.
You already know Adrian hates his father’s anger, so do something about it.
Role Play Dealing with the Angry Father
ROLE PLAY with Adrian.
**Ask him, “Give me an example of something your dad did when you were with him, where he was angry at you.”
Should be easy.
Ask Adrian, “DO you like Dad being angry at you?”
No.
“So, let’s come up with what you could DO about it. What could you SAY to your dad when he gets angry?”
**Adrian won’t know the answer to that question, so you’ll have to give him some things he could say to his father. This will be scary to Adrian to do on his own. Hence your role playing, so he can practice saying these things when you pretend to be angry. Like what? What could he say to his father?
“Dad, I don’t like it when you’re angry at me.”
“Dad, I get scared when you talk angry to me.”
“Dad, I’m just a kid. When you get angry, I get scared.”
He could even say, “Dad, I won’t talk to you while you’re angry.” (Yes, aware of risk)
Mom said to me, “That all makes more sense to me than anything I’ve heard, especially since I have the Parenting Training to help me. I do have a concern, a big one. I’m afraid that if Adrian says one of those things to his father, his father will get even more angry.”
**I don’t care. His father is already angry. More angry, less anger, who cares? You have to TRY, at least. Adrian needs to practice speaking up. And if his father gets angrier, Adrian just repeats himself. Over and over, if necessary. His father has never heard Adrian speak like this. It will set him back. Most of the time, it works. Really.”
MOM: So what happens if his father explodes and hits him?
**“Actually, and I know this will come as a surprise, that would be excellent. Two things to consider:
- If you want things to change, there is always risk. Always. Everybody wants change without any possibility of negative repercussions, but such change doesn’t exist. And this is with GOOD changes. You build a dam to bring electricity to a distant community without Internet, phones, light, air conditioning—all the advantages of electricity—and inevitably you will change the habitat for some animals. Some snail darter or whatever will have to find a new environmental niche. You treat somebody who is dying from COVID-19—who could argue with that as a good thing—and you get increased risk of infection to the caregivers and consumption of significant resources that could have been used for the benefit of other patients (perhaps needier). Always risks to doing good.
- If he hits your son, now you can bring action against the dad who is bringing nothing positive emotionally to Adrian, and you may be able to get sole custody and the ability to love and teach him in exactly the ways he needs.
We have children who are sick and dying emotionally. We can’t do nothing. We can’t live in fear the somebody might be offended, or we might look stupid, or we might have to learn something new, or somebody might get mad.
No, lives are at stake. Adrian’s is. He’s worth you making whatever efforts you can make. He’s worth you taking whatever risks are involved. You can do this.
