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Why are children angry? |
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Why are children angry?
The opposite of long-suffering is impatience. Love is not impatient. When we put selfish or unrealistic expectations on our children, we are not loving them.
I hear parents complain, "My three-year-old constantly leaves messes, and doesn't want to obey."
My response: "Really? What do you expect of a three-year-old?"
Others complain, "My teenager never wants to do their chores!"
I respond by asking, "Is that a surprise?"
"Well, he's in the 99th percentile."
"How have you trained him?"
Then parents say, "What do you mean, ‘trained him?' I just expect him to do it."
I say, "Oh really? Well, that's your problem then. No wonder he's fourteen and acts like he's six, because you place expectations on him, yet you have no idea how to train him to meet those expectations. Your anger and exasperation have merely continued the folly in his behavior. Who's really to blame, your 14-year-old, or you?"
Our love for our kids must be long-suffering. Whether it is the "terrible two's" or the "terrible teen's," love is hard work. The minute our children come home from the hospital, they just want, want, want. Everything is, "Mine, mine, mine." But we cannot be impatient! Love requires patience.
Keep in mind, some children will require much more patience than others. My son Nicholas was a mule! He required so much time from my wife and me, and ten times the amount of energy compared to my son Justin and daughter Katie. It was constant! He would wake up in the morning, and by 9:00am my wife and I would think, "Oh my gosh, he's beating to a drum, but it sure is not ours." Sometimes we would have to discipline him 20, even 30 times in one day. Justin or Katie, meanwhile, might have required one or two disciplines.
Loving Nicholas was indeed hard work! Often our attitude was, "I'm sick of this! Why can't he just obey the rules? Why doesn't he just grow up?" We would stay up until all hours of the night discussing him: "Oh, gosh, what are we going to do tomorrow? God give us strength!" Loving Nicholas required a tremendous amount of patience.
I want to say something briefly at this point about Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). ADD is a genuine disorder which causes an inability to focus, take direction, put commands in order, respond, and so on.
I do work with some children, who truly have ADD or ADHD, but I would venture to say that over 85% of the ADD and ADHD diagnoses today are false and misdiagnosed. This is especially obvious when I consider the questions the therapist or physician typically asks the parents about their child's behavior, while never asking about the parents' method of training. In addition, they never consider how many times the parents are reacting to their child with anger, exasperating his/her behavior to continuous folly.
I often wonder why so many kids are diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Mainly it seems that they did not want to sit in class and listen to the teacher, or have had zero training at home other than yelling and screaming. With no consistent loving discipline it is no wonder they act the way they do. I have told many parents, "It's not that your child has ADD or ADHD...but it's your ignorance and unwillingness to love and train your child according to God's will."
When parents are blessed with a strong-willed child, they often believe something is wrong with that child but the only problem is their unwillingness to yield and obey. We call this disorder "UADD," Unwilling Attention Deficit Disorder. If they do not have UADD, then it is "LOPD," Lack of Parenting Disorder or a combination of both.
If your child has been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, however, please do not think you must immediately take them off of their medication. Instead, apply the things that you are learning through this book. You might find that 90 days from now, you will be able to wean them off that medication, and perhaps you will discover he/she never needed it in the first place. We have witnessed this many times. I encourage you to pray about that.
The opposite of kindness is being unkind. Love is not unkind. Unkindness is allowing ourselves to be provoked, getting angry, yelling, judging, comparing our children to their siblings, and acting as if their failures are a threat against our parental authority.
We must remember that our homes are a training ground. Our kids are born without character. They do not have traits of maturity. The Word tells us that foolishness is bound up in their hearts. Why do we act surprised by their behavior?
It seems that we think if we are not angry, our discipline will not work. Many parents were raised in this way so we are just repeating what we learned. That is the way I was raised. I believed if I wasn't twisting my face and raising my voice, my discipline was not working. However, where is that attitude commended in the Bible? Nowhere.
We must learn how to discipline with no sinful expression, without our hair standing up or our veins popping out of our neck. The good news is when we submit to the Lord, we will be able to do it.
The sad reality is that in many Christian homes, parents show more contempt and more unkindness toward their own children than they do anyone else on Earth - reacting in the flesh instead of responding in love (truth). We must train ourselves to be kind.
"Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another" (Romans 12:10).
Parenting is a Ministry by Craig F. Caster, Founder of Family Discipleship Ministries, www.parentingministry.org.
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