Ruchie simply cannot take her daughter’s insolent attitude one more minute! Fourteen-year-old Raizel is equally upset: Why does her mother have to scream at her every morning?

The two of them have their daily routine. Ruchie wakes Raizel up. Raizel turns over and goes back to sleep. Ruchie wakes Raizel up again a little more forcefully. Raizel says “I’m up.” Then she turns over and goes back to sleep. Exasperated Ruchie comes back yet again and starts to rant. “Why do I have to come in here ten times to get you up? You know you have to be in school soon! You’re old enough to get yourself up! I’m sick and tired of this.” Raizel will rub her eyes looking slightly dazed and confused. “What?” she’ll ask innocently. Ruchie will slam the door on the way out.

Every muscle in Ruchie’s body is now tense with aggravation. It’s not even 8 a.m. and she’s having a miserable day. Slowly ever so slowly Raizel emerges from her room and sashays down the hall to the washroom. Fifteen minutes later the door is still locked so Ruchie screams up “What are you doing in there? We have to leave the house in three minutes!” Raizel opens the door. She’s totally composed. Icily she addresses her mother: “Why do you have a screaming fit every morning?”

Why Indeed

Ironically Ruchie is screaming at her daughter because she loves her. She wants her to go to school on time because that’s what healthy people do. Indeed many parents get exceedingly upset when their kids aren’t behaving in a healthy way. They are prone to express rage when their kids lie steal behave badly in school speak rudely hurt siblings and so on. The intensity of the parental response corresponds to the parent’s feeling of how wrong or otherwise destructive the child’s behavior is in their eyes. When a child forgets to say “please” most parents just remind him or her to say it; there’s no great emotional outburst on the parent’s part. But when a child acts outrageously parents often respond in kind. Everything inside the parent screams “You must get the child to stop this terrible behavior right now! It’s bad for him or her!” Feelings of concern for the child’s development underlie many a display of parental rage.

Risk Factors

The only problem is that showing concern through expressing anger is a very risky business. While little upsets during the day may seem like they are only little upsets much more is actually going on. It seems for example as if an unpleasant parent-child interaction started at 8 a.m. on a Monday and end by 8:06 on that same day. In reality however each little upset leaves a residual effect so that while the bad feeling starts at 8 a.m. on Monday it actually never ends. As each little upset is added to the pile of never-ending traces of upsets and the pile grows and grows. Eventually there is a mountain of dark feelings inside of the child. This is why a teenager can come to “hate” her mother or an adult child can decide to permanently avoid her parents.

The risk in other words is that the parent-child relationship can be permanently damaged. Parents who are hoping to enjoy a close relationship with their grown children sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren need to lay the groundwork for it two decades ahead of time. They have to realize that every angry outburst leaves its mark and that too many such “marks” may block the flow of love way down the line.

Think Ahead

This means that it’s important for parents to think beyond the present parenting moment. Ruchie’s mother in our example above needs to think beyond the current need to get Raizel out of bed. She needs to ask herself “If I continue to display anger every morning to this child what could happen ten years from now?” This issue is no longer about getting Raizel out of bed. Instead it is about how to preserve a healthy parent-child relationship.

Indeed every parenting challenge is really about the question: “How can I get the child to do A B or C while still building and nurturing a healthy relationship with him or her?” How can I get him to do his homework her to clear the table them to get into bed on time while still fostering a loving healthy long-term relationship?

The answer to the question is simple: When parents are careful to teach every lesson in a respectful loving way they will build respectful loving relationships that they can enjoy for a lifetime. There are so many effective parenting tools available; anger isn’t one of them.