COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
1621 Eagle Trace Drive
Mount Juliet, Tennessee 37122-7428
(615) 758-7568
Website: http://DrBlansett.com
Email: DrBlansett@DrBlansett.com
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Neighbors Helping Neighbors in Parenting
by
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
"Mom, you really make me mad!", says the teen to the parent. "How dare you get mad at me! Go to your room right now", says the parent to the teen. And, for many teens, that is the extent of "anger management training" over 18 years of childhood. So is it any wonder that when a child, raised in such a way, when parenting his or her own child, responds to that child's anger in much the same way? Increasingly, in my practice of family, marriage and individual counseling, I am seeing teens, young adults, and for that matter, elders, who are in some form of "anger management" classes or therapy or training. Usually that training is being required by some sort of external authority. Perhaps the school, as a condition of allowing the student to continue in classes has required the training, or perhaps it is the court system, as a condition of a shortened sentence. It doesn't take much time at all, driving around Middle Tennessee, or anywhere else for that matter, to see the anger being displayed. Symbols and signs made popular by popular sitcoms are being hurled from driver to driver as both engage in rush hour anger. It has gotten so bad that it is not confined to rush hour any more. Just standing in line for a table at the local restaurant can disclose angry parents, angry children, angry siblings, and even angry waiters. So often the response to anger is a sense of "I'm going to inflict my anger on YOU!!" or a sense of "You'd better shut your mouth!". And after the encounter, people separate, as much as they can, and experience elevated blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, heart rate, hypertension, not to mentioned damaged relationships, all of which, and more, are known to be the result of poor anger management. I've seen sophisticated, well educated, high salaried, dignified men and women absolutely lose it after a soccer game, or a little league game. We've all seen "ballistic people" on the highway. Granted, it is hard, in the heat of verbal battle, to say, "Lets use this episode as an opportunity to strengthen our anger management tools, today." Saying that, as a child, would probably have been the swiftest way of finding myself bottom's up over my mother's lap. A parent saying that to an angry child might be met with immediate sarcastic laughter as the child storms out of the room. So, when is the time to deal with this issue? Do you see things in the world and in our families becoming more and more peaceful and placid by our determined ignoring of the problem. The time to deal with any problem is now. Yesterday is already history, and tomorrow simply is never guaranteed for any of us. But we have the time at this moment to determine to learn, teach, and modify behavior to more productively handle anger and stress, frustration and disappointment. Do it for the children. For goodness sake, do it for yourself!
Next week we'll continue to examine how neighbors can help neighbors in parenting.
Dr. Phillip Blansett is a psychotherapist in private practice in Nashville and West Wilson County.
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