For those who want to build a happy family

Dear reader!

We express our deep gratitude to you for purchasing a legal copy of the e-book of the Nikaia publishing house.

If, for some reason, you have a pirated copy of the book, then we kindly ask you to purchase a legal one.

If in e-book You have noticed any inaccuracies, unreadable fonts or other serious errors - please write to us at [email protected]

Instead of a preface

Perhaps there are no dads and mothers who from time to time would not be annoyed by the behavior of their children, and at the same time, almost every parent thinks that in terms of anger he has no equal. Everyone else, in his opinion, gets irritated much less often, and perhaps never at all. V modern society the notion prevails that good parent should not be irritated towards children. Such opinions can seriously poison the life of the family and interfere with the upbringing process.

Usually irritation arises and accumulates in situations where mom or dad is unable to correct individual characteristics behavior of the child, to cope with some kind of everyday situation.

If not enough conventional ways affect the situation, irritation is connected as a spare, albeit unnecessary battery. I have yet to meet people who enjoy their irritability.

Irritation should be considered as a state of undoubtedly negative and, moreover, after the fact evocative guilt. In other words, irritation is not only unpleasant at the moment when you are at its mercy, it leaves behind an extremely unpleasant aftertaste. It is because of frequent outbursts of irritation that many parents, especially mothers, believe that they are bad, unsuccessful and incompetent.

How is parental irritation perceived by a child, especially a pre-school child? Shouting, threats and spanking are often seen by him as a manifestation of dislike. The mother gets angry and swears, and the child concludes that she is angry and does not love him at all.

Of course, with age, this view of things inevitably changes. A recent child, who still well remembers the irritability of his parents and his own resentments about this and once sincerely promised in his diary: “I will never, for nothing, shout at children, be angry and annoyed at them!” Becomes a parent himself. then comes the "moment of truth" for him, then comes the first, albeit superficial understanding of the reasons why father and mother seemed so cruel and unjust to him.

It turns out that the parents were not angry at all because they were angry and bad! They just got very tired, not coping with their countless responsibilities.

however, understanding why mom and dad were angry, as a rule, does not become a vaccine against their own irritability. The idea that it is necessary to throw out everything sore and depressing is only partly true.

Family is long term project, over the decades, anything happens to her: some periods turn out to be relatively simple and almost cloudless, while others become a time of real testing of feelings for strength. That is why the exchange of information between spouses is so necessary.

It is no secret that many young families are initially forced to rent a house and only eventually acquire their own homes. In this case, the apartment may be more spacious or more modest, better or worse. Matrimonial communication is built in a similar way: it is by no means always the ability to conduct confidential and sympathetic conversations about the most difficult issues comes immediately. During the courtship period, there is no need for this: the heads of the lovers are busy with completely different things. True communication is the prerogative of a mature family, whose members are well aware: each of them is a complex set of merits and flaws, which are in a constant and fierce struggle among themselves, where "the battlefield is the human heart." Communication skill is not a bonus attached to a marriage certificate, but the result of many years of painstaking and responsible work. However, it is the absence of this experience that gives rise to a large extent to spontaneous outbursts of destructive emotions.

Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain amount of completely certain situations, but if we do not deal properly with our anger, over time the circle possible reasons expanding.

Chronic irritability can be compared to a morbid addiction to alcohol or the habit of spending evenings in front of the TV. You can compare it with playing sports - the more diligently we “pump” our muscles, the stronger they become, or with a traveler wandering through the desert: the more water he drinks, the more painfully his thirst overcomes.

The more often we experience irritation, the more compulsive it becomes to pour it out on someone. However, we all need to remember: you cannot get rid of negativity just by throwing it out. so you can only "feed" and "lull" him for a while. At the same time, irritation will hide and will only wait the right moment in order to publicly declare themselves with renewed vigor. This is one of the "anger traps".

A kind of angry intoxication may arise when the level of mutual irritation in the family rises so much that its members have to agree on some kind of pause, about some kind of truce with each other.

The habit of letting off steam every now and then has the most negative impact on our relationships with children. Moreover, they inevitably transfer it to their peers, as well as to younger brothers and sisters.

Eastern wisdom says: "An irritated teacher does not educate, but only annoys." A parent in this state can achieve his goal in the short term, but he lays a vicious model in the child's soul. emotional behavior: when something goes wrong, turn on your irritation, put pressure on your neighbor, "and you will be happy!"

The child easily masters this simple tactic and with its help really more and more often achieves that, for example, they turn on a "cartoon", even if at this time they have to do completely different things, they would buy the desired one, but not at all. necessary toy or added an extra spoonful of sugar to the porridge.

What can you recommend to parents in this regard? First of all, admit that you are annoyed, even if you absolutely do not like it. Likewise, the Alcoholics Anonymous program considers the patient's very admission of an addiction as the first and defining step on the path to recovery from addiction. To humbly admit the existence of an urgent problem means ten to fifteen percent closer to solving it.

Following this, you need to honestly answer the question: do you really want to get rid of this habit? If, being irritated, you feel quite comfortable, then there is no reason to talk, but if irritability really bothers you, you should make every effort to get rid of it.

Before you start fighting this habit, you need to understand its nature. What should we know about irritation? First, we must determine in what situations it usually occurs, where the keys are hidden, with the help of which anger penetrates into our souls. After carefully observing ourselves for two to three weeks and scrupulously recording the situations that provoked irritation in a notebook, any of us will be able to identify the factors that cause a negative emotional reaction.

We are talking about the so-called "normative conflicts", about the very "rakes" that we step on every day, or even several times a day. For example, every night when we try to brush our children’s teeth, they try to run away, and this behavior irritates us. Knowing this in advance, we can prepare ourselves internally by forming an anticipatory reaction that will prevent anger from taking over us unhindered.

The next step should be to observe when and how our state changes. For example, just now you were calm, you talked to everyone evenly and kindly, but after a minute you start to scream and tug on someone's ears ... Almost everyone can analyze the development of a situation in which irritation arises, but this requires a certain methodology ... I insist that it is necessary to record the results of your observations on paper, otherwise a mess will inevitably arise in your head.

It is important to understand how this process takes place. Usually consciousness begins to take over obsessive thought: "That's it, I can't stand it anymore!" - and now anger covers us with a turbid wave. For some people, the anticipatory sensation is this or that physical symptoms- for example, their breathing and heartbeat become more frequent, their cheeks turn red and their fists clench reflexively. Someone starts pacing excitedly around the room, touching the surrounding objects, or grabs a cigarette, like a lifeline.

In the fight against irritability, it is extremely important to fix the moment of "emotional transition". Having identified it, try for three to five seconds to hold and balance on the verge of a breakdown, be patient a little and, perhaps, hold your breath for a short time. If this technique works, then the emerging ability to mitigate irritation may well turn out to be the next step on the way to consciously aligning your behavior.

In order to get rid of fits of anger, you need to realize their true nature, to understand if you have encountered something similar in parental family... We must try to remember who often raised their voice at you - grandmother, father, teacher in kindergarten or teacher primary grades... Think, in whose voice your irritation persistently declares itself.

We all come from childhood, each of us at the level of memories captures the behavior of parents and people who are significant to us, and in similar situations tends to imitate him. For example, cleaning an apartment on a single day off was completely natural for our mothers and fathers, because they simply had no alternative. Of course, times have changed, but even those of us who have the opportunity to work remotely, at home at the computer, unconsciously copy this weekly routine, which has long turned into a ritual.

Mom may not even know why she is so annoyed by the always untied laces on her son's shoes or smeared on the table semolina... Then the door to the nursery slammed loudly, a cup of milk fell and broke on the floor, a hole appeared in school uniform, the notebook for written homework is full of crossed out and blots - and emotions are already overwhelming the woman. Everyday everyday situations in which children find themselves can cause violent outbursts of irritation in her. And the thing is that she herself once turned out to be the object of such flashes.

Realizing that your emotional response clearly does not correspond to the cause that caused it, you can be sure: either unconscious childhood memories have entered into action (someone from your loved ones was inclined to get irritated in such situations; you remembered these outbursts of anger and now reproduce them diligently) or you are in a state of chronic nervous overload.

Our childhood was spent in nurseries and kindergartens, which means that most of the time we spent in the company of women, often lonely and, as a result, emotionally unrestrained.

Schools and kindergartens have traditionally used and are still using tough methods of team management. In families, however, this approach is not applicable. Look again your old photos, remember conversations with relatives. In order to make the reactions manageable, I advise you to activate childhood memories and relive them.

Causes of parental anger and the forms it takes

Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.

Some people tend to get annoyed in situations related to certain physical conditions... For example, for many of us, the strongest provoking factor is chronic lack of sleep... An unstable, tense, nervous and unfriendly environment at work, dissatisfaction with marital relations can also become the reasons for increased irritability. Make every effort not to load your child with problems that have nothing to do with him. In such cases, it’s better to just say to yourself: “Today I didn’t get enough sleep again and I resemble a car that loses control on a slippery road, which means I should concentrate and be more careful when cornering!”

You can try to explain to teenagers: “Now I am completely and completely absorbed in work, I am very tired and, probably, that is why I am angry with you more often than usual. However, my condition does not at all indicate that I have stopped loving you. Believe me, it has nothing to do with you at all! "

Talk to your child more often, trust him more! Remember that irritation causes guilt not only among parents, but also among those to whom it is directed, according to the principle: "If my mother is angry with me, then I am bad, I am not worthy of love!" In the future, all this can lead to an unjustified decrease in the child's self-esteem. In addition, many children and teenage problems parents begin to explain by the fact that once they yelled at the baby, unjustly spanked him, were unjustifiably harsh with him and as a result “pecked”.

This is not to say that any manifestations of our anger are completely safe, but the feeling of guilt generated by emotional outbursts prevents us from seeing true reasons why the child grows up shy, unbalanced or overly shy. Guilt distorts our awareness of cause and effect.

Generally speaking, children are very stress-resistant creatures. One-off outbursts of parental irritation most likely will not do much harm to their psyche, but systematic manifestations of discontent will almost certainly entail long-term negative consequences.

If you often find yourself annoyed, try changing something about yourself. At the same time, do not expect rapid changes: the process may well drag on for many months, or even years. If you managed to take even a small step in the right direction, since you were able to determine the nature of your irritability and have learned to control it at least a little, then a good start has been made. However, until the possibility of your emotional breakdowns is completely ruled out, you should often repeat to the child: “Mom always loves you, loves you, even when she is angry, even when she screams! She raises her voice simply because she has such a character, but at the same time she sincerely wishes you well. "

These simple truths little man unable to comprehend on their own. After all, we ourselves came to realize them only when we grew up. Don't wait that long! the child should explain everything in calm atmosphere... When right words found and pronounced in time, mother's or father's negative emotions will no longer, as before, poison and destroy their relationship with children.

To a certain extent, the splash of parental irritation can be compared with the safety function of a pressure cooker valve, which is absolutely necessary. It is only important to make sure that emotional outbursts do not cripple the child's psyche, do not destroy your relationship with him, do not undermine the calm and do not poison the friendly atmosphere in the family.

If your irritation was inadequate and you just wanted to let off the accumulated steam, and a child accidentally fell under your arm, then it's not a sin to ask him for forgiveness. Another thing is how often you have to apologize for your unmotivated outbursts. If breakdowns occur several times a day, such an apology will only indicate the inconsistency of your pedagogical position.

If you share your thoughts about your excessive irritability with your spouse, and possibly someone else, everyone will only feel better. The main thing in this situation is not to bend under the weight of inescapable guilt, not to indulge in self-hypnosis: "We get annoyed every now and then, and therefore, we are lousy parents, and nothing can be done about it!" In no case do not succumb to fruitless despondency and do not fold your hands helplessly! Remember in family life You cannot live without mistakes, but it is important to track the dynamics of relationships. The very fact of realizing your own shortcomings and a firm intention to deal with them indicate that you have entered into the right way and sooner or later you will certainly become the masters of the situation.

"Ladder of aggression"

The splash of parental irritation can, to a certain extent, be compared to the safety function of a pressure cooker valve.

Irritability can be driven deep inside by systematically redirecting it, avoiding sharp corners, and avoiding risky situations. However, in this case only the “tops” are cut off, while the “roots” remain intact. After waiting in fertile soil, they will give rise to new, even more powerful and poisonous shoots.

Sometimes after we receive some useful information there is a sharp improvement in family relations, followed by an equally rapid deterioration. Hopes give way to bitter disappointment: a scheme that seemed ideal and universal before suddenly does not work in your case. I want to warn you: here you are faced with a very common phenomenon. Don't count on daily and indispensable progress! Harmonization process internal state can be characterized by the well-known wording: "One step forward, two steps back." Only gradual, barely noticeable shifts can really change the situation for the better over time.

Remember some situation that seemed to inevitably throw you off balance, but for some reason this did not happen and you managed to stay on the edge without slipping. Out of your usual anger, you should have yelled at someone, and you just gritted your teeth, you should have been “supposed” to hit the plates on the floor, and you managed to do without excesses ... What happened is the result of your efforts, which should be sincerely rejoiced.

What to do, life teaches us to notice only our mistakes and failures, not celebrating even small, but nevertheless very significant victories. Unfortunately, the ability to gratefully rejoice in good things is not inherent in everyone. such a state requires a certain emotional culture, which we are deprived of.

By the way, in this respect, both adults and children are alike. Meanwhile, the praise is much more efficient method than punishment, and encouragement is much more effective than punishment.

We find it difficult to praise anyone, including ourselves. With half a sin, we still manage to encourage children, but even this is not easy for us until we learn to give due to ourselves and our spouse. We have to make a decisive choice, deciding for ourselves once and for all: will we fix our attention on our successes or will we focus only on failures and failures. Whether we prefer to "nag" each other or try to support and inspire each other.

Fixation on shortcomings, accompanied by endless reproaches, is an endless field for cultivating anger.

Negative emotions that have accumulated as a result of everyday intra-family friction are spilled out without any apparent reason. At such moments, even some insignificant, but recklessly hasty phrase may turn out to be the “last straw”.

Among psychologists, the term "negative reinforcement" is common. Let me explain its essence using a simple everyday example. Let's say you come home from work, walk into the kitchen and find your husband trying to cook dinner for you. At the same time, you annoyed: “The vegetables for the salad are cut too finely (or, conversely, too coarsely), but the tea, dear, you brewed the wrong one! Is it so hard to remember that in the evenings I prefer green and weak? "

You have fixed your focus on flaws. This is the very negative reinforcement that inevitably leads to outbursts of anger and subsequent mutual alienation. Unfortunately, in our daily behavior, remarks, shouts, sarcasm and notation are the very tools with which we somehow prefer to work.

Usually, negative emotional reinforcement expresses all the discontent that has accumulated over long years by the most different reasons... At the same time, the phrases we throw out casually often turn out to be much more significant than the reasons that caused them. Finally family relationships reach that "point of no return" when they no longer satisfy both spouses.

* * *

Let us reflect on our desire not to thank and praise, but to be ironic about each other. Let's think, did something similar happen in the families in which we grew up? "I copy my mom, although I never imagined that I would do it!" - we usually come to such a disappointing argument sooner or later. Between the second and tenth year of the family's existence, almost every couple goes through a period of re-enactment of the script. parenting relationship, and completely avoiding this is almost impossible.

Ekaterina Alekseevna Burmistrova

Irritability. Parents who want to conquer anger

For those who want to build a happy family

Dear reader!

We express our deep gratitude to you for purchasing a legal copy of the e-book of the Nikaia publishing house.

If, for some reason, you have a pirated copy of the book, then we kindly ask you to purchase a legal one.

If you notice any inaccuracies, unreadable fonts and other serious errors in the e-book, please write to us at [email protected]

Instead of a preface

Perhaps there are no dads and mothers who from time to time would not be annoyed by the behavior of their children, and at the same time, almost every parent thinks that in terms of anger he has no equal. Everyone else, in his opinion, gets irritated much less often, and perhaps never at all. In today's society, the notion prevails that a good parent should not be irritated with children. Such opinions can seriously poison the life of the family and interfere with the upbringing process.

Usually, irritation arises and accumulates in those situations when mom or dad is unable to correct the individual characteristics of the child's behavior, to cope with some kind of everyday situation.

If the usual ways to influence the situation are not enough, irritation is connected as a spare, albeit unnecessary battery. I have yet to meet people who enjoy their irritability.

Irritation should be viewed as a state of undoubtedly negative and, moreover, after the fact, causing feelings of guilt. In other words, irritation is not only unpleasant at the moment when you are at its mercy, it leaves behind an extremely unpleasant aftertaste. It is because of frequent outbursts of irritation that many parents, especially mothers, believe that they are bad, unsuccessful and incompetent.

How is parental irritation perceived by a child, especially a pre-school child? Shouting, threats and spanking are often seen by him as a manifestation of dislike. The mother gets angry and swears, and the child concludes that she is angry and does not love him at all.

Of course, with age, this view of things inevitably changes. A recent child, who still well remembers the irritability of his parents and his own resentments about this and once sincerely promised in his diary: “I will never, for nothing, shout at children, be angry and annoyed at them!” Becomes a parent himself. then comes the "moment of truth" for him, then comes the first, albeit superficial understanding of the reasons why father and mother seemed so cruel and unjust to him.

It turns out that the parents were not angry at all because they were angry and bad! They just got very tired, not coping with their countless responsibilities. however, understanding why mom and dad were angry, as a rule, does not become a vaccine against their own irritability. The idea that it is necessary to throw out everything sore and depressing is only partly true.

A family is a long-term project, over the course of decades, everything happens to it: some periods turn out to be relatively simple and almost cloudless, while others become a time of a real test of feelings for strength. That is why the exchange of information between spouses is so necessary.

It is no secret that many young families are initially forced to rent a house and only eventually acquire their own homes. In this case, the apartment may be more spacious or more modest, better or worse. Marital communication is built in a similar way: the ability to conduct confidential and sympathetic conversations about the most difficult issues does not always come immediately. During the courtship period, there is no need for this: the heads of the lovers are busy with completely different things. True communication is the prerogative of a mature family, whose members are well aware: each of them is a complex set of merits and flaws, which are in a constant and fierce struggle among themselves, where "the battlefield is the human heart." Communication skill is not a bonus attached to a marriage certificate, but the result of many years of painstaking and responsible work. However, it is the absence of this experience that gives rise to a large extent to spontaneous outbursts of destructive emotions.

Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.

Chronic irritability can be compared to a morbid addiction to alcohol or the habit of spending evenings in front of the TV. You can compare it with playing sports - the more diligently we “pump” our muscles, the stronger they become, or with a traveler wandering through the desert: the more water he drinks, the more painfully his thirst overcomes.

The more often we experience irritation, the more compulsive it becomes to pour it out on someone. However, we all need to remember: you cannot get rid of negativity just by throwing it out. so you can only "feed" and "lull" him for a while. At the same time, irritation will hide and will only wait for the right moment in order to publicly declare itself with renewed vigor. This is one of the "anger traps".

A kind of angry intoxication may arise when the level of mutual irritation in the family rises so much that its members have to agree on some kind of pause, about some kind of truce with each other.

The habit of letting off steam every now and then has the most negative impact on our relationships with children. Moreover, they inevitably transfer it to their peers, as well as to their younger brothers and sisters.

Eastern wisdom says: "An irritated teacher does not educate, but only annoys." A parent in this state can achieve his goal in the short term, but he lays in a child's soul a vicious model of emotional behavior: when something goes wrong, turn on your irritation, press on your neighbor, "and you will be happy!"

The child easily masters this simple tactic and with its help really more and more often achieves that, for example, they turn on a "cartoon", even if at this time they have to do completely different things, buy a desired, but not at all necessary toy or add an extra a spoonful of sugar into porridge.

What can you recommend to parents in this regard? First of all, admit that you are annoyed, even if you absolutely do not like it. Likewise, the Alcoholics Anonymous program considers the patient's very admission of an addiction as the first and defining step on the path to recovery from addiction. To humbly admit the existence of an urgent problem means ten to fifteen percent closer to solving it.

Following this, you need to honestly answer the question: do you really want to get rid of this habit? If, being irritated, you feel quite comfortable, then there is no reason to talk, but if irritability really bothers you, you should make every effort to get rid of it.

Before you start fighting this habit, you need to understand its nature. What should we know about irritation? First, we must determine in what situations it usually occurs, where the keys are hidden, with the help of which anger penetrates into our souls. After carefully observing ourselves for two to three weeks and scrupulously recording the situations that provoked irritation in a notebook, any of us will be able to identify the factors that cause a negative emotional reaction.

We are talking about the so-called "normative conflicts", about the very "rakes" that we step on every day, or even several times a day. For example, every night when we try to brush our children’s teeth, they try to run away, and this behavior irritates us. Knowing this in advance, we can prepare ourselves internally by forming an anticipatory reaction that will prevent anger from taking over us unhindered.

The next step should be to observe when and how our state changes. For example, just now you were calm, you talked to everyone evenly and kindly, but after a minute you start to scream and tug on someone's ears ... Almost everyone can analyze the development of a situation in which irritation arises, but this requires a certain methodology ... I insist that it is necessary to record the results of your observations on paper, otherwise a mess will inevitably arise in your head.

It is important to understand how this process takes place. Usually the mind begins to take possession of an obsessive thought: "That's it, I can't stand it anymore!" - and now anger covers us with a turbid wave. For some people, the anticipatory sensation is certain physical symptoms - for example, their breathing and heartbeat become faster, their cheeks turn red and their fists clench reflexively. Someone starts pacing excitedly around the room, touching the surrounding objects, or grabs a cigarette, like a lifeline.

In the fight against irritability, it is extremely important to fix the moment of "emotional transition". Having identified it, try for three to five seconds to hold and balance on the verge of a breakdown, be patient a little and, perhaps, hold your breath for a short time. If this technique works, then the emerging ability to mitigate irritation may well turn out to be the next step on the way to consciously aligning your behavior.

In order to get rid of bouts of anger, you need to realize their true nature, to understand if you have encountered something similar in your parental family. We must try to remember who often raised their voice at you - grandmother, father, kindergarten teacher or primary school teacher. Think, in whose voice your irritation persistently declares itself.

We all come from childhood, each of us at the level of memories captures the behavior of parents and people who are significant to us, and in similar situations tends to imitate him. For example, cleaning an apartment on a single day off was completely natural for our mothers and fathers, because they simply had no alternative. Of course, times have changed, but even those of us who have the opportunity to work remotely, at home at the computer, unconsciously copy this weekly routine, which has long turned into a ritual.

Mom may not even know why she is so annoyed by the forever untied shoelaces on her son's shoes or the semolina smeared on the table. Then the door to the nursery slammed loudly, a cup of milk fell and broke on the floor, a hole appeared in a school uniform, a notebook for written homework was filled with crossed out and blots - and emotions are already overwhelming the woman. Everyday life situations in which children find themselves can cause violent outbursts of irritation in her. And the thing is that she herself once turned out to be the object of such flashes.

Realizing that your emotional response clearly does not correspond to the cause that caused it, you can be sure: either unconscious childhood memories have entered into action (someone from your loved ones was inclined to get irritated in such situations; you remembered these outbursts of anger and now reproduce them diligently) or you are in a state of chronic nervous overload.

Our childhood was spent in nurseries and kindergartens, which means that most of the time we spent in the company of women, often lonely and, as a result, emotionally unrestrained.

Schools and kindergartens have traditionally used and are still using tough methods of team management. In families, however, this approach is not applicable. Look again your old photos, remember conversations with relatives. In order to make the reactions manageable, I advise you to activate childhood memories and relive them.

Reasons for manifestation parental anger and the forms it takes

Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.

Some people tend to get annoyed in situations involving certain physical conditions. For example, for many of us, chronic sleep deprivation is becoming the strongest provoking factor. An unstable, tense, nervous and unfriendly environment at work, dissatisfaction with marital relations can also become the reasons for increased irritability. Make every effort not to load your child with problems that have nothing to do with him. In such cases, it’s better to just say to yourself: “Today I didn’t get enough sleep again and I resemble a car that loses control on a slippery road, which means I should concentrate and be more careful when cornering!”

You can try to explain to teenagers: “Now I am completely and completely absorbed in work, I am very tired and, probably, that is why I am angry with you more often than usual. However, my condition does not at all indicate that I have stopped loving you. Believe me, it has nothing to do with you at all! "

Talk to your child more often, trust him more! Remember that irritation causes guilt not only among parents, but also among those to whom it is directed, according to the principle: "If my mother is angry with me, then I am bad, I am not worthy of love!" In the future, all this can lead to an unjustified decrease in the child's self-esteem. In addition, many children and adolescent problems parents begin to explain by the fact that once they yelled at the baby, spanked him unfairly, were unjustifiably harsh with him and as a result “pecked”.

This is not to say that any manifestations of our anger are completely safe, but the feeling of guilt generated by emotional outbursts prevents us from seeing the true reasons why a child grows up fearful, unbalanced or overly shy. Guilt distorts our awareness of cause and effect.

Generally speaking, children are very stress-resistant creatures. One-off outbursts of parental irritation most likely will not do much harm to their psyche, but systematic manifestations of discontent will almost certainly entail long-term negative consequences.

If you often find yourself annoyed, try changing something about yourself. At the same time, do not expect rapid changes: the process may well drag on for many months, or even years. If you managed to take even a small step in the right direction, since you were able to determine the nature of your irritability and have learned to control it at least a little, then a good start has been made. However, until the possibility of your emotional breakdowns is completely ruled out, you should often repeat to the child: “Mom always loves you, loves you, even when she is angry, even when she screams! She raises her voice simply because she has such a character, but at the same time she sincerely wishes you well. "

The little man is not able to comprehend these simple truths on his own. After all, we ourselves came to realize them only when we grew up. Don't wait that long! the child should explain everything in a calm environment. When the right words are found and pronounced on time, mother's or father's negative emotions will no longer, as before, poison and destroy their relationship with children.

To a certain extent, the splash of parental irritation can be compared with the safety function of a pressure cooker valve, which is absolutely necessary. It is only important to make sure that emotional outbursts do not cripple the child's psyche, do not destroy your relationship with him, do not undermine the calm and do not poison the friendly atmosphere in the family.

If your irritation was inadequate and you just wanted to let off the accumulated steam, and a child accidentally fell under your arm, then it's not a sin to ask him for forgiveness. Another thing is how often you have to apologize for your unmotivated outbursts. If breakdowns occur several times a day, such an apology will only indicate the inconsistency of your pedagogical position.

If you share your thoughts about your excessive irritability with your spouse, and possibly someone else, everyone will only feel better. The main thing in this situation is not to bend under the weight of inescapable guilt, not to indulge in self-hypnosis: "We get annoyed every now and then, and therefore, we are lousy parents, and nothing can be done about it!" In no case do not succumb to fruitless despondency and do not fold your hands helplessly! Remember, you cannot live without mistakes in family life, but it is important to track the dynamics of relationships. The very fact of realizing your own shortcomings and a firm intention to fight them indicate that you have entered the right path and, sooner or later, will certainly become the masters of the situation.

"Ladder of aggression"

The splash of parental irritation can, to a certain extent, be compared to the safety function of a pressure cooker valve.

Irritability can be driven deep inside by systematically redirecting it, avoiding sharp corners, and avoiding risky situations. However, in this case only the “tops” are cut off, while the “roots” remain intact. After waiting in fertile soil, they will give rise to new, even more powerful and poisonous shoots.

Sometimes, after we receive some useful information, there is a sharp improvement in family relations, followed by an equally rapid deterioration. Hopes give way to bitter disappointment: a scheme that seemed ideal and universal before suddenly does not work in your case. I want to warn you: here you are faced with a very common phenomenon. Don't count on daily and indispensable progress! The process of harmonizing the internal state can be characterized by the well-known formulation: "One step forward, two steps back." Only gradual, barely noticeable shifts can really change the situation for the better over time.

Remember some situation that seemed to inevitably throw you off balance, but for some reason this did not happen and you managed to stay on the edge without slipping. Out of your usual anger, you should have yelled at someone, and you just gritted your teeth, you should have been “supposed” to hit the plates on the floor, and you managed to do without excesses ... What happened is the result of your efforts, which should be sincerely rejoiced.

What to do, life teaches us to notice only our mistakes and failures, not celebrating even small, but nevertheless very significant victories. Unfortunately, the ability to gratefully rejoice in good things is not inherent in everyone. such a state requires a certain emotional culture, which we are deprived of.

By the way, in this respect, both adults and children are alike. Meanwhile, praise is a much more effective method than punishment, and encouragement is much more effective than punishment.

We find it difficult to praise anyone, including ourselves. With half a sin, we still manage to encourage children, but even this is not easy for us until we learn to give due to ourselves and our spouse. We have to make a decisive choice, deciding for ourselves once and for all: will we fix our attention on our successes or will we focus only on failures and failures. Whether we prefer to "nag" each other or try to support and inspire each other.

Fixation on shortcomings, accompanied by endless reproaches, is an endless field for cultivating anger.

Negative emotions that have accumulated as a result of everyday intra-family friction are spilled out without any apparent reason. At such moments, even some insignificant, but recklessly hasty phrase may turn out to be the “last straw”.

Among psychologists, the term "negative reinforcement" is common. Let me explain its essence using a simple everyday example. Let's say you come home from work, walk into the kitchen and find your husband trying to cook dinner for you. At the same time, you annoyed: “The vegetables for the salad are cut too finely (or, conversely, too coarsely), but the tea, dear, you brewed the wrong one! Is it so hard to remember that in the evenings I prefer green and weak? "

You have fixed your focus on flaws. This is the very negative reinforcement that inevitably leads to outbursts of anger and subsequent mutual alienation. Unfortunately, in our daily behavior, remarks, shouts, sarcasm and notation are the very tools with which we somehow prefer to work.

Usually, negative emotional reinforcement expresses all the discontent that has accumulated over the years for a variety of reasons. At the same time, the phrases we throw out casually often turn out to be much more significant than the reasons that caused them. In the end, family relationships reach that "point of no return" when they no longer satisfy both spouses.

Let us reflect on our desire not to thank and praise, but to be ironic about each other. Let's think, did something similar happen in the families in which we grew up? "I copy my mom, although I never imagined that I would do it!" - we usually come to such a disappointing argument sooner or later. Between the second and tenth year of the family's existence, almost every couple goes through a period of re-enactment of the parenting scenario, and it is almost impossible to completely avoid this.

While the kids were growing up, the irritation went away like sand, because children are noisy creatures, but unrequited. When they finally got their own families and left home, the conflicts between the spouses escalated. In addition, increased irritability is often directly related to the specifics of female hormonal system... It is no secret that women are usually the main spokesmen for discontent in families.

What emotionally charged phrases come off our lips at the moment when we least want it, you need to know. Usually there are two or three, no more. Be sure to write them down and remember them. It is necessary to make every possible use of such psychological "markers" and, having found them, stop in time, interrupting contact with the opponent for a while.

It is helpful to use certain preliminary agreements with your husband, for example, "When I get angry, I leave the room." It would be nice to "mark" and the behavior of the spouse.

Verbal expressions of discontent are more common in women, while in men, discontent can develop into poorly controlled rage. For them, as a rule, actions are much more characteristic than words.

In psychology, there is a concept of the so-called "ladder of anger" or "ladder of aggression". At the very top are physical actions, in other words, assault. Below are rude, offensive shouts, and below them - irritation, discontent. When we are on the bottom rung, we begin to relate to to a loved one as to an outsider or, even worse, as to sworn enemy... If we don't pay enough attention to our irritability, our aggression will inevitably rush up this vicious ladder. Anger will sooner or later replace irritation, and physical violence will eventually take the place of anger.

To prevent this from happening, the joint efforts of both spouses will be required. If the apartment is not cleaned, it will eventually become covered with a thick layer of dust. If you do not follow the emotional coloring matrimonial relations, mutual discontent will increase, and conflicts will multiply day by day. None of those living in the same house, in the same territory, can consider themselves in isolation from their neighbors.

It should be remembered that if anger is characteristic of a family, then anger inevitably penetrates into all its subsystems. In this case, one can usually single out one or two of the most easily excitable "soloists", more often than others prone to outbursts of irritation. They may well be a dad, twitched at the service, or a mother exhausted by night feedings, or maybe a grandmother desperately defending "her territory." As a rule, both adults and children have their own "soloists". The ladder of aggression is linked to each other in a chain: one of them inevitably engages and entails the others.

An increase in the degree of aggression is a wake-up call! If earlier you limited yourself to sullen puffing, but now in the same situations you easily break into a scream, then you have to work hard in order to return aggression to the previous level, otherwise it will inevitably rush up again soon. At the same time, the possible deterioration should not become another reason for despondency, but a serious mobilizing factor.

Often times, you receive a charge of anger outside the family and subsequently rashly unleash it on your children and husband. Anything can become a provoking situation: traffic jams on the road, an uncertain situation at work or at the university, rudeness in a store, clinic, public transport, fear of the neighbors below whom you have poured in, an unpaid loan or an onerous mortgage, chronic fatigue, problems with own parents or the spouse's parents, the time the husband spends outside the family, and much, much more. All these are stressors that fall on us from the outside, something that we cannot influence. We can only try to learn how to control our own reaction to them, and even then not immediately, but tirelessly working on ourselves.

Unfortunately, most of us bring negative emotions home like bags of groceries from the supermarket, but there are people who can shield their families with an invisible spiritual barrier. If you do not have such a skill yet, you should, without postponing the matter indefinitely, start shaping it.

"Traffic light of emotions"

If the apartment is not cleaned, it will eventually become covered with a thick layer of dust. If you do not follow the emotional coloring of marital relations, mutual discontent will increase, and conflicts will multiply day by day.

The concepts of "green", "yellow" and "red" psychological zones can also be attributed to the basic ones. You have to learn to relate your emotional states to them.

Under the "green zone" psychologists mean such control over yourself, in which you are fully responsible for your words and actions and anticipate them. possible consequences... The "green zone" is a territory of calmness, balance, comfort and mutual benevolence of people towards each other.

I want to note that there are such married couples, in whose relationship there is generally no place for a "green zone", because these people did not bother to agree in advance about what exactly they should do in order to prefer joint stay separate, they did not determine how they would spend the evenings together and share the responsibilities associated with everyday life and raising children. If there is little green space, anger and irritation will only build up over time.

In a neutral, calm, conflict-free period of life, you need to formulate for yourself what your "green zone" looks like, because it is no secret that by the time a child reaches one or one and a half years of age, many spouses already forget how good they were just recently how they tenderly cared for each other and tried not to leave the house separately.

Instead of constantly fixing your mind on ill-managed outbursts of anger, it is more useful to think about how to expand the “green”, comfort zone. You can listen to good music before heading off to work, or you can indulge in a coffee in bed.

The incessant vain running around, the feeling that endless affairs are sucking in, interferes with our stay in the "green zone". It seems to us every time: soon we will finish everything, finish things and then we will finally live like a human! The fact is that we perceive our own life as a worthless draft, naively counting on one day to rewrite it completely, and sincerely hope that the real, "worthy of us" life will begin tomorrow, Monday, or, in extreme cases, from the new year. At the same time, our "green zone" shrinks like shagreen skin, and we drive ourselves further and further along the ladder of aggression.

Once in the "yellow zone", you are still aware of the instability of your emotional state, are still able to restrain themselves, even though a wave of anger is already covering you. Consider how easily you can determine the exit point from the comfort green zone and whether your warning system always fires on time. Do you always feel like you are losing your peace and out of balance?

In relationships between adults, feelings of resentment and a sense of abandonment accumulate for a long time, and therefore the reaction to them can be very sharp.

It is necessary to know the individual "markers" indicating the transition to the "yellow" emotional zone. It is worth carefully observing how your condition changes. It is very important to let your spouse understand that something is wrong with you, but this requires a preliminary agreement, which is achieved only in the "green zone". If there is no "green zone" at all, it is impossible to agree on something.

As they say, the rescue of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves. TO married life this statement applies to the fullest. Do not try to start a showdown, being in an irritated state, be sure to wait until you return to the "green zone". In a hurry, you risk immediately ending up in the "red" zone. The main thing, however, is that all family members participating in the proposed discussion agree to recognize this time as neutral, because you yourself can consider it favorable only because you have been waiting all day for the opportunity to start a conversation and carefully prepared for it, and the husband, on the contrary, was preoccupied with completely different things. This possibility should not be forgotten either.

Being in the "red zone" means the inability to control your behavior. At the same time, our actions become inadequate, and we ourselves are "peddling". Being in this state, you will not be able to make an intelligent decision. Everything that you are going to say at the moment when you are overwhelmed with irritation will inevitably be directed not at creation, but at destruction.

Any words that come off your tongue in anger are not the truth, not the truth, not something that can strengthen your relationship. Offensive shouts only aggravate alienation: a black funnel turns, and irritation multiplies.

During emotional outbursts, nothing can be done, silence should be preferred to any action, although anger sometimes bursts out of the chest, and our state is beyond our control.

The extent of all these conditional psychological zones is different for each of us. Truly lucky is someone who is able to linger for a long time in the "yellow zone", but much more often for people prone to anger, this golden mean does not exist at all: at first they perceive everything that is happening around calmly and condescendingly, and then, unexpectedly for themselves and those around them, they suddenly break loose shouting and insults. In this case, you need to carefully and impartially observe the dynamics of your flares.

Relationships with children, especially young children, provide us with an excellent opportunity for such analysis. All children dream of loving and affectionate parents and are ready for a lot for this: they easily forgive our mistakes and willingly go to meet us. Marital relationship in this sense is much more fragile, it is no coincidence that parent-child relationship much more often they become a valve that frees us from accumulated negative emotions.

However, our aggression, albeit provoked by something, should in no case be directed against the closest people, and even objective everyday difficulties cannot serve as an excuse for us. It's much more productive to take out your frustration on a punching bag or go to the nearest park for a run.

Let me remind myself of the notorious sayings: "the end justifies the means" and "the forest is cut - the chips fly." Think about whether you want to be guided by this "wisdom" in family life.

An outburst of anger is not only an involuntarily escaping cry or spontaneous, rash actions, but also the impossibility of immediately soberly assessing them, the impossibility of seeing oneself from the outside. Usually, the anger subsides no later than thirty to forty minutes. It is helpful to keep this in mind if you tend to be angry with children. It is worth explaining this to the child, since the mother's cry lasts for him endlessly, because children have completely different relationships with time. of course, one can only talk about it while staying in the “green zone”.

In fact, I recommend talking with children about all the events that they become witnesses and participants in, for example, explain that mom has an irritable character, and a tired and hungry dad can scream. The child will not grow up to self-awareness of these simple truths soon - it will take several years. You can say to a schoolchild: "We will have a lot of work in December, so better not touch me!" At this age, children are quite capable of understanding the meaning of such warnings.

The irritation we pour out on others is usually redirected from some other, much less unrequited object. For example, at this moment you are ready to tear to pieces your husband, but the cry "to the wrong address" unconsciously seems to you much safer. Or do you have serious problems at work, but then toys scattered on the floor turned up, and anger is released at the child.

You should carefully monitor such redirects and, correcting your behavior, explain what is happening to the children. You can illustrate your words with some fairy tale story or compare what happened with a situation that is well known to all kids, for example: “Do you sometimes quarrel with your girlfriends in kindergarten? So we quarreled with our friends. Forgive us, we got excited, but we will certainly make peace with friends soon! "

The anger we feel towards our children and the anger we feel towards our spouse are of a different nature, they have a different tonality, although they play "on the same team." They reinforce, support each other and rarely compete with each other.

Their goals and tricks can vary significantly, they are introduced into our consciousness in different ways.

The direct result of the defeat of the anger of the marital relationship is microcracks, which at first are easy to repair. However, if you do not pay enough attention to the problem that has arisen and do not take effective measures in time, anger can well destroy your family.

Intrafamilial and extrafamilial factors have different effects on the employed and non-working spouse. For example, a mother who stays at home is usually oppressed by social isolation, the lack of habitual contacts and the household routine that turns her life into an endless “Groundhog Day”. External factors are more likely to test the strength of a working father, however, and he can be negatively affected by the wife's bad mood and her sloven appearance.

And yet, the main reasons for our anger often lie precisely in intrafamilial relationships. We list just a few of them: health problems, misunderstandings between parents on significant issues, financial disagreements, the inability to be alone, lack of attention from the spouse, fatigue and chronic sleep deprivation, noise and disorder caused by children, inappropriateness achieved result high expectations, "midlife crisis."

Of course, this list is far from complete. All of us are faced with countless such factors every day, and the only question is whether our violent reaction to each of them is always justified.

By itself, a sober, critical attitude to stress-forming collisions may well reduce the number and intensity of our angry outbursts. It is the way a person is arranged that, after comprehending and discussing with someone conflict situation, he tends to release his anger by redirecting excess of his emotions in a different direction. It should be borne in mind: the unwillingness of one of the spouses to discuss family problems- this is just the visible tip of the iceberg. Most likely, he not only does not want to speak, but avoids dialogue due to certain reasons... It is possible that in the family in which he grew up, any discussions inevitably ended with screams and swearing. Sometimes in order to destroy such a stereotype, it takes many years and a lot of patience of a loving partner. For those interested in this issue, I can recommend the book by Ron Teffel and Robert Israeloff "Parents Quarrel: What to Do?" ".

How to deal with outbursts of irritation directed at children? There are no general prescriptions on this score, and indeed there cannot be. When it comes to seven- or eight year old child, then counting on its completely adequate response means indulging yourself with unrealizable illusions. Preschoolers for their emotional manifestations they cannot answer at all, and therefore we have no right to demand this from them.

If you understand that a child cannot become cheerful on command or, conversely, focused, if you treat changes in his mood as if the whims of the weather are beyond our control, then it will be much easier to accept them. At the same time, adults, especially those who are tired during the day, may well be irritated by childish stubbornness and whining, the reasons for which they cannot understand in any way.

When a child manifests himself in a way that is unexpected and undesirable for his parents, they often begin to lose their temper. Indeed: we read to him good books, we feed him tasty and healthy food on time, buy him good quality and nice clothes, we regularly take him to developmental classes, but it turns out that we cannot influence him properly!

Parents try to influence children, but these attempts are usually unsuccessful, as a result of which adults feel powerless and mentally empty. The culprit is a false attitude, according to which a good parent at any time can direct his child on the right path. This thought was correct, and even then only in part, two hundred years ago, when it never occurred to anyone to pay such attention to children that we give them now. The situation that has developed in our time, when only one child or, God forbid, two children is growing in a family, is incomparable with the previous one. Nowadays, a child is the navel of the earth, the center of the universe, enthroned by the very fact of his birth! All adult family members revolve around it, like planets around the Sun. Still: so many hopes have been placed on him, so much effort and money has been spent! It was our time that gave rise to a lot of the latest "super ideas" concerning child education that have not been tested in practice.

In fact, it is not always possible to influence children, and anger in in this case is used by us only as one of the most accessible palliatives. However, you still need to control the situation and try to have a beneficial effect on it. Those who wish to learn more about this topic, I refer to great job Rossa Campbell's How to Deal with Child Anger.

Notes (edit)

Groundhog Day(English "Groundhog Day") is a fantastic comedy by the American filmmaker Harold Ramis, which tells the story of a character who finds himself in a kind of time loop from which there is no way out: the next day simply does not come.

Palliative(from late Lat. "pallio" - cover, protect) - a half-measure that does not provide a complete, radical solution to the problem.

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Irritability. Overcoming technique Ekaterina Burmistrova

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Title: Irritability. Overcoming technique

About the book “Irritability. The method of overcoming "Ekaterina Burmistrova

Children's and family psychologist, writer Ekaterina Burmistrova was born in 1973. Her choice of profession was influenced by her acquaintance with the mother of her classmate, who was a psychologist. She was very different from other parents, she never raised her voice, did not shout, she could always listen and give wise advice... Ekaterina Burmistrova decided to follow in her footsteps.

At the age of seventeen, the girl entered the psychological faculty of the Moscow state university... The writer has a large Friendly family with whom she loves to travel, sing, have fun. Armed with theory, Ekaterina Burmistrova long time did not know how to apply it until she gave birth to a child. After rereading the theory again, the psychologist began to actively work with groups of children, consult and engage in private practice. Watching parents and children long time, Ekaterina Burmistrova made her personal conclusion that the child is a "hostage" of family relations.

The book “Irritability. The method of overcoming "is written in the genre psychological counseling and has age limit, which does not recommend reading the work to persons under the age of twelve.

Raising children, one way or another, parents may experience irritation, anger, especially when the child is disobedient, does not justify their hopes. And very often, unable to cope with another outburst of emotions, parents blame themselves for their failure as mentors.

The writer-psychologist compares the eternal irritability with the addiction of alcoholics, she herself will not go anywhere, she must be fought with. First of all, one must have the courage to admit it in oneself. It is important to record those moments when this happens. In the book, the author advises to mitigate the manifestation of irritability by holding your breath, to try to control your emotions and actions. It is important to analyze the bouts of irritability, anger in your family, to remember how it happened when you were little. How did your parents, grandmothers, grandfathers, close relatives behave, as very often we can simply imitate them.

A woman may be annoyed by the mess in the room, half-eaten porridge or dirty dishes, and the fact may be that she herself was the object of irritation before. It is very important to talk a lot with your child, to make him feel confident in you, the ability to contact you at any time. Children often grow up to be too modest, fearful, vulnerable only because they felt a lack of love, guilt for not living up to their parental hopes.

How to overcome your negative emotions, understand your child and be happy parents, you can read in the book “Irritability. The method of overcoming ".

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Ekaterina Alekseevna Burmistrova

Irritability. Parents who want to conquer anger

For those who want to build a happy family

Instead of a preface

Perhaps there are no dads and mothers who from time to time would not be annoyed by the behavior of their children, and at the same time, almost every parent thinks that in terms of anger he has no equal. Everyone else, in his opinion, gets irritated much less often, and perhaps never at all. In today's society, the notion prevails that a good parent should not be irritated with children. Such opinions can seriously poison the life of the family and interfere with the upbringing process.

Usually, irritation arises and accumulates in those situations when mom or dad is unable to correct the individual characteristics of the child's behavior, to cope with some kind of everyday situation.

If the usual ways to influence the situation are not enough, irritation is connected as a spare, albeit unnecessary battery. I have yet to meet people who enjoy their irritability.

Irritation should be viewed as a state of undoubtedly negative and, moreover, after the fact, causing feelings of guilt. In other words, irritation is not only unpleasant at the moment when you are at its mercy, it leaves behind an extremely unpleasant aftertaste. It is because of frequent outbursts of irritation that many parents, especially mothers, believe that they are bad, unsuccessful and incompetent.

How is parental irritation perceived by a child, especially a pre-school child? Shouting, threats and spanking are often seen by him as a manifestation of dislike. The mother gets angry and swears, and the child concludes that she is angry and does not love him at all.

Of course, with age, this view of things inevitably changes. A recent child, who still well remembers the irritability of his parents and his own resentments about this and once sincerely promised in his diary: “I will never, for nothing, shout at children, be angry and annoyed at them!” Becomes a parent himself. then comes the "moment of truth" for him, then comes the first, albeit superficial understanding of the reasons why father and mother seemed so cruel and unjust to him.

It turns out that the parents were not angry at all because they were angry and bad! They just got very tired, not coping with their countless responsibilities. however, understanding why mom and dad were angry, as a rule, does not become a vaccine against their own irritability. The idea that it is necessary to throw out everything sore and depressing is only partly true.

A family is a long-term project, over the course of decades, everything happens to it: some periods turn out to be relatively simple and almost cloudless, while others become a time of a real test of feelings for strength. That is why the exchange of information between spouses is so necessary.

It is no secret that many young families are initially forced to rent a house and only eventually acquire their own homes. In this case, the apartment may be more spacious or more modest, better or worse. Marital communication is built in a similar way: the ability to conduct confidential and sympathetic conversations about the most difficult issues does not always come immediately. During the courtship period, there is no need for this: the heads of the lovers are busy with completely different things. True communication is the prerogative of a mature family, whose members are well aware: each of them is a complex set of merits and flaws, which are in a constant and fierce struggle among themselves, where "the battlefield is the human heart." Communication skill is not a bonus attached to a marriage certificate, but the result of many years of painstaking and responsible work. However, it is the absence of this experience that gives rise to a large extent to spontaneous outbursts of destructive emotions.

Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.

Chronic irritability can be compared to a morbid addiction to alcohol or the habit of spending evenings in front of the TV. You can compare it with playing sports - the more diligently we “pump” our muscles, the stronger they become, or with a traveler wandering through the desert: the more water he drinks, the more painfully his thirst overcomes.

The more often we experience irritation, the more compulsive it becomes to pour it out on someone. However, we all need to remember: you cannot get rid of negativity just by throwing it out. so you can only "feed" and "lull" him for a while. At the same time, irritation will hide and will only wait for the right moment in order to publicly declare itself with renewed vigor. This is one of the "anger traps".

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Ekaterina Alekseevna Burmistrova
Irritability. Parents who want to conquer anger

For those who want to build a happy family

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Instead of a preface

Perhaps there are no dads and mothers who from time to time would not be annoyed by the behavior of their children, and at the same time, almost every parent thinks that in terms of anger he has no equal. Everyone else, in his opinion, gets irritated much less often, and perhaps never at all. In today's society, the notion prevails that a good parent should not be irritated with children. Such opinions can seriously poison the life of the family and interfere with the upbringing process.

Usually, irritation arises and accumulates in those situations when mom or dad is unable to correct the individual characteristics of the child's behavior, to cope with some kind of everyday situation.

If the usual ways to influence the situation are not enough, irritation is connected as a spare, albeit unnecessary battery. I have yet to meet people who enjoy their irritability.

Irritation should be viewed as a state of undoubtedly negative and, moreover, after the fact, causing feelings of guilt. In other words, irritation is not only unpleasant at the moment when you are at its mercy, it leaves behind an extremely unpleasant aftertaste. It is because of frequent outbursts of irritation that many parents, especially mothers, believe that they are bad, unsuccessful and incompetent.

How is parental irritation perceived by a child, especially a pre-school child? Shouting, threats and spanking are often seen by him as a manifestation of dislike. The mother gets angry and swears, and the child concludes that she is angry and does not love him at all.

Of course, with age, this view of things inevitably changes. A recent child, who still well remembers the irritability of his parents and his own resentments about this and once sincerely promised in his diary: “I will never, for nothing, shout at children, be angry and annoyed at them!” Becomes a parent himself. then comes the "moment of truth" for him, then comes the first, albeit superficial understanding of the reasons why father and mother seemed so cruel and unjust to him.

It turns out that the parents were not angry at all because they were angry and bad! They just got very tired, not coping with their countless responsibilities. however, understanding why mom and dad were angry, as a rule, does not become a vaccine against their own irritability. The idea that it is necessary to throw out everything sore and depressing is only partly true.

A family is a long-term project, over the course of decades, everything happens to it: some periods turn out to be relatively simple and almost cloudless, while others become a time of a real test of feelings for strength. That is why the exchange of information between spouses is so necessary.

It is no secret that many young families are initially forced to rent a house and only eventually acquire their own homes. In this case, the apartment may be more spacious or more modest, better or worse. Marital communication is built in a similar way: the ability to conduct confidential and sympathetic conversations about the most difficult issues does not always come immediately. During the courtship period, there is no need for this: the heads of the lovers are busy with completely different things. True communication is the prerogative of a mature family, whose members are well aware: each of them is a complex set of merits and flaws, which are in a constant and fierce struggle among themselves, where "the battlefield is the human heart." Communication skill is not a bonus attached to a marriage certificate, but the result of many years of painstaking and responsible work. However, it is the absence of this experience that gives rise to a large extent to spontaneous outbursts of destructive emotions.

Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.

Chronic irritability can be compared to a morbid addiction to alcohol or the habit of spending evenings in front of the TV. You can compare it with playing sports - the more diligently we “pump” our muscles, the stronger they become, or with a traveler wandering through the desert: the more water he drinks, the more painfully his thirst overcomes.

The more often we experience irritation, the more compulsive it becomes to pour it out on someone. However, we all need to remember: you cannot get rid of negativity just by throwing it out. so you can only "feed" and "lull" him for a while. At the same time, irritation will hide and will only wait for the right moment in order to publicly declare itself with renewed vigor. This is one of the "anger traps".

A kind of angry intoxication may arise when the level of mutual irritation in the family rises so much that its members have to agree on some kind of pause, about some kind of truce with each other.

The habit of letting off steam every now and then has the most negative impact on our relationships with children. Moreover, they inevitably transfer it to their peers, as well as to their younger brothers and sisters.

Eastern wisdom says: "An irritated teacher does not educate, but only annoys." A parent in this state can achieve his goal in the short term, but he lays in a child's soul a vicious model of emotional behavior: when something goes wrong, turn on your irritation, press on your neighbor, "and you will be happy!"

The child easily masters this simple tactic and with its help really more and more often achieves that, for example, they turn on a "cartoon", even if at this time they have to do completely different things, buy a desired, but not at all necessary toy or add an extra a spoonful of sugar into porridge.

What can you recommend to parents in this regard? First of all, admit that you are annoyed, even if you absolutely do not like it. Likewise, the Alcoholics Anonymous program considers the patient's very admission of an addiction as the first and defining step on the path to recovery from addiction. To humbly admit the existence of an urgent problem means ten to fifteen percent closer to solving it.

Following this, you need to honestly answer the question: do you really want to get rid of this habit? If, being irritated, you feel quite comfortable, then there is no reason to talk, but if irritability really bothers you, you should make every effort to get rid of it.

Before you start fighting this habit, you need to understand its nature. What should we know about irritation? First, we must determine in what situations it usually occurs, where the keys are hidden, with the help of which anger penetrates into our souls. After carefully observing ourselves for two to three weeks and scrupulously recording the situations that provoked irritation in a notebook, any of us will be able to identify the factors that cause a negative emotional reaction.

We are talking about the so-called "normative conflicts", about the very "rakes" that we step on every day, or even several times a day. For example, every night when we try to brush our children’s teeth, they try to run away, and this behavior irritates us. Knowing this in advance, we can prepare ourselves internally by forming an anticipatory reaction that will prevent anger from taking over us unhindered.

The next step should be to observe when and how our state changes. For example, just now you were calm, you talked to everyone evenly and kindly, but after a minute you start to scream and tug on someone's ears ... Almost everyone can analyze the development of a situation in which irritation arises, but this requires a certain methodology ... I insist that it is necessary to record the results of your observations on paper, otherwise a mess will inevitably arise in your head.

It is important to understand how this process takes place. Usually the mind begins to take possession of an obsessive thought: "That's it, I can't stand it anymore!" - and now anger covers us with a turbid wave. For some people, the anticipatory sensation is certain physical symptoms - for example, their breathing and heartbeat become faster, their cheeks turn red and their fists clench reflexively. Someone starts pacing excitedly around the room, touching the surrounding objects, or grabs a cigarette, like a lifeline.

In the fight against irritability, it is extremely important to fix the moment of "emotional transition". Having identified it, try for three to five seconds to hold and balance on the verge of a breakdown, be patient a little and, perhaps, hold your breath for a short time. If this technique works, then the emerging ability to mitigate irritation may well turn out to be the next step on the way to consciously aligning your behavior.

In order to get rid of bouts of anger, you need to realize their true nature, to understand if you have encountered something similar in your parental family. We must try to remember who often raised their voice at you - grandmother, father, kindergarten teacher or primary school teacher. Think, in whose voice your irritation persistently declares itself.

We all come from childhood, each of us at the level of memories captures the behavior of parents and people who are significant to us, and in similar situations tends to imitate him. For example, cleaning an apartment on a single day off was completely natural for our mothers and fathers, because they simply had no alternative. Of course, times have changed, but even those of us who have the opportunity to work remotely, at home at the computer, unconsciously copy this weekly routine, which has long turned into a ritual.

Mom may not even know why she is so annoyed by the forever untied shoelaces on her son's shoes or the semolina smeared on the table. Then the door to the nursery slammed loudly, a cup of milk fell and broke on the floor, a hole appeared in a school uniform, a notebook for written homework was filled with crossed out and blots - and emotions are already overwhelming the woman. Everyday life situations in which children find themselves can cause violent outbursts of irritation in her. And the thing is that she herself once turned out to be the object of such flashes.

Realizing that your emotional response clearly does not correspond to the cause that caused it, you can be sure: either unconscious childhood memories have entered into action (someone from your loved ones was inclined to get irritated in such situations; you remembered these outbursts of anger and now reproduce them diligently) or you are in a state of chronic nervous overload.

Our childhood was spent in nurseries and kindergartens, which means that most of the time we spent in the company of women, often lonely and, as a result, emotionally unrestrained.

Schools and kindergartens have traditionally used and are still using tough methods of team management. In families, however, this approach is not applicable. Look again your old photos, remember conversations with relatives. In order to make the reactions manageable, I advise you to activate childhood memories and relive them.

Causes of parental anger and the forms it takes

Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.

Some people tend to get annoyed in situations involving certain physical conditions. For example, for many of us, chronic sleep deprivation is becoming the strongest provoking factor. An unstable, tense, nervous and unfriendly environment at work, dissatisfaction with marital relations can also become the reasons for increased irritability. Make every effort not to load your child with problems that have nothing to do with him. In such cases, it’s better to just say to yourself: “Today I didn’t get enough sleep again and I resemble a car that loses control on a slippery road, which means I should concentrate and be more careful when cornering!”

You can try to explain to teenagers: “Now I am completely and completely absorbed in work, I am very tired and, probably, that is why I am angry with you more often than usual. However, my condition does not at all indicate that I have stopped loving you. Believe me, it has nothing to do with you at all! "

Talk to your child more often, trust him more! Remember that irritation causes guilt not only among parents, but also among those to whom it is directed, according to the principle: "If my mother is angry with me, then I am bad, I am not worthy of love!" In the future, all this can lead to an unjustified decrease in the child's self-esteem. In addition, many children and adolescent problems parents begin to explain by the fact that once they yelled at the baby, spanked him unfairly, were unjustifiably harsh with him and as a result “pecked”.

This is not to say that any manifestations of our anger are completely safe, but the feeling of guilt generated by emotional outbursts prevents us from seeing the true reasons why a child grows up fearful, unbalanced or overly shy. Guilt distorts our awareness of cause and effect.

Generally speaking, children are very stress-resistant creatures. One-off outbursts of parental irritation most likely will not do much harm to their psyche, but systematic manifestations of discontent will almost certainly entail long-term negative consequences.

If you often find yourself annoyed, try changing something about yourself. At the same time, do not expect rapid changes: the process may well drag on for many months, or even years. If you managed to take even a small step in the right direction, since you were able to determine the nature of your irritability and have learned to control it at least a little, then a good start has been made. However, until the possibility of your emotional breakdowns is completely ruled out, you should often repeat to the child: “Mom always loves you, loves you, even when she is angry, even when she screams! She raises her voice simply because she has such a character, but at the same time she sincerely wishes you well. "

The little man is not able to comprehend these simple truths on his own. After all, we ourselves came to realize them only when we grew up. Don't wait that long! the child should explain everything in a calm environment. When the right words are found and pronounced on time, mother's or father's negative emotions will no longer, as before, poison and destroy their relationship with children.

To a certain extent, the splash of parental irritation can be compared with the safety function of a pressure cooker valve, which is absolutely necessary. It is only important to make sure that emotional outbursts do not cripple the child's psyche, do not destroy your relationship with him, do not undermine the calm and do not poison the friendly atmosphere in the family.

If your irritation was inadequate and you just wanted to let off the accumulated steam, and a child accidentally fell under your arm, then it's not a sin to ask him for forgiveness. Another thing is how often you have to apologize for your unmotivated outbursts. If breakdowns occur several times a day, such an apology will only indicate the inconsistency of your pedagogical position.

If you share your thoughts about your excessive irritability with your spouse, and possibly someone else, everyone will only feel better. The main thing in this situation is not to bend under the weight of inescapable guilt, not to indulge in self-hypnosis: "We get annoyed every now and then, and therefore, we are lousy parents, and nothing can be done about it!" In no case do not succumb to fruitless despondency and do not fold your hands helplessly! Remember, you cannot live without mistakes in family life, but it is important to track the dynamics of relationships. The very fact of realizing your own shortcomings and a firm intention to fight them indicate that you have entered the right path and, sooner or later, will certainly become the masters of the situation.

"Ladder of aggression"

The splash of parental irritation can, to a certain extent, be compared to the safety function of a pressure cooker valve.

Irritability can be driven deep inside by systematically redirecting it, avoiding sharp corners, and avoiding risky situations. However, in this case only the “tops” are cut off, while the “roots” remain intact. After waiting in fertile soil, they will give rise to new, even more powerful and poisonous shoots.

Sometimes, after we receive some useful information, there is a sharp improvement in family relations, followed by an equally rapid deterioration. Hopes give way to bitter disappointment: a scheme that seemed ideal and universal before suddenly does not work in your case. I want to warn you: here you are faced with a very common phenomenon. Don't count on daily and indispensable progress! The process of harmonizing the internal state can be characterized by the well-known formulation: "One step forward, two steps back." Only gradual, barely noticeable shifts can really change the situation for the better over time.

Remember some situation that seemed to inevitably throw you off balance, but for some reason this did not happen and you managed to stay on the edge without slipping. Out of your usual anger, you should have yelled at someone, and you just gritted your teeth, you should have been “supposed” to hit the plates on the floor, and you managed to do without excesses ... What happened is the result of your efforts, which should be sincerely rejoiced.

What to do, life teaches us to notice only our mistakes and failures, not celebrating even small, but nevertheless very significant victories. Unfortunately, the ability to gratefully rejoice in good things is not inherent in everyone. such a state requires a certain emotional culture, which we are deprived of.

By the way, in this respect, both adults and children are alike. Meanwhile, praise is a much more effective method than punishment, and encouragement is much more effective than punishment.

We find it difficult to praise anyone, including ourselves. With half a sin, we still manage to encourage children, but even this is not easy for us until we learn to give due to ourselves and our spouse. We have to make a decisive choice, deciding for ourselves once and for all: will we fix our attention on our successes or will we focus only on failures and failures. Whether we prefer to "nag" each other or try to support and inspire each other.

Fixation on shortcomings, accompanied by endless reproaches, is an endless field for cultivating anger.

Negative emotions that have accumulated as a result of everyday intra-family friction are spilled out without any apparent reason. At such moments, even some insignificant, but recklessly hasty phrase may turn out to be the “last straw”.

Among psychologists, the term "negative reinforcement" is common. Let me explain its essence using a simple everyday example. Let's say you come home from work, walk into the kitchen and find your husband trying to cook dinner for you. At the same time, you annoyed: “The vegetables for the salad are cut too finely (or, conversely, too coarsely), but the tea, dear, you brewed the wrong one! Is it so hard to remember that in the evenings I prefer green and weak? "

You have fixed your focus on flaws. This is the very negative reinforcement that inevitably leads to outbursts of anger and subsequent mutual alienation. Unfortunately, in our daily behavior, remarks, shouts, sarcasm and notation are the very tools with which we somehow prefer to work.

Usually, negative emotional reinforcement expresses all the discontent that has accumulated over the years for a variety of reasons. At the same time, the phrases we throw out casually often turn out to be much more significant than the reasons that caused them. In the end, family relationships reach that "point of no return" when they no longer satisfy both spouses.

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Let us reflect on our desire not to thank and praise, but to be ironic about each other. Let's think, did something similar happen in the families in which we grew up? "I copy my mom, although I never imagined that I would do it!" - we usually come to such a disappointing argument sooner or later. Between the second and tenth year of the family's existence, almost every couple goes through a period of re-enactment of the parenting scenario, and it is almost impossible to completely avoid this.

While the kids were growing up, the irritation went away like sand, because children are noisy creatures, but unrequited. When they finally got their own families and left home, the conflicts between the spouses escalated. In addition, increased irritability is often directly related to the specificity of the female hormonal system. It is no secret that women are usually the main spokesmen for discontent in families.

What emotionally charged phrases come off our lips at the moment when we least want it, you need to know. Usually there are two or three, no more. Be sure to write them down and remember them. It is necessary to make every possible use of such psychological "markers" and, having found them, stop in time, interrupting contact with the opponent for a while.

It is helpful to use certain preliminary agreements with your husband, for example, "When I get angry, I leave the room." It would be nice to "mark" and the behavior of the spouse.

Verbal expressions of discontent are more common in women, while in men, discontent can develop into poorly controlled rage. For them, as a rule, actions are much more characteristic than words.

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In psychology, there is a concept of the so-called "ladder of anger" or "ladder of aggression". At the very top are physical actions, in other words, assault. Below are rude, offensive shouts, and below them - irritation, discontent. Being on the lower level, we begin to treat a loved one as an outsider or, even worse, as a sworn enemy. If we don't pay enough attention to our irritability, our aggression will inevitably rush up this vicious ladder. Anger will sooner or later replace irritation, and physical violence will eventually take the place of anger.

To prevent this from happening, the joint efforts of both spouses will be required. If the apartment is not cleaned, it will eventually become covered with a thick layer of dust. If you do not follow the emotional coloring of marital relations, mutual discontent will increase, and conflicts will multiply day by day. None of those living in the same house, in the same territory, can consider themselves in isolation from their neighbors.

It should be remembered that if anger is characteristic of a family, then anger inevitably penetrates into all its subsystems. In this case, one can usually single out one or two of the most easily excitable "soloists", more often than others prone to outbursts of irritation. They may well be a dad, twitched at the service, or a mother exhausted by night feedings, or maybe a grandmother desperately defending "her territory." As a rule, both adults and children have their own "soloists". The ladder of aggression is linked to each other in a chain: one of them inevitably engages and entails the others.

An increase in the degree of aggression is a wake-up call! If earlier you limited yourself to sullen puffing, but now in the same situations you easily break into a scream, then you have to work hard in order to return aggression to the previous level, otherwise it will inevitably rush up again soon. At the same time, the possible deterioration you noted should not become another reason for despondency, but a serious mobilizing factor.

Often times, you receive a charge of anger outside the family and subsequently rashly unleash it on your children and husband. Anything can be a provoking situation: traffic jams on the road, an uncertain situation at work or at the university, rudeness in a store, clinic, public transport, fear of the neighbors below whom you have filled in, an unpaid loan or burdensome mortgage, chronic fatigue, problems with your own parents or your spouse's parents, the time your husband spends outside the family, and much, much more. All these are stressors that fall on us from the outside, something that we cannot influence. We can only try to learn how to control our own reaction to them, and even then not immediately, but tirelessly working on ourselves.

Unfortunately, most of us bring negative emotions home like bags of groceries from the supermarket, but there are people who can shield their families with an invisible spiritual barrier. If you do not have such a skill yet, you should, without postponing the matter indefinitely, start shaping it.