Anger

The thing that scares me the most is Anger. Yes you read that right. You cannot have a normal conversation with anger.

Anger changes your face.
Anger shuts off your brain.
Anger causes you pain.
Anger has never resolved anything.
Anger makes your body tense up.
Anger makes you do things that normally you wouldnt.
Anger makes you say things that you did not mean to say.
Anger changes every ones moods almost instantly.
Anger takes your fears away.
Anger causes others pain.
Anger tells you its not your fault.
Anger make your ear's stop working.
Anger changes the tone in your voice.
Anger causes hate.
Anger raises your blood pressure.
Anger makes you think you are in control.

You get the idea. I personally don't deal with anger. I will walk away from it every time. Funny when I do walk away from anger, anger just yells louder thinking that will get my attention.

I had an opportunity to watch two children over the summer. The children were abused by the "dad". The dad did not know how to control his anger. Anger brought stress to this family. Anger broke this family apart.

I really did not know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to watch them. The first day was ruff on me. I expected some anger, but was not expecting this much anger. Each time one would get angry, I would simply say, in a calm voice. "we don't hit the ones we love".

I knew that day, I was not the person for this job. But I was all that they had for right now. I knew I needed information about this subject. I sent out 100 emails to everyone that I knew that have kids. I wanted to know if siblings acted this way. I didn't know cause I don't have brothers or sisters. After I hit the send button, I sat there expecting an email back right then. I don't know why I thought that. I guess, I wanted the information so bad.

You know only 1 person emailed me back. 1 out of 100. Kim is the only one that replied and called me later that day and said, you know what might help, my husband and I teach an anger management course. Would you like to attend one? I jumped at the chance to go.

Kim gave me the date and the class time. I showed up a few minutes early. Since I had no clue what to expect. I walked in and the room was already full. I went to the registration table and met Kim, she greeted me and we chatted for a couple of minutes. She said grab yourself a chair and sit anywhere.

I did just that, but I thought it would be best that I sit in the back of the room. I was only there to observe. Or so I thought. The instructor, tries to get everyone involved. As the class was coming to an end, the instructor said any last thoughts? One man said "you know it is easier to get angry than to deal with it". How true is that statement?

I did get a couple of good ideas from the class. Like teaching the kids that anger is a choice.

The next time I saw them, I sat us all down, took out the crayons and had all of us make Anger signs. We colored for the better part of an hour. We talked about anger and how we have the choice to be angry or not. When we finished our signs, I said follow me. We walked to the front door and I opened the door and said now throw your anger out the door. We all threw them out. I said " now all of our anger is outside of this house. "

The next thing, I taught them sign language. They loved it so much that they begged their mom to get books from the library so that they could learn. I did this for a couple of reasons, so that they could learn something new and it was a way for me to control their anger. When their anger would rise up, I would sign to them, "what is wrong?" if they did not know a word I would have them look it up in the book. By the time that they figured out what I had said, their anger was almost gone. The rest of it would leave when they had to look up what was wrong and sign it to me.

Both of the kids are back in school now. From what the mom tells me, they are doing really good.