Conflicts and misinterpretations often lead to anger with parents, resulting in the development of future relationships with a lack of love and trust. Conflicts with biological parents, stepparents, foster and adoptive parents may vary in intensity, and even change drastically due to the separation and divorce of parents. In addition, bad parental relationships may worsen due to the following:
·
The birth of a new baby
demanding more parental attention.
·
Financial problems, such
as unemployment.
·
Development of anxiety
and depression in both parents and children.
·
Experiences of abuse and
bullying at home, at school or elsewhere.
·
Drug and alcohol use.
Children, while growing up into preteens and teenagers, often become more
independent and more responsible, with their own perspectives and preferences
in every aspect of their lives. Their mental and emotional changes are the
foundations of their disagreements with their parents, including their time
management, their doings, and non-doings, as well as their obedience and
disobedience to their parents’ demands.
Irrational anger
On November 21, 2022, a 10-year-old boy shot and killed his mother
by mistake. He allegedly claimed he took the
gun from his mother’s bedroom down to the basement, where his mother was doing
her laundry. The boy initially claimed that he was twirling the gun around his
fingers when it went off and “accidentally” killed his mother.
But, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the boy later confessed that he
carried out the heinous act out of his anger after his mother refused to
buy him a VR headset. Members of his family further revealed the 10-year-old
boy’s many previous episodes of erratic anger and rage issues, such as setting
fire at home and causing explosion when his demands were rejected by his
mother.
Even while being interrogated by the FBI,
the boy surprisingly asked if the VR headset that he ordered from Amazon the
day after killing his mother had arrived or not.
The Bottom Line
So, as a parent, you need to improve your
relationships with your children by doing the following:
·
Spending more quality
time with more one-on-one interactions with your children as they grow up.
·
Finding the right time
to address any issue, instead of responding to it right away.
·
Listening to complaints
without any interruption.
·
Acknowledging their
needs and wants, and explaining to them the differences between needs and
wants.
·
Connecting or
reconnecting them with warmth, such as hugging.
·
Being willing and open
to any compromise.
·
Teaching them about
love, compassion, forgiveness, and empathy.
·
Helping them set their
own life goals, and not what you want them to do.
Angry No More: A new book on how to control and eradicate your anger.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
