I am a parent of two small children, three years old and six months, and am struggling to control my temper.
I have never hit or hurt my children and never would, but I feel sickened with myself for feeling rage towards my older child and shouting. I feel urges to hit my older child when I am angry but would never do so.
I don’t know if these urges are related to my experiences of being physically abused as a child and, if so, what I can do to control them. I have made my child cry a number of times by shouting, and I can’t bear the thought of recreating the same atmosphere of anxiety and fear that I often lived with as a child. I am not offering my past as an excuse for these feelings – there is no justification for cruelty. However, I have felt worthless as a result of my experiences and am trying to see if there is a connection and, if so, how understanding that could help me manage and control my emotions.
It’s very brave of you to admit to these feelings and behaviours, and I’m so sorry you were physically abused. We are the product of our upbringing and this can be triggered when we ourselves become parents. I wish this was something that was taught in antenatal classes. It would be far more useful than learning how to swaddle a dolly.
But our behaviour is ours to own, and change if need be. I don’t think there’s a parent alive who hasn’t at one time or another shouted at their children, but sustained, repetitive shouting at children is harmful. So well done for getting help.
I went to UKCP-registered psychotherapist Matthew Jenkins who noted that you mention the word control four times in your relatively short letter, adding: “So there seems to be a fear there of losing control and, although you say you’d never hurt your children, you do seem frightened by the intensity of your feelings.”
Children who have witnessed parents lose control in an unpredictable and frightening manner can become afraid of losing control when they become adults. The first question I’d ask is, what does losing control look and feel like to you? I’ve seen many letters from people who have tried to maintain control in their lives as a form of protection, and then they become parents themselves. Children disrupt control and then can trigger things in us we didn’t even know were there, or that we haven’t processed properly. We can also see ourselves reflected back in our children, and if we don’t like ourselves very much (due to early experiences when we were shouted at, or hit, for example) that can be a painful, reactive process.
We can also recreate atmospheres that, while incredibly uncomfortable and even harmful, we recognise from childhood, as you so astutely say. We recreate them because they feel familiar; this is how trauma patterns work. The key is to break this “script”. It is 100% possible. I would really recommend you talk to someone, preferably a professional, where you can begin to understand your feelings and unhitch yourself from the unhelpful ones. The fact that you have written in shows that you want to do things differently, and you can. You don’t hit your children – this is already a sign that you are starting to do things differently.
Jenkins wanted to remind you that “no parent is perfect”, adding: “Instead of setting your inner critic on yourself, to berate you for your mistakes, focus on learning from them and moving forward.”
I know this is hard because the shouting makes you feel bad and thus the circle goes on. When you feel like shouting, try to pause and count to 10. I know it sounds trite but it does take the immediate emotional heat out of the situation; or remove yourself if it’s safe to do so. But ask yourself: “What is this bringing up for me?”
With time you can really home in on what that is, and realise that it’s almost always not what’s happening in front of you, not about your child, but something else, something from before.
Being a parent to two very young children isn’t easy. What support do you have around you for you? An inner lament of lots of relatively new parents is: “What about me?”
We put so much into our children that we can feel resentful. What about you? Also remember, if you do shout, apologise.
“I’m sorry it was not your fault” goes a long way. But, ultimately, apologies without changed behaviour become meaningless.
• For counselling information visit: British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Bacp.co.uk; UK Council for Psychotherapy ukcp.org.uk.
• Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.
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