Peaceful Tarbiyah- Self Regulation: Anger Management
Anger is a natural, though sometimes unwanted or irrational, an emotion that everybody experiences. As long as we are human, we will still find ourselves angry from time to time. When we are swept with anger, our hormones and neurotransmitters are over-reactive putting us in fight or flight mode. Our children seem to be the enemy and we often resort to yelling, shaming, name-calling and say and do things we don’t mean which in turn damages our relationship with our children. Anger Management can help us keep calm and control our emotions whilst angry. Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, “Verily, anger is a burning ember in the heart of the son of Adam, as you see it in the redness of his eyes and the bulging of his veins. Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2191.
We cannot promise ourselves to refrain from anger altogether since it’s a natural emotion. However we can promise ourselves to learn to manage it so that we are not hurting our loved ones, being good role models to our children and most importantly pleasing Allah as He the exalted says in the Quran, “And march forth in the way (which leads to) forgiveness from your Lord, and for Paradise as wide as the heavens and the earth, prepared for the pious. Those who spend (in God’s Cause) in prosperity and in adversity, who repress anger, and who pardon the people; verily, God loves the good-doers.”(Quran 3:133-134)
Tips to Anger Management
1.Timeout: Recognise you are angry and acknowledge your rage, give yourself a timeout instead of putting our children in a timeout for their behaviour. Timeouts give us the time to calm down and get a grip on ourselves. When in a timeout:
✨Seek Refuge in Allah: Prophet Muhammad said to his Companions, “I know words that if he were to say them his anger would go away, if he said, “I seek refuge with Allah from Satan,” what he feels would go away.” Sahih Al Bukhari
✨Make Wudu: Our Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) said, Anger comes from Satan, Satan was created from fire, and fire is extinguished only with water; so when any of you is angry, he should perform ablution”. Abu Dawood
✨Change Positions: Prophet Muhammad offered a sequence of actions to defuse anger. “If any of you becomes angry and he is standing, let him sit down, so his anger will go away; if it does not go away, let him lie down.” [At-Tirmidi]
✨Engage in Dhikr: “ Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.” [Quran 13:28] Dhikr has a beautiful calming effect on mind, body and soul which we need most when we are enraged.
2. Wait before disciplining: It sure drives us crazy when our children push their boundaries and act out. As much as we want to fix their behaviour we need to keep in mind that this cannot be done effectively when we are angry, as we might cause more harm than benefit. After a 10 minute timeout, if we still feel furious, we need to communicate to our children that we need more time to think about what happened and we will talk about it later. Remember it’s not an emergency, it’s just your child showing us they need help and we cannot help them when we ourselves need to help to calm down. Before correcting and reasoning with our children we need to be in a peaceful place from which we can guide and mentor.
3. Say no to Yelling, threats and physical force: Name-calling, yelling, threatening and spanking may make us feel better temporarily because it helps us discharge the anger but it causes lasting damage and scars our children’s minds for life. It sabotages the positive things we do as parents, erodes into valuable relationship capital and causes trauma to our children. We need to do whatever it takes to stop ourselves from harming our children. Physical and verbal abuse is non-negotiable! If it’s the only thing we need to refrain from as parents, This is it!
4. Choose your battles: One negative interaction with our children puts 5 of our positive interactions at stake! Think before reacting, is it worth it? We need to focus on what matters the most to us like the way our children treat others, whilst the towel on the floor might drive us crazy, is it worth putting our relationship with our children at risk?
5. Reflect on our anger: After we have dealt with the situation that made us angry, we need to take time to think about what made us angry in the first place. Was it hurt of an underlying feeling from our childhood? Was it our child challenging the authority that made us upset? Sometimes it might not be our children altogether we might have had a rough day at work or had a disagreement with our spouse/friend, or it could simply be that we are too tired and frustrated. If we are open to emotional growth our children have the power to show us places that need healing within us!
Effective Anger Management is a sign of righteousness. A righteous person is promised Paradise and one of the characteristics of righteousness is being able to control anger.
Always Remember our children need our love and attention when they least deserve it! So come with love always!
How do you deal with our children when angry?
Comment below and let us know.
