CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• FEATURE ARTICLE: "What I Learned About Grandparenting from Roy Rogers"
• PARENTING WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING IN AN AGE OF NO FEAR
  PART 9
  THE WRATH OF OUR CHILDREN
  by Mikal Frazier
  

In a few days, Ann I will be presenting a family program in Danville, Illinois. Part of our assignment involves a presentation on "God's Plan for Grandparents." Over the next two or three weeks, we are going to share some of our thoughts about grandparents. The first installment concerns Grandparents as a resource for important stories, which have the power to shape and mold lives.

Concern about various forms of rage has been widely discussed in various formats. We've heard quite a lot about road rage. Irrational rage has made us all edgy. A few months ago, I walked through the back doors of our local post office to pick up a package. The postal works were shocked that no one stopped me. They thought security was tighter than that. They have taken numerous precautions because more that one disgruntled postal worker has entered a post office and started shooting. In last Sunday's sermon at Southern Hills, Eddie Randolph observed that "anger is woven into the fabric of our society." Some of that anger is being expressed by children. Recently, we were asked to address the subject of "child rage." I passed the request along to Mikal. This week she discusses the subject of anger.

Norman

by Norman Bales

Recently, the news media reported the death of Roy Rogers. While I never met Roy, I almost felt like I had lost a member of my family. Roy and his beautiful Palomino horse, Trigger, created remarkable childhood memories. I remember crying after watching the movie in which Trigger's mother died. Roy Rogers was a primary source of entertainment in my early years.

Beyond that Roy Rogers was a teacher of morality. He was always the good guy in the white hat, who stood for right principles and against the greedy bad guys with a twisted view of right and wrong. A few days ago, I went to see a modern day cowboy show, The Horse Whisperer, which stars Robert Redford. The Redford character is a person who vacillates between right and wrong (although he comes out well in the end). With Roy, right and wrong never got confused. I eventually outgrew my childhood adulation of Roy Rogers, the hero, but I retained an interest in him as a man. In 1994, I visited the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville, California. I was glad to know that my boyhood hero didn't have feet of clay. Oh, I'm sure he wasn't a perfect man, but he obviously lived his life as a man of character, compassion and respect for God. I will miss him.

My visit to the museum in Victorville came during time I spent with my grandchildren who were living in the area at the time. When I told of my plans to visit the Roy Rogers Museum, my grandson shocked me. He asked, "Who's Roy Rogers?" At that moment I filled in some of the gaps in his learning. He found out about the "King of the Cowboys."

That short exchange of conversation between my grandson and me taught me a valuable lesson about the role of grandparents. It is our job to pass history on to the next generation. John Rosemond put it this way, "Grandparents should be one of a child's most valuable resources. They should be gentle teachers of the way life was; and the way it always should be."

When God passed over Egypt to strike down the firstborn in every Egyptian home, he spared children of the Hebrews. Afterwards Moses instructed the children of Israel to prepare an annual Passover feast. He said, "And when your children shall ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrificed to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our home when he struck down the Egyptians" (Exodus 12:26-27). That ceremony was handed down through succeeding generations. Grandparents were an important link in the process.

Later when the children of Israel crossed over the Jordan River, Joshua ordered the people to dislodge stones from the riverbed. The stones became a part of a memorial to remind the succeeding generations that God brought his people across the river on dry land. Joshua instructed the people, "In the future, when your children ask, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them . . .." Again, we are looking at a significant event to be remembered among the God's people. Who perpetuates the story? Parents, grandparents and other ancestors.

Identity, moral standards, doctrines, ideals are all communicated through story. The Bible begins with the story of creation and ends with the story of what is yet to be. If grandparents don't perpetuate the story, significant portions of it may well be lost.

NEXT WEEK: BUT NANNIE IS FUN

PART 9
THE WRATH OF OUR CHILDREN
by Mikal Frazier MA, MMFT, LMFT, LPC

Anger is God-given. It is an emotion closely connected to our survival instinct. It protects us from harm as it readies us for action. And as Harville Hendrix says in Giving the Love That Heals, anger is "also the other side of hurt, shame, and humiliation--- emotions and experiences that also stir the survival instinct." Hendrix goes on to say, "If anger were always suppressed, passion would atrophy, and our children could become victims of many dangerous circumstances."

Anger is always a secondary emotion. It is precipitated by emotions like hurt, fear or frustration. Anger is the response to these emotions. For this reason it is easy to focus on the anger and overlook the underlying issues.

As Norman Wright and Gary Oliver point out in Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids, "anger is energy. Our kids can choose to either spend it or invest. Aparent's job is to teach children to harness and channel that energy in healthy, positive, and constructive ways."

As you can see, anger can be positive and useful. It protects us. It signals us that something is wrong. And it is energy to accomplish a desired outcome. But as Hendrix points out, "When uncontained, anger sabotages a desired outcome." This is the kind of anger that concerns parents when they see it in their children.

When parents come to therapy with concerns about their children's anger, it is this uncontained, sabotaging anger which is creating the parents' alarm. When this is the presenting problem, there are three areas to examine.

First, what skills in managing and containing anger are being modeled for the child? "My mother told me the other day that she is surprised at how angry I get when she tells me I can't have everything my way. While she was talking to me her voice got louder and louder and her face became red. She said, 'Haven't I told you that nobody will respect you if you keep losing your temper the way you do? You've got to get rid of that habit!' You should have seen how mad my mom was when she told me that I need to quit being so angry!" (from The Angry Teenager by William Lee Carter).

• Our most effective method of teaching our children is by our own behavior as parents. Parents report that managing their own anger is one of their most difficult tasks. In a seminar entitled "In Their Father's Eyes," David Lewis, et al., reported that children also state that their parents' angry outbursts have been among their most hurtful experiences. Along with this modeling, the parents also need to have good information about managing anger and teach those skills to their children, by example and by relating specific information.

• Secondly, what does the child's uncontained anger accomplish? Just as behavior is goal-oriented, so is emotion. Uncontained anger may be helping the child to gain attention, power, revenge or display inadequacy. Parents must practice loving the child with detachment and not give the emotional payoff. In response to their children's anger, parents must avoid feeling annoyed, angry, hurt or helpless themselves. These feelings in the parent can initiate all kinds of behavior on the part of the parents in order to soothe their children's feathers. Many parents do "cartwheels" in order to squelch their children's anger.

• Third, who else in the family is angry? Is the child's behavior a metaphor for someone else's anger in the family? An angry child is a very serious problem and can sometimes require honest soul-searching for the entire family.

As a parent you can begin to do something different in response to your child's anger. Harville Hendrix outlines an effective process in _Giving the Love That Heals. He uses the term "intentional dialogue" to describe this particular process. He delineates three elements to this process.

The first element is mirroring. In mirroring, we reflect back the content of the message we have heard. The second element is validating. We let the child know that what he is feeling and saying makes sense and is understandable. The third element is empathy. You communicate that you understand your child's feeling and perspective.

Because modeling is so important, as parents we can learn new skills in managing our own anger. We can begin to use "I" messages to express our own hurt, fear and frustration as we own our emotions and accept responsibility for our responses.

(Mikal Frazier is a licensed family therapist with a private practice in Minden and Bossier City, Louisiana. She and her husband, Jim have three adult children and two grandchildren, whom they will gladly tell you about if you ask. Actually you don't even have to ask.)

If you have questions about marriage and family relationships, you can "ASK THE COUNSELOR." Address your questions to Mikal Frazier. Her address is mikalfraz@aol.com

Norman's e-mail address: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org