What about anger?

Well, maybe I just came like a tsunami with a bunch of information and not so much about me... 

So, let's talk a little, I haven't come here in many years, and life has changed a lot! I'm still married - this year we will be 30 years! - and we have 4 children. These last years the older had married and moved away to another city, about 900 km away. Of course, I miss her but I am also happy for her progress! The second has moved, to a different city too, about 1000 km away. I miss her too but she has grown so much, I'm happy for them. Both are beautiful women now. And at home there's the remain, the kiddos, the younger two. 

As I see it, 2018 was a year that put everything upside down, 2019 was a year that chaos started to be felt, and 2020 and 2021… wow, these were very odd years. 2022 was a year to re-start life, 2023 a year to start traveling again, which we happily did! And 2024 was a crisis year. That year, some responsibilities took from us parents all of the "free time" we had, and we didn't realize how much we were neglecting our children that time. Our relationship started struggling because of that lack of time, and yet we didn't realize, and of course (as I told in the last post) if the relationship between spouses wasn't okay, the relationship with the kids wasn't either. This lack of presence, even when I was at home most of my time, had hard interests, and we lost precious time, precious opportunities, and eventually, precious relationships were put in a second place, not even noticing it was happening...

And what about anger? Well, that's something that I learned from this block too! 2024 brought me a lot of anger and frustration. Especially because I felt lonely. I had to be present but was too tired, children were growing and we started having some challenges. Anger was common in me, and even when it isn't actually bad (is natural) if it moves us to action or to establish some healthy boundaries, if this is just getting mad and screaming or punishing because of tiredness or lack of tools... then it's not necessarily good either. 

William J. Doherty stated: "To many parents, anger is one short step away from verbal and physical abuse of children. But anger is a normal human emotion that signals "something's got to change here — right now." Without anger, parents are wishy-washy in the face of their children's willfulness." So we can see this really is necessary, but not if we lose our temper. Actually, Doherty also stated: "The new parenting problem is "anger phobia." We end up with bland parents who refuse to ever show anger to their children. They consequently lack authority and allow their children to walk over them." So we need a healthy amount of anger, enough to act, but not so much to become aggressive.

We also studied the words of the prophets. And I was reminded of a scripture in Doctrine & Covenants 121: 43, quote: "Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;" I remember I was very young (probably not 18 yet) when president Gordon B. Hinkley spoke about it, and he said if we are angry, Holy Ghost leaves us alone, He gets offended by screams and mistreat, so that reproving isn't guided by Him. This impacted me, I was always told that unkind reproves were driven by the Holy Ghost, and it was the way; yet it wasn't. President Brigham Young said: "Bring up your children in the love and fear of the Lord; study their dispositions and their temperaments, and deal with them accordingly, never allowing yourself to correct them in the heat of passion; teach them to love you rather than to fear you" (Discourses of Brigham Young, 1954) and that touched my heart, love instead of hate, study them and their dispositions. So we can figure out firsthand when they are able to listen and even how to speak so we can reach their hearts, but also when we need to take some time off, enough to calm and decide how to talk and even what to say, because if we have their trust they will listen.

Not so long ago, President of the Church of Jesus Christ, Russell M Nelson (2023), taught us: 

Being a peacemaker is a challenge, especially at home, yet the most important place to choose to be a peacemaker. As parents this might mean taking a time to breathe and think twice about what to say, how to act, and how to respond. 

I love my family, that's for sure, and even when so much time has passed, I'm open to learn, and change, and make "my" new best effort, this one that responds to the new learnings... And maybe that learnings aren't even new, and just re-organized to best help us at this time in life. Let's keep on learning, and re writing life

Cora