difficult child dealing with anger...

Andy

Active Member
I am pulling out "The Anger Workbook for Teens" again and glad difficult child has an upcoming appointment with therapist.

1st situation: E and H are going to a youth group at our church on Wednesday nights. We were under the impression that this was a fun activities night. The 1st night was fine - just had pizza, discussed what they would like to do, and played a game or two. Next week, the leaders threw in a bible study on suicide. H was very rude - making sure everyone heard him scribbling during prayer time for example - basically I am sure he was just uncomfortable because this is not his church. difficult child is embarrassed that a friend that HE brought would be so rude and does not want him to go again. However, because E is going also, H wants to go. (background info: difficult child is very strong about his beliefs. H lost his dad to a brutual cancer several years ago and as a result struggles with his beliefs - If there is a God, why did my dad have to suffer and die? - he is just not sure where he stands. This causes some friction between the two - difficult child is so black and white that he does not accept/understand grey areas so it is hard for him to understand H being in a grey area right now.)

This last week (3rd time), difficult child comes home in a super foul mood. E and H came to our house before youth group and difficult child asked me to send H home before we left for the youth group. I refused and difficult child made the ride to church as horrid as he could hoping that H would say, "Enough, I don't want to spend time with you, take me home!" But H did not - he is not about to miss out on anything that difficult child and E are doing together. I had a chance to talk to the leader outside of the boy's hearing and explained what was going on.

Things went well during the meeting, however, when I arrived to pick the boys up, difficult child told me that H was again very rude and he did not want him to come next week and that he never liked H. I knew difficult child was still on the warpath so I had husband come to take him home from church (husband was only a few blocks away at the grocery store and I had forewarned him to stick around in case I needed his help). So, after further discussing/arguing, I got difficult child into husband's truck and took E and H home. On the way home, H admitted that he liked to get difficult child mad and did things on purpose to anger difficult child. E stated that he video taped part of difficult child's rant on the way to church to show him what he looked like. I told H that friends do not purposely anger each other. I told E that he best not be publizing that video and the best thing to do would be to delete it. He says he only wants to show it to difficult child because he needs to see what he looks like in that mood.

2nd situation: Today, I thought he handled his anger very well during the bowling meet when I found out later that he was pulled from the last game because the coach thought a remark he made was disrespectful to the other team but the girl who really did make a disrespectful remark did not get in trouble. husband heard difficult child's remark and did not feel it was out of line. Last year he would have grabbed his balls and STORMED away most likely cussing and making it worse. So, I think he did very well to that point, however, he still has a ways to go after he told me his feelings on the entire matter. He is extremely angry at the coach and was rooting for the other team to win the last game to show the coach a lesson. Mainly angry because the coach didn't also reprimand the girl who really was disrespectful. I am working at getting him to talk to the coach the next time he sees him (in a respectful manner of course). I am hoping difficult child will be able to have a calm conversation with the coach.

So, he went from flying off the handle temper tantrum to holding it together but still hanging onto angry thoughts.

I am hoping that psychiatrist can help him understand that part of being a teenager is often times dealing with what is perceived as unfair situations and now is a good time to focus on anger management tools. The challenge will be that difficult child will not do this if the above two situations are the reason. However, he may go through this if he understands that it is a normal part of being a teenager to feel angry and he can work on gaining tools to deal with anger and frustrations.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Learning to deal with that anger is so hard for our difficult children. I hope psychiatrist is able to help.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Learning to deal with that anger can be hard for TTs too... especially when the situations they are involved in really are unfair. How to teach them to deal with it appropriately without becoming indifferent... is difficult, but important. Because its the kids who see this stuff, and acknowledge it, and want to "fix it", that will become the future leaders of our world.
 

crazymama30

Active Member
Andy, the black and white thinking is hard. For me? It is hard to see difficult child sabotage things, like rooting for the other team. It sounds like your difficult child has made some headway in dealing with anger, and I hope he can work on it more. I know when my difficult child made one of his goals at his last social skills group dealing with his anger? I was actually glad, it meant he recognized it as a problem.
 

Andy

Active Member
Thank you all!

Wiped Out - therapist had recommended this book awhile back. difficult child did a few pages but didn't feel at the time that he had a problem. He actually had mellowed out and was doing fine so I tucked the book away instead of making it a huge issue. There are still things he doesn't like sharing with therapist - things that he thinks will make therapist feel less about him. difficult child needs to understand that no one is judging, that we just want to help him find ways to make life easier.

InSane - You are so right - It is only people who see the unfairness and have the drive to change it who really can make a difference. Just think if all our leaders were so unselfish as to want to make things right for their corner of the world instead of lining their own pockets and searching out the camera for self glory how much better our world would be. I try to believe that our quieter leaders are doing such but hard to look past those who are causing more trouble then good.

Crazymama - Thank you so much for replying. "Sabotage" - that is a word I have been looking for to explain what his anger does. I used to call it "revenge" but "sabotage" seems to be a better fit - it goes a bit deeper - a level/description of revenge that difficult child will understand more. That is what he tries to do when he is angry and now that we have a name for it, it will be a bit easier to tackle.
 
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