\u201cI\u2019m never coming to this place again,\u201d said my son.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat? Why?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cA really mad mom said I pushed the swing wrong. And if I didn\u2019t stop, she said she\u2019d kick me off the playground \u2014 I don\u2019t get it!\u201d Minutes before, the girl on the swing he\u2019d been pushing had been laughing hysterically, begging my son for higher pushes.<\/p>\n
Now I was the mad one, annoyed with myself for missing the exchange. That mom didn\u2019t know that I\u2019d spent an hour convincing my son, who suffered with depression, to come play. \u00a0When we arrived, the girl on the swing had made his day with her words, \u201cHey! Come play with me!\u201d He\u2019d been so depressed for the past months that he\u2019d been schooled by private teachers and was afraid to socialize. He had difficulty decoding social language, regulating his impulses and body and felt insecure in interactions with other children. \u201cShe\u2019s got anger issues, doesn\u2019t she mom?\u201d My boy searched my reddening face for answers.<\/p>\n
As I thought about ways to respond, I felt a familiar old \u201canger issue\u201d gnawing beneath my skin. In the past, anger had arrived when my son had open-heart surgery. Why my child?<\/em> It came when he didn\u2019t fit at any schools. Why are these schools so hurtful?<\/em> It came when his depression got so severe I feared I\u2019d lose him. Why can\u2019t anyone help? <\/em>Anger rattled me when my younger son was bullied at school, when my 6-year-old daughter felt dumb for not mastering reading.<\/p>\n Anger urged me to shake my finger at the mom on the playground and to turn away from parents, teachers, and relatives who misunderstood or overlooked our struggles. Anger told me to hate myself. \u00a0My kids\u2019 struggles are all my fault! <\/em>And at night, when I tried to relax, anger replayed my wrongdoings, grinding teeth, shortening my breath. Sometimes in the morning it prevented me from tasting the sweetness of springtime and deafened me from hearing the twang of my daughter\u2019s voice, \u201cMommy, look at my ladybug drawing!\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes anger prevented me from receiving anything good.<\/p>\n Anger said, Don\u2019t you see those moms with the perfect kids? With the organized homes? With the better lives? <\/em>It said, If that school, that friend, that doctor had been kinder, my son wouldn\u2019t suffer so much.<\/em> Anger tried to convince me that other people controlled my life.<\/p>\n Anger wanted to fester and throw a life-long party in my body. I learned that anger is greedy. It aims toward one thought, then one person and on to encircle families, groups of people, communities, and schools. Anger stomps about, pleading to aim its nastiness at nations and genders and races, and kids and moms with special needs too. Anger turns on everyone.<\/p>\n On the other hand, at its inception, I\u2019ve found that anger can be transformed. When anger gallops toward me, hurling all its accusations and insults about, I can hold out my hand and greet its red-hot snout with an \u201cI knew you were coming\u201d smack. Here are a handful of \u201creformed angers\u201d I\u2019ve discovered:<\/p>\n Forgiving anger<\/strong> is powerful. It says, I\u2019m mad at you but I\u2019m a lot like you. I inadvertently misunderstand and hurt people too. I\u2019m selfish too. I make mistakes every day too. Hey! Maybe we should be friends.<\/em><\/p>\n Proactive anger<\/strong> doesn\u2019t like me to be a victim. It thinks I can change this maddening situation by advocating for change.<\/em> Proactive anger pushes me to patiently share with the mom who frightened my kid. It insists that I empower my son by teaching him strategies for communicating and getting help when he\u2019s misunderstood. Proactive anger uses its energy to talk to teachers and school administrators who don\u2019t yet understanding how to support my child or others like him.<\/p>\n Hopeful anger<\/strong> believes in change. It says I can help my family, my child or the next by growing from my (infuriating) experiences. I can write with passion. I can share with honesty. I can find others with similar experiences and we can support one another.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Faithful anger<\/strong> triumphs. It unfolds through blessings finally seen. Look at how my son was able to share his feelings!<\/em> It praises goodness, promising that I can leave anger behind, accepting all that I don\u2019t understand<\/em>. Faithful anger doesn\u2019t fix everything, but roots itself in the firm yet winding path of life. It glides onward through forgiveness, deep breaths and into a horizon promising another day of playgrounds and friendships and opportunities where children can indeed soar.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI\u2019m never coming to this place again,\u201d said my son. \u201cWhat? Why?\u201d I asked. \u201cA really mad mom said I pushed the swing wrong. And if I didn\u2019t stop, she said she\u2019d kick me off the playground \u2014 I don\u2019t get it!\u201d Minutes before, the girl on the swing he\u2019d been pushing had been laughing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":3366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,117],"tags":[258,471,472,473,474,475],"class_list":["post-3365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","category-wellness","tag-anger","tag-anger-issues","tag-faithful","tag-forgiving","tag-hopeful","tag-proactive"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}