CHAPTER THREE
THE THIRD PRINCIPLE OF PARENTING
When I’m Angry, I’m Wrong
Because of their age and inexperience, children are naturally
inconvenient in so many ways:
• They’re always spilling stuff, falling down, making messes,
and getting involved in all manner of “accidents.”
• When they get ready for school, clean their rooms, prepare
for bed time, or do anything else involving a time limit, they
move at a slow and erratic pace rarely compatible with our
own schedules.
• They’re often unable to perform even the simplest tasks
without help or supervision.
• They incessantly make unnecessary noises in a wide range of
both volume and pitch.
• Frequently they are unable to clearly communicate their
needs.
• When they do express their needs, they are often insistent and
demanding. They have no patience.
• Everything they do seems to cost money.
When we don’t feel sufficiently loved ourselves, these
innumerable inconveniences often become more than we can
stand—the straw that breaks the camel’s back—and then we
understandably respond with behaviors designed to minimize the
effects of these inconveniences on us. We’ve learned from a lifetime
of experiences as children and as adults that one effective way to
get children to listen, and to change their behavior, is to get angry
at them. When we’re angry, children—as well as adults—tend to do
what we want, and they tend to do it more quickly.
THE EFFECTS OF ANGER
Although our children often respond to our anger in the short term by
doing what we want, the overall effects of anger are overwhelmingly
negative. When we’re angry:
• our children cannot feel loved by us.
• because they don’t feel loved, they respond with even more
Getting and Protecting Behaviors, the very behaviors we
were trying to stop in the first place with our anger.
• they can’t learn.
• we can’t be happy.
• we teach our children the lie that other people make us
angry.
Our Children Can’t Feel Loved by Us
On one occasion in Chapter One, I lovingly described to you the
mistakes you made while planting some bushes in my yard. Even
though I was talking about your mistakes—a potentially negative
subject—you could feel my concern for your happiness. In the
scenario that followed, however, I was disappointed and irritated
at you, and the effect on you was quite different. Why? When I’m
angry at you, I’m saying, “How dare you inconvenience the true
center of the universe—ME. You have somehow failed to remember
that your purpose in life is to serve ME, or you have done something
unpleasant to ME.” We could, in fact, replace the word angry with
ME-ME-ME. Anger is the ultimate arrogance.
Imagine, then, that I’m standing over you in anger, with my
words and behavior shouting ME-ME-ME. While I’m completely
focusing on myself in that way, is there any way in the world that
you could feel my unconditional concern for your welfare? Utterly
impossible. This is such an important concept that I suggest you
indelibly etch the following in your memory:
Every time you are angry at another human being—husband,
wife, lover, friend, parent, boss, co-worker, or child—that
person hears you say only four words: “I don’t love you.”
If you have any doubt about the truth of this, blow up at anyone
you know—especially a child—and watch his or her face. When
we’re angry at our children, we’re powerfully telling them that we
do not love them unconditionally—at least in that moment—and
they feel that. We may not be trying to say “I don’t love you,” but
when we’re angry, we’re just too consumed with our own needs and
fears to be capable of loving anyone else.
There is nothing children hate to hear more than “I don’t love
you,” and that’s why they are so easily motivated by our anger.
They’re willing to do whatever it takes to get us to stop being
angry—to stop expressing our lack of love.
Anger Can Literally Define the World
For a Child—in a Very Negative Way
The cost of anger is especially high when we express it to our
children. Young children don’t create out of thin air the view they
have of themselves or of the world. They learn who they are, what
the world is like, and how they relate to the world mostly from
what we say and do as their parents. Early in their lives, they accept
completely what we tell them, and so we have a virtually god-like
influence over them. When a child makes mistakes, for example,
and we become impatient and irritated, the child learns this:
• When I make mistakes, my parents obviously love me less.
• When I am flawed, I am therefore less worthwhile.
• Since I am flawed most of the time, I am obviously worth
very little.
• The world is a harsh, judgmental, and unloving place.
I cannot over-emphasize the destructive impact of these lessons
on a child. A young child is quite incapable of questioning these
conclusions when they are taught by a parent, who stands in a
position of unquestioned power. When you are angry at a child,
there is no way on earth that he or she could have the courage or
insight to say, “Dad (or Mom), I see that you’re angry. You must be
feeling unloved. Even though you’re expressing your anger at me,
I know you’re just reacting to a lifetime of not feeling loved, not
primarily to something I did or did not do in this moment. Is there
something I can do to help you feel more loved?” Absurd. No, a
child can conclude only that your anger is all about him or her, and
the effect is disastrous, as outlined above.
They Respond with Even More
Getting and Protecting Behaviors
It’s hugely ironic that when we get angry at our children, we cause
the very behaviors we’re trying to control or eliminate. Here’s how
that happens:
• All the behaviors in children that inconvenience and annoy
us—disobedience, rebellion, whining, insistence, sullenness,
withdrawal, and so on—are only Getting and Protecting
Behaviors that exist in response to their not feeling loved
unconditionally.
• When we don’t feel unconditionally loved either, the
behaviors of our children then make us feel even more empty
and afraid.
• To alleviate these painful feelings, we get angry, which gives
us a sense of power and safety.
• From our anger, our children hear only “I don’t love you,”
which greatly magnifies their feelings of emptiness and fear.
• They respond by using even more Getting and Protecting
Behaviors, exactly what we were trying to prevent.
Children will do almost anything—they use all the Protecting
Behaviors—to avoid any expression of our disapproval: a sigh, a
frown, a raised eyebrow, a change in our tone of voice, or an unkind
word. To our children, disappointment and anger are different only
in degree, and both are devastating.
They Can’t Learn
One beautiful fall day, George came to see me about his son, Dan. He
was quite animated and irritated as he told me about Dan’s negative
attitude, disobedience, and lack of responsibility. “Only yesterday,”
George said, “I was trying to talk to him about something, and he
just sat there, giving me that sullen stare. It’s like he doesn’t hear a
word I say.”
“He can’t,” I responded.
“What do you mean?”
“When you’re angry, he can’t hear anything you’re saying.”
“I wasn’t angry. I was just being firm. He doesn’t listen unless
I’m firm with him.”
“It doesn’t sound like he listens to you when you’re ‘firm,’
either, but you were more than firm. You were angry.”
“How do you know that? You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t have to be. I’m here with you now, and you’ve been
angry at Dan from the moment you started talking about him.
You’re also angry at me for questioning what you did—which
doesn’t bother me in the least. I’m only describing what I see so
that you can see it. You’ve already proven that the way you talk to
Dan doesn’t work, and because I care about you, I’m helping you
see why he can’t hear you. Considering all the anger you’re showing
here, it’s utterly impossible to believe that you were not angry with
Dan when you talked to him. If I spoke to you in the same tone of
voice you used with Dan yesterday, would you think I was angry?”
“Okay, I get the point. So I might have been a little irritated at
him.”
“Let’s assume for a moment that I’m your employer. I supervise
you, sign your paycheck, and have the authority to fire you. Can you
picture that?”
“Sure.”
“Now, suppose I come to you and describe a mistake you made at
work yesterday. I tell you that it’ll cost the company a couple hundred
dollars to fix the mistake, and two other employees will have to work
overtime to correct it. But you can see that I’m not the least bit irritated
by any of this. In fact, I apologize that I didn’t give you enough
information to do the assignment correctly in the first place, and then
I describe how you could do the task in a way that will be easier and
more productive. Would you be willing to do it the new way?”
“Of course.”
“How do you feel about me describing your mistake?”
“Fine. You’re just trying to help me.”
“Now imagine that I come to your office and throw a pile of
papers on your desk. I say that what you’ve done is completely
unacceptable, and I yell at you as I describe what a bumbling fool
you are. Do you feel different about our conversation this time?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the difference?”
“It’s hard to listen to you when you’re yelling at me.”
“Why?”
“It just is,” he said.
“The first time I talked to you, it was easy to hear me, because—
in your words—I was just trying to help you, right?”
“Yes.”
“What was different about the second time was that I was angry
at you. We rarely appreciate what our anger means. I can describe
your mistake and still have a genuine concern for your happiness, as
you discovered when I talked to you the first time. But the moment I
become angry, I’m telling you my primary concern is for whom?”
“Yourself.”
“Exactly. Every single time I’m angry, I’m mainly concerned
about what I want, which means I can’t possibly be concerned
primarily about you. Every time I’m angry, I’m telling you I don’t
care about you—which is the one thing we all hate to hear more
than anything else—and then you will react to that, instead of
listening to my correction of your mistake. You’ll defend yourself
by withdrawing from me, or being angry at me, or acting like a
victim, and so on. While I’m angry, you can’t really listen to me,
because all you can hear is my telling you I don’t care about you.”
“I never saw it that way before.”
“Most people don’t, but you have to understand this before
you can change the way you interact with Dan. Every time you’re
angry at him, I promise you he hears you speaking only four words:
I don’t love you. Once he hears that, essentially he becomes deaf
to everything else you’re saying. You’ve been wondering why he
doesn’t listen to you, and this is the answer: your anger.”
“But I’m not always angry when I talk to him,” George
protested.
“That’s probably true,” I agreed. “Let’s go back to the example
of my being your boss. Suppose that I blow up at you only half the
times we speak. During the other half of the times we talk, what will
be going through your mind? Will you feel relaxed?”
Whenever we’re angry at our children, they hear us say only
four words: “I don’t love you.” And then they respond with
the Getting and Protecting Behaviors that are so destructive
to them and to others.
“No, I’ll be waiting for you to blow up. I’ll never be sure when
you’re about to get mad at me.”
“Right, and that’s how Dan feels. Also remember that if you
want to estimate how much of the time you’re not mad at him, you
can count only the times he’s making mistakes—when he’s screwing
up. If you treat him nicely while he’s doing what you want, that
doesn’t count for much, frankly. On those occasions, he can feel
only like he’s buying your affection. It’s only when he’s making
mistakes that he can feel whether you love him unconditionally—or
you don’t. If I had to guess, I’d bet you get angry at him a lot more
than half the times he makes mistakes, and that leaves him with only
one conclusion: that you don’t love him. That has a huge impact on
him. He’s constantly waiting for the next blowup from you.”
Most of us have said to our children on many occasions, “How
many times have I told you to _____? Why do I have to keep
repeating myself?” If our children had the insight and courage, they
would answer, “You have to keep repeating yourself because each
time you teach me that principle, you’re angry, and I can’t hear you
when you’re angry. If you would speak to me with any concern for
my welfare, I could probably hear you.”
We Can’t Be Happy
Think about the last time you snapped at a child. Did you feel a
growth of your inner peace? Did you feel warm and fuzzy inside?
Never. Not only does our anger have a negative effect on others, but
it eliminates the possibility of happiness in our own lives.
Genuine happiness comes from feeling unconditionally loved
and from loving others. Because anger always interferes with our
feeling loved and loving others, it makes happiness impossible.
We Teach Our Children the Lie
That Other People Make Us Angry
Every time we express anger at our children, we’re strongly
implying that they made us angry. We make it quite clear—with our
words, sighs, rolling eyes, tone of voice, and so on—that they are
responsible for how we feel. In order to remove all doubt about that,
in fact, we often say, “You make me so mad.”
In so doing, we are teaching our children a terrible lie, that other
people can make us angry. This lie has enslaved most of us all our
lives, as illustrated in the following story.
One day I heard two of my children, Joseph and Rachel,
quarreling in the next room. Walking into that room, I said to
Joseph—randomly choosing one of them—“You look pretty mad.”
“Yeah,” he said, “who wouldn’t be? She borrowed my shirt
again, and she didn’t put it back. So I had to look all over the house
for it until I figured out that she had it.”
“So she made you angry, right?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically, and surprised that I would question
such an obvious conclusion.
“So let’s do this,” I suggested. “Let’s go down to the hardware
store, get a large brass ring, and fasten it through the hole we’ll drill
through your nose. Then we’ll attach a big chain to the ring and
hand it to Rachel.”
“What?” he said, obviously confused.
“You wouldn’t like being Rachel’s slave?”
“No.”
“But you already are her slave, Joseph. Any time she wants to,
she can do something to make you mad. So, effectively, she owns
you. Do you want to keep being her slave?”
“No.”
In our society, it is almost universally accepted that other
people make us angry, and we pass this belief on to our children.
Regrettably, this belief makes our children captive to the behavior of
every person around them, which is far from a desirable condition.
Later in this chapter, we’ll prove that other people never make
us angry, and in Chapters Six and Eight we’ll discuss how to handle
arguments between our children.
BECAUSE OF ITS CONSISTENTLY DESTRUCTIVE
EFFECTS, ANGER IS ALWAYS WRONG
In Chapter One, I said:
Since happiness is the central goal of life, a behavior is right
when it contributes to that goal—in other words, when it leads
to being unconditionally loved, loving, and responsible. Any
behavior which interferes with those conditions is therefore
wrong.
Because anger always interferes with our feeling unconditionally
loved, loving, and happy, anger is always wrong. I am not saying that
when you’re angry, you’re evil, nor am I saying that you shouldn’t
be angry—in a given moment, anger may be the best you can do. I
am saying that because anger detracts from our primary purpose for
being alive—because it is uniformly destructive, and keeps us from
being happy—it is wrong. It just doesn’t work. Anger is wrong in
the same sense that saying 2 + 2 = 5 is wrong, or that when you get
a flat tire on your car, replacing the tire with a kitchen sink would be
wrong.
We also established in Chapter One that our primary goals are
to love our children and teach them to love others. In the presence of
anger, our children cannot feel loved by us, and so, for yet another
reason, anger is wrong. When we’re angry, we cannot be loving,
effective parents.
Take a moment and tattoo these words on the inside of your right
upper eyelid, where you’ll always remember them: When I’m angry,
I’m wrong. Everything else we give our children—entertainment,
money, a great house, the best education, and so on—will not make
them happy if they don’t feel unconditionally loved by us, and they
cannot feel loved when we’re angry at them.
Because anger always interferes with our greatest purposes
in life—to feel loved, to be loving, and to be happy—anger
is always wrong.
You might be tempted to think, “But what am I supposed to do
when they misbehave? I have to correct them, don’t I? Sometimes
they only pay attention when I’m mad. When I speak calmly, they
just ignore me. Sometimes I have to get angry, for their own good—
so they’ll listen.”
That reasoning is seductive, but we must never forget that when
we’re angry, our children don’t feel loved, and Real Love is the
most important gift we’ll ever give them. When we’re angry, we’re
wrong. Period. It’s true that when we get angry, they do sometimes
move more quickly and accomplish the individual tasks we demand
of them, but the long-term effects are devastating:
• First, if they consistently respond to our anger with obedience,
we’ll have children with clean rooms and good grades but
who—without Real Love, the one element most important to
genuine happiness—will be deeply unfulfilled and miserable
in the long term.
• A second outcome, however, is even more likely. Eventually,
most children resent the constant whip of anger as a motivation,
and then they quit responding to it with fear and compliance.
Instead, they protect themselves by withdrawing, acting like
victims, and getting angry in return, as George’s son, Dan,
did.
Anger is always wrong, and it’s never effective in the long
term. That does not mean we should be permissive, which is an
equally terrible mistake in parenting. Throughout the book, we’ll
be discussing the most effective ways we can teach and love our
children, avoiding both anger and indulgence.
WHY WE GET ANGRY
If anger is so destructive—to us personally, to our children, and to
our relationships with them—why do we continue to get angry?
Why do we continue to use a behavior that never gives us the results
we really want? We continue to get angry at our children because:
• we’re empty and afraid ourselves.
• our children don’t fill our enormous expectations for their
love.
• anger is a response we’ve learned from our parents and others
throughout our lives.
We’re Empty and Afraid
As we described in Chapter Two, anger is a Getting and Protecting
Behavior. We get angry only to fill our emptiness and to protect
ourselves from fear, conditions that exist because we do not have
sufficient Real Love. Anger is absolute proof that we are empty and
afraid.
When we’re already empty and afraid from not feeling enough
Real Love, we become much more afraid when confronted with
angry or disobedient children. What are we afraid of?
• We’re afraid of losing control over them. Without sufficient
Real Love, we enjoy the sense of power we get from
influencing or determining what our children do. That’s not
a pretty thing to see about ourselves, but it’s still true. When
they behave badly, we feel helpless and weak.
• We’re afraid of losing their respect (another form of power,
and also praise).
• We’re afraid of losing their approval and affection (praise).
• We’re afraid of looking like bad parents—to our children and
others (loss of praise).
• We’re afraid of losing the peace and quiet we enjoy (pleasure
and safety). We hate the simple inconvenience that always
accompanies an angry child—we have to deal with his or her
anger, which usually isn’t easy or fun.
In other words, when children are angry we’re afraid of losing
the Imitation Love we get from them, a “love” we have no right to
demand. And then we respond with our own Getting and Protecting
Behaviors, one of which is anger. With anger we feel better in
several ways:
• We feel stronger, more in control, less helpless.
• We often succeed in commanding their respect.
• If we consistently manipulate our children to do what we
want, we feel competent (praiseworthy).
• We create the illusion of being disciplined and strong parents,
earning the praise of other parents.
• We achieve the peace and quiet we crave (pleasure and safety).
Of course, all these effects are superficial and transient—as are
the effects of all forms of Imitation Love—and when they wear off,
we have to work to get them again. No amount of Imitation Love
can ever make us truly happy.
They Fail to Fill Our Expectations for Love
Another explanation for our anger is the expectations we have of others.
If we don’t feel sufficient Real Love—as most of us don’t—we’re
empty and afraid, a condition we cannot tolerate. It’s only natural that
we then expect the people around us to soothe our pain and fill our
emptiness, and when they don’t, we can become quite irritated. How,
we reason, could other people—especially those close to us—just stand
by and fail to relieve our obvious discomfort? Without meaning to, we
heap some of these expectations for love—Real and Imitation—on
our children, and when they don’t fill them, we resent it.
Anger is always preceded by an expectation of some kind. We
get angry at people only when they fail to fulfill our expectations.
You never become angry at your neighbor, for example, for not
taking out your garbage, while it’s easy to conceive of getting angry
at your son or daughter for not doing the same task. The difference?
Expectations. You don’t expect your neighbor to take out your
garbage, so when he doesn’t do it, there’s no disappointment or
irritation.
We get angry at our children because we have expectations of
them. What do we expect?
• Obedience (power, safety)
• Gratitude (praise)
• Respect (praise, power, safety)
• Cooperation (power, safety)
• Affection (praise)
Certainly these are qualities children need to have if they want
to be happy, but rarely do we insist on these qualities in our children
solely for their benefit. When we don’t have enough Real Love in
our own lives, we demand obedience, for example, to feed our own
need for praise, power, and safety. We need gratitude to confirm our
own worth (praise). We demand respect to confirm our position of
power over our children.
The Powerful Need for Our Children’s Love
On many occasions, I have asked adults, “Does anyone love you
unconditionally?” and a common answer is this: “Yes, my children
do.” That belief, however, is almost always inaccurate, inappropriate,
and dangerous. Our children are not responsible for loving us, and
with rare exceptions they’re also incapable of doing so.
Most of us place considerable responsibility on our children to
make us feel good. We prove this every time we’re disappointed in
them or angry at them, because on these occasions we’re declaring
that they are responsible for our happiness or unhappiness—and
we’re mostly unaware of how often we do that.
Our happiness is not determined by the behavior of our children.
Our happiness is a result of how much unconditional love we’ve
received over a lifetime of experiences with parents, teachers,
friends, and spouses—and by how loving we are toward others.
Most of us, however, were not unconditionally loved, and without
Real Love we have become unhappy as adults and parents.
But now it is not our children’s responsibility to give us the Real
Love we need. Children need to be loved by us. They need to be
filled up with the unconditional love required for their happiness.
Children become whole only when love is initially a one-way
flow, from us to them. That can’t happen while we’re demanding
something from them in return.
Our Children Can’t Love Us Unconditionally
We want to believe that our children love us unconditionally, but if
they haven’t received enough Real Love from us—as few of them
have—how can they give it to anyone else? In most cases, when
we expect love from our children, we’re asking them to give us
what they’ve never received sufficiently themselves. Their task is
impossible, and the burden is crushing.
Love can be unconditional only when it’s freely given. The
giver of unconditional love can’t be empty or afraid. When people
are empty or afraid, they can only manipulate other people to get
what they want or protect themselves from being hurt. Almost
without exception, our children are both empty and afraid: They
badly need us to love them, and they’re scared to death of losing our
love. These are natural conditions for a child, but they make it very
difficult for children to give us Real Love.
We tend to love our children more when they’re good—when
they do what we want. They can feel that our approval is not
unconditional, but it feels better than nothing, so they do their best—
in the beginning, at least—to earn more of it by giving us what we
want: gratitude, respect, obedience, affection, and so on. We feel
good when we get those things, and understandably we then believe
that our children are “loving” us. But they need our approval and
love far too much to give us anything without expecting something
in return. They give us what we want so we’ll give them the “love”
they desperately need. Although it’s unconscious, our children trade
Imitation Love with us, and we gladly participate in the exchange,
all of us just doing our best to survive in the absence of Real Love.
Is it ever possible for a child to unconditionally love his parents?
Yes, but only after that child has been consistently and unconditionally
loved himself for a long time. Few children have been loved in that
way, and no loving parent would expect such love from a child. When
a child can love his or her parents, it’s just a delightful bonus for those
parents, not something they have a right to expect.
How We Manipulate Them for Imitation Love
If we don’t have enough Real Love in our own lives, we will make
attempts to get Imitation Love from the people around us, and we
will tend to do that most with the people who are closest to us. Later
in this chapter we’ll talk about the various ways we manipulate our
children for Imitation Love.
Failure to See the Expectations We Have of Our Children
Most of us have expectations every day that our children will love
us and make us happy. Often we express them in subtle ways.
We don’t say to a child directly, for example, “I need you to love
me.” Instead we say, “Give Mommy (or Daddy) a kiss.” Without
thinking about it, we thus place an enormous burden on children
to give us affection so we won’t be disappointed, and they feel that
obligation. As they sense that we have any expectations for them to
make us happy, they can’t feel unconditionally loved—even if our
expectations are unconscious.
How can we know whether we have selfish expectations of our
children? Again, disappointment and anger. These feelings mean
that we didn’t get something we wanted. Our disappointment and
anger prove that we’re being selfish, and we experience these
feelings in response to the behavior of our children so often that
we’ve come to accept them as normal. We justify ourselves,
claiming that disappointment is acceptable—even unavoidable—
when a child makes certain kinds of mistakes, or is disobedient, or
is disrespectful, and so on. When our children behave badly, it is
our responsibility to correct them, but disappointment and anger are
never a part of loving and effective teaching.
I’m not saying that children shouldn’t be respectful, obedient,
and grateful—far from it. They need these qualities in order to be
happy, but they acquire these characteristics far more easily when
we just love and teach them. Children don’t learn real respect—and
certainly don’t feel Real Love—when we expect and demand it
from them. We’ll talk more about how to love and teach children in
Chapters Five and Six.
We become angry at our children when they don’t fill our
huge expectations for them to love us. Those expectations
are inappropriate and harmful.
Why We Have Children
Without Real Love, we try to fill our emptiness with all the praise,
power, and pleasure we can find. We lie, attack, act like victims, and
cling in order to earn the attention of other adults, but we soon find
those efforts exhausting, and we discover that the Imitation Love
we get is unpredictable. Because children are so dependent on us—
because they desperately need us, and because they feel obligated
to us by all we give them—we learn that we can use them more
easily and consistently than other people as a source of Imitation
Love. Adults resist our manipulations and require more from us
than children do. And we feel safer around children: They don’t
ask us why we don’t get a better job; they don’t tell us to be more
responsible; they don’t suggest that we lose some weight; they don’t
make us feel unattractive; they don’t see our fears or intimidate us
in as many ways as adults do.
We don’t like seeing this, but a significant part of the motivation
for many of us to have children is that we feel alone, and we hope
children will love us and make us happier. That’s understandable,
but we are often selfishly using our children to make us feel better.
Elise and Chris had lived together for two years. Both came to
the relationship without experiencing much Real Love, and each
expected the other to make him or her happy. Naturally, the result
was disappointment and bitterness. As their relationship began to
fail, Elise thought a baby might bring them together again. Without
telling Chris, she stopped using her contraceptive and became
pregnant. Soon after that Chris left the relationship completely and
moved away. After he left Elise said to a friend, “Well, at least when
the baby comes, I won’t be alone.”
What a fate! Even before his birth, this child was given the
responsibility to make his mother feel loved. That’s a burden no
child can carry and be happy, but that’s the job most children are
given, and it destroys them.
We Get Angry at Our Children
Because We Learned That Response from Others
In a given situation, we have a natural inclination not to do what’s
most effective but to do what we’ve learned. Most of us can easily
recall how our parents and others responded to us when we were
quiet, clean, responsible, and cooperative as children. They smiled
at us, spoke gently, and in other ways indicated how pleased they
were with us. But we also remember what happened when we made
too much noise in the car, fought with our sister, and dragged dog
poop across the living room carpet. The smiles and kind words were
instantly replaced with frowns, sighs of exasperation, and words
spoken in a harsh tone. It certainly wasn’t intentional, but we were
clearly and repeatedly taught that when people make mistakes, the
natural consequences are disappointment, irritation, and disapproval.
It’s little wonder that we learned to repeat the same pattern with our
friends, classmates, co-workers, spouses, and children.
NO ONE EVER MAKES US ANGRY
Earlier in the chapter, I mentioned that in our society it’s almost
universally accepted that other people are responsible for making us
angry. When we’re mad, we’re usually blaming someone for causing
that feeling. All that blaming and anger never make us happy, but
we keep doing it. Why? Because other people—being flawed
human beings, and having their own needs to fill—unavoidably and
regularly inconvenience us, which we believe is the same thing as
causing our anger. Our reasoning might go something like this:
• All was well in my world. I was fine.
• Then that bone-headed, inconsiderate, selfish fool _____
(whatever he or she did to “make” you angry).
• Immediately I became angry.
• Because I would not have become angry if he had not behaved
in that way, and because my reaction immediately followed
his behavior, it’s obvious that he caused my anger.
Because anger is so destructive, and because blaming others
only makes the continuation of anger a certainty, I will present here
several proofs that other people are never the cause of our anger.
These will also stand as proofs that our children never make us
angry. Take your time with these. As you absorb them and allow
them to change your thinking, your world will change, and you will
gain the ability to give your children great personal power.
Proof 1
The Self-evident Proof:
We Always Have a Choice
As human beings, we have a position unique in the universe.
Although there is certainly much in this world that is beautiful and
awe-inspiring—the stars, planets, oceans, mountains, trees, birds,
fish, sub-molecular intricacies, and so on—we alone have the ability
to determine our own course. The behavior of everything else is
determined by gravity, instinct, the weather, training, and DNA, but
we human beings can actually comprehend our condition, ponder
it, and make decisions that will change our course. In fact, we’re
quite jealous of that ability and will defend to the death our right
to exercise it. We have fought many wars against those who would
claim to tell any of us what we can or cannot do.
As proud as we are of our ability to make our own decisions
about everything else, why is it that we are so quick to claim that
other people can make us angry? Whenever we think or say “You
make me so mad”—a common expression indeed—we are giving
up our right to determine how we feel, and we do this quite often.
We claim that we can make our own decisions about everything
else but not about how we feel. Why is that? Because we claim
the ability to make choices only when it suits us. We like being
responsible for choosing what we eat, and what we wear, and
where we live, and whom we’ll marry, because we like the
consequences—the rewards—of those choices. But we don’t like
being held responsible for our anger. We’d rather blame that choice
on someone else.
Rain makes the ground wet. The sun makes the grass warm. The
ground and the grass have no choice in the matter. But we human
beings are not dirt or grass. We do have choices—about many things,
including about how we feel. When people treat us badly, we make
decisions about how we will respond. In the absence of Real Love,
our ability to respond is certainly impaired—sometimes severely—
but we can still choose to limit our Getting and Protecting Behaviors
(including anger) to some degree. The more we understand about
the behavior of other people, and the more loved we feel, the more
able we become to make wise and loving choices. Self-control and
Real Love enjoy a powerful synergy, which we’ll discuss in Chapter
Four.
Proof 2
It’s Your Emptiness and Fear That Lead to Anger,
Not What Someone Else Does to You
(Two Dollars vs. Twenty Million)
In Chapter One I asked you to consider what it would feel like if you
were starving and I took your last two dollars, the money you hoped
to exchange for a loaf of bread. You were angry, and understandably
you blamed your anger on me. But then we imagined a different
scene. Again I took two dollars from you, but this time you had
twenty million dollars in the next room. Your anger was either
eliminated or greatly reduced, proving that your anger in the first
scene was caused not by me but by your lack of twenty million
dollars.
As I said in Chapter One:
When we have enough Real Love in our lives, we feel as though
we have twenty million emotional dollars with us all the time.
With that greatest of all treasures, the little inconvenient things
people do become relatively unimportant. With Real Love, we
have everything that matters. Without it, we become afraid and
protect ourselves with anger. Our anger is caused by a lack of
Real Love in our own lives, not by what our children or anyone
else does in a given moment.
Proof 3
You Can’t Claim That Someone Makes You Angry
If Anyone Else Does Not Become Angry
When That Person Does the Same Thing
I once went with some friends on a canoe trip down a stretch of
river that included some challenging white-water rapids. My friend
Gene was less experienced than the rest of the group and nervous
about the adventure, so I invited him to go with me in my canoe
and assured him that he’d have a great time. During our passage
through one of the more difficult rapids, two of the men in another
canoe were goofing around and intentionally bumped their canoe
into mine. Gene was startled, lost his balance, and fell out of the
canoe. Of course, that tipped the canoe over and threw me into the
water, too.
Gene was already anxious about this outing. He’d never canoed
a river this rugged, and now he found himself bouncing between
large rocks while gasping for air in the cold, churning water.
Understandably, this had become a terrifying experience for him. I
hurried to make sure that Gene was all right, and when he reached
the calmer waters I found that he was fine physically, but he was
furious at the two men who had bumped into our canoe. Clearly, he
blamed them for his anger.
Unwittingly, he had proved that other people don’t make
us angry. The exact same thing happened to both Gene and me:
We were both bumped by the other canoe, dumped into the cold
water, and forced to swim through the rapids down the river. Our
reactions, however, were strikingly different: Gene was enraged at
the men who had run into us, while I found the whole incident rather
humorous and invigorating.
What was the difference? Gene was simply unprepared for what
happened, in at least two ways. First, he was physically unprepared.
He had no experience with such situations—through no fault of
his own—so when he was bumped by the other canoe, he didn’t
know what to do, lost his balance, and fell into the water. He was
also emotionally unprepared. He had not felt sufficient Real Love
in his life, so he was already unhappy, and the slightest mishap was
enough to push him over the edge. When he became frightened,
he immediately reached for the Protecting Behavior he had always
used—anger. It was the only thing he knew to do.
Because I was physically prepared for canoeing, being bumped
by the other men was not overwhelming to me, although I was
still thrown in the water because of Gene’s reaction. Because of
that inconvenience, I could then have reacted with anger to all
three men, but I had been prepared emotionally by years of being
unconditionally loved. Because of that love, I didn’t feel empty
or afraid and therefore had no need to use any of the Getting and
Protecting Behaviors, including anger. I was not a better man than
Gene, just better prepared to react to that incident.
We see examples all around us of people reacting differently to
the same events. In World War II, for example, millions of people
were imprisoned and killed in concentrations camps, by the Germans
and by the Japanese. From the many oral and written accounts made
by survivors of those camps, we have learned that many of those
people understandably became very angry and bitter because of the
unspeakably hateful treatment they received at the hands of their
captors. Some of those inmates, however, chose not to become
angry. Instead, they forgave their tormentors and even learned to
love them. They saw the terrible effects of anger and hate—on
both perpetrators and victims—and they refused to give in to those
feelings. Victor Frankl spoke of such people in Man’s Search for
Meaning, as did Corrie ten Boom in her book, The Hiding Place.
Some of us get angry when other people are inconsiderate toward
us, but others of us do not. Clearly, the problem is not the people
who are inconsiderate. If that were so, everyone would become
angry when he or she were treated badly, but that does not happen.
In fact, if you get angry when I do something, and we can find even
one person in the world who does not get angry when I do that same
thing, then I did not make you angry. You made a choice. Anger
is always a choice. In any given situation, some people choose to
become angry and others do not.
Proof 4
When Imitation Love Makes Your Anger Go Away,
You Can’t Claim Someone Else Caused Your Anger
One day I was having lunch with my friend Larry, and he mentioned
an incident with his son Jordan. Larry had clearly told Jordan never
to use Larry’s expensive video camera, but Jordan ignored his
warning, and while Larry was out of the house, Jordan used the
camera, dropped it, and damaged it. Larry was furious at his son,
and during our conversation he used the phrase, “Sometimes that
kid makes me so mad.”
Me: If I gave you a million dollars in cash right now—and a new
car—would you be less irritated with him?
Larry: (smiling) Yes, I guess I would.
Me: Then Jordan didn’t make you angry.
Larry: I don’t understand.
Me: If a million dollars would make your anger go away, then
obviously the real cause of your anger is the lack of a million
dollars, not Jordan—right?
Other people never make us angry. Anger is always a
choice.
In our society, we commonly greet people by asking some
variation on “How are you?” A frequent reply to that query is
“Fine” or “Good.” What we almost always mean by that response
is that things are going well. We mean that our supply of Imitation
Love is adequate for the moment, and that is what keeps us from
being angry. But if we’re running low on praise, power, pleasure,
and safety, watch out! That’s when we become irritable. When we
don’t have enough Imitation Love, people who would ordinarily not
bother us suddenly become enormously irritating.
Once again, it’s not the individual behaviors of the people
around us that make us angry. Anger is our reaction to the emptiness
and fear that always accompany the lack of Real Love. When we
have sufficient Imitation Love, we can often temporarily ignore the
emptiness of not feeling loved. When we run out of Imitation Love
and get angry, a new supply of Imitation Love usually makes our
anger go away.
Proof 5
When Real Love Makes Your Anger Go Away,
Then It’s Obvious That the Lack of it Was the Real Cause.
Earlier in this chapter, George was irritated with his son, Dan, and
he was certain that Dan had made him angry. Over the following
months, however, he learned to tell the truth about himself—
which we’ll discuss in the next chapter—and he began to feel
unconditionally accepted by wise and loving friends. As George felt
loved and happy, he no longer had a need to demand respect and
obedience from his son. When compared with Real Love, Imitation
Love soon loses its appeal.
As George felt unconditionally loved, he lost his need for anger,
which is a Getting and Protecting Behavior. He quit being angry
even though Dan’s behavior remained the same for quite some time.
And thus he proved that Dan had never been the cause for his anger.
If Dan had really been the cause, George would have continued to
be angry when Dan’s behavior didn’t immediately change.
I have observed the effect of Real Love on the lives of hundreds
of people, and I can tell you that George’s story isn’t the least bit
unusual. As we feel unconditionally loved, we lose our anger—
perhaps not all at once, but it does go away eventually.
THE FREEDOM OF BEING RESPONSIBLE
FOR OUR ANGER
We blame people for our anger because it seems easier than taking
the responsibility ourselves, a technique we learned from birth.
When I blame you for my anger, however, I’m stuck. I’ll be angry
forever unless you change. That’s unfortunate for two reasons: It’s
very impractical to have my happiness chained to your decisions,
and it’s simply untrue that you cause my anger.
When I realize that my anger is a reaction to the emptiness and
fear caused by a lack of Real Love in my own life, I can now do
something about it. I can tell the truth about myself and get the
unconditional love I need. I can quit being angry at my children and
instead be a loving parent to them—an infinitely better choice.
After understanding that other people don’t cause our anger,
we can take the next crucial step of teaching this principle to our
children. And then they too can experience the freedom that comes
from take responsibility for their own anger. I suggest that you
become familiar with two or more of the above proofs and use them
in teaching your children in family meetings and in situations where
they become angry.
THE THIRD PRINCIPLE OF PARENTING
When I’m Angry, I’m Wrong
Because of their age and inexperience, children are naturally
inconvenient in so many ways:
• They’re always spilling stuff, falling down, making messes,
and getting involved in all manner of “accidents.”
• When they get ready for school, clean their rooms, prepare
for bed time, or do anything else involving a time limit, they
move at a slow and erratic pace rarely compatible with our
own schedules.
• They’re often unable to perform even the simplest tasks
without help or supervision.
• They incessantly make unnecessary noises in a wide range of
both volume and pitch.
• Frequently they are unable to clearly communicate their
needs.
• When they do express their needs, they are often insistent and
demanding. They have no patience.
• Everything they do seems to cost money.
When we don’t feel sufficiently loved ourselves, these
innumerable inconveniences often become more than we can
stand—the straw that breaks the camel’s back—and then we
understandably respond with behaviors designed to minimize the
effects of these inconveniences on us. We’ve learned from a lifetime
of experiences as children and as adults that one effective way to
get children to listen, and to change their behavior, is to get angry
at them. When we’re angry, children—as well as adults—tend to do
what we want, and they tend to do it more quickly.
THE EFFECTS OF ANGER
Although our children often respond to our anger in the short term by
doing what we want, the overall effects of anger are overwhelmingly
negative. When we’re angry:
• our children cannot feel loved by us.
• because they don’t feel loved, they respond with even more
Getting and Protecting Behaviors, the very behaviors we
were trying to stop in the first place with our anger.
• they can’t learn.
• we can’t be happy.
• we teach our children the lie that other people make us
angry.
Our Children Can’t Feel Loved by Us
On one occasion in Chapter One, I lovingly described to you the
mistakes you made while planting some bushes in my yard. Even
though I was talking about your mistakes—a potentially negative
subject—you could feel my concern for your happiness. In the
scenario that followed, however, I was disappointed and irritated
at you, and the effect on you was quite different. Why? When I’m
angry at you, I’m saying, “How dare you inconvenience the true
center of the universe—ME. You have somehow failed to remember
that your purpose in life is to serve ME, or you have done something
unpleasant to ME.” We could, in fact, replace the word angry with
ME-ME-ME. Anger is the ultimate arrogance.
Imagine, then, that I’m standing over you in anger, with my
words and behavior shouting ME-ME-ME. While I’m completely
focusing on myself in that way, is there any way in the world that
you could feel my unconditional concern for your welfare? Utterly
impossible. This is such an important concept that I suggest you
indelibly etch the following in your memory:
Every time you are angry at another human being—husband,
wife, lover, friend, parent, boss, co-worker, or child—that
person hears you say only four words: “I don’t love you.”
If you have any doubt about the truth of this, blow up at anyone
you know—especially a child—and watch his or her face. When
we’re angry at our children, we’re powerfully telling them that we
do not love them unconditionally—at least in that moment—and
they feel that. We may not be trying to say “I don’t love you,” but
when we’re angry, we’re just too consumed with our own needs and
fears to be capable of loving anyone else.
There is nothing children hate to hear more than “I don’t love
you,” and that’s why they are so easily motivated by our anger.
They’re willing to do whatever it takes to get us to stop being
angry—to stop expressing our lack of love.
Anger Can Literally Define the World
For a Child—in a Very Negative Way
The cost of anger is especially high when we express it to our
children. Young children don’t create out of thin air the view they
have of themselves or of the world. They learn who they are, what
the world is like, and how they relate to the world mostly from
what we say and do as their parents. Early in their lives, they accept
completely what we tell them, and so we have a virtually god-like
influence over them. When a child makes mistakes, for example,
and we become impatient and irritated, the child learns this:
• When I make mistakes, my parents obviously love me less.
• When I am flawed, I am therefore less worthwhile.
• Since I am flawed most of the time, I am obviously worth
very little.
• The world is a harsh, judgmental, and unloving place.
I cannot over-emphasize the destructive impact of these lessons
on a child. A young child is quite incapable of questioning these
conclusions when they are taught by a parent, who stands in a
position of unquestioned power. When you are angry at a child,
there is no way on earth that he or she could have the courage or
insight to say, “Dad (or Mom), I see that you’re angry. You must be
feeling unloved. Even though you’re expressing your anger at me,
I know you’re just reacting to a lifetime of not feeling loved, not
primarily to something I did or did not do in this moment. Is there
something I can do to help you feel more loved?” Absurd. No, a
child can conclude only that your anger is all about him or her, and
the effect is disastrous, as outlined above.
They Respond with Even More
Getting and Protecting Behaviors
It’s hugely ironic that when we get angry at our children, we cause
the very behaviors we’re trying to control or eliminate. Here’s how
that happens:
• All the behaviors in children that inconvenience and annoy
us—disobedience, rebellion, whining, insistence, sullenness,
withdrawal, and so on—are only Getting and Protecting
Behaviors that exist in response to their not feeling loved
unconditionally.
• When we don’t feel unconditionally loved either, the
behaviors of our children then make us feel even more empty
and afraid.
• To alleviate these painful feelings, we get angry, which gives
us a sense of power and safety.
• From our anger, our children hear only “I don’t love you,”
which greatly magnifies their feelings of emptiness and fear.
• They respond by using even more Getting and Protecting
Behaviors, exactly what we were trying to prevent.
Children will do almost anything—they use all the Protecting
Behaviors—to avoid any expression of our disapproval: a sigh, a
frown, a raised eyebrow, a change in our tone of voice, or an unkind
word. To our children, disappointment and anger are different only
in degree, and both are devastating.
They Can’t Learn
One beautiful fall day, George came to see me about his son, Dan. He
was quite animated and irritated as he told me about Dan’s negative
attitude, disobedience, and lack of responsibility. “Only yesterday,”
George said, “I was trying to talk to him about something, and he
just sat there, giving me that sullen stare. It’s like he doesn’t hear a
word I say.”
“He can’t,” I responded.
“What do you mean?”
“When you’re angry, he can’t hear anything you’re saying.”
“I wasn’t angry. I was just being firm. He doesn’t listen unless
I’m firm with him.”
“It doesn’t sound like he listens to you when you’re ‘firm,’
either, but you were more than firm. You were angry.”
“How do you know that? You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t have to be. I’m here with you now, and you’ve been
angry at Dan from the moment you started talking about him.
You’re also angry at me for questioning what you did—which
doesn’t bother me in the least. I’m only describing what I see so
that you can see it. You’ve already proven that the way you talk to
Dan doesn’t work, and because I care about you, I’m helping you
see why he can’t hear you. Considering all the anger you’re showing
here, it’s utterly impossible to believe that you were not angry with
Dan when you talked to him. If I spoke to you in the same tone of
voice you used with Dan yesterday, would you think I was angry?”
“Okay, I get the point. So I might have been a little irritated at
him.”
“Let’s assume for a moment that I’m your employer. I supervise
you, sign your paycheck, and have the authority to fire you. Can you
picture that?”
“Sure.”
“Now, suppose I come to you and describe a mistake you made at
work yesterday. I tell you that it’ll cost the company a couple hundred
dollars to fix the mistake, and two other employees will have to work
overtime to correct it. But you can see that I’m not the least bit irritated
by any of this. In fact, I apologize that I didn’t give you enough
information to do the assignment correctly in the first place, and then
I describe how you could do the task in a way that will be easier and
more productive. Would you be willing to do it the new way?”
“Of course.”
“How do you feel about me describing your mistake?”
“Fine. You’re just trying to help me.”
“Now imagine that I come to your office and throw a pile of
papers on your desk. I say that what you’ve done is completely
unacceptable, and I yell at you as I describe what a bumbling fool
you are. Do you feel different about our conversation this time?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the difference?”
“It’s hard to listen to you when you’re yelling at me.”
“Why?”
“It just is,” he said.
“The first time I talked to you, it was easy to hear me, because—
in your words—I was just trying to help you, right?”
“Yes.”
“What was different about the second time was that I was angry
at you. We rarely appreciate what our anger means. I can describe
your mistake and still have a genuine concern for your happiness, as
you discovered when I talked to you the first time. But the moment I
become angry, I’m telling you my primary concern is for whom?”
“Yourself.”
“Exactly. Every single time I’m angry, I’m mainly concerned
about what I want, which means I can’t possibly be concerned
primarily about you. Every time I’m angry, I’m telling you I don’t
care about you—which is the one thing we all hate to hear more
than anything else—and then you will react to that, instead of
listening to my correction of your mistake. You’ll defend yourself
by withdrawing from me, or being angry at me, or acting like a
victim, and so on. While I’m angry, you can’t really listen to me,
because all you can hear is my telling you I don’t care about you.”
“I never saw it that way before.”
“Most people don’t, but you have to understand this before
you can change the way you interact with Dan. Every time you’re
angry at him, I promise you he hears you speaking only four words:
I don’t love you. Once he hears that, essentially he becomes deaf
to everything else you’re saying. You’ve been wondering why he
doesn’t listen to you, and this is the answer: your anger.”
“But I’m not always angry when I talk to him,” George
protested.
“That’s probably true,” I agreed. “Let’s go back to the example
of my being your boss. Suppose that I blow up at you only half the
times we speak. During the other half of the times we talk, what will
be going through your mind? Will you feel relaxed?”
Whenever we’re angry at our children, they hear us say only
four words: “I don’t love you.” And then they respond with
the Getting and Protecting Behaviors that are so destructive
to them and to others.
“No, I’ll be waiting for you to blow up. I’ll never be sure when
you’re about to get mad at me.”
“Right, and that’s how Dan feels. Also remember that if you
want to estimate how much of the time you’re not mad at him, you
can count only the times he’s making mistakes—when he’s screwing
up. If you treat him nicely while he’s doing what you want, that
doesn’t count for much, frankly. On those occasions, he can feel
only like he’s buying your affection. It’s only when he’s making
mistakes that he can feel whether you love him unconditionally—or
you don’t. If I had to guess, I’d bet you get angry at him a lot more
than half the times he makes mistakes, and that leaves him with only
one conclusion: that you don’t love him. That has a huge impact on
him. He’s constantly waiting for the next blowup from you.”
Most of us have said to our children on many occasions, “How
many times have I told you to _____? Why do I have to keep
repeating myself?” If our children had the insight and courage, they
would answer, “You have to keep repeating yourself because each
time you teach me that principle, you’re angry, and I can’t hear you
when you’re angry. If you would speak to me with any concern for
my welfare, I could probably hear you.”
We Can’t Be Happy
Think about the last time you snapped at a child. Did you feel a
growth of your inner peace? Did you feel warm and fuzzy inside?
Never. Not only does our anger have a negative effect on others, but
it eliminates the possibility of happiness in our own lives.
Genuine happiness comes from feeling unconditionally loved
and from loving others. Because anger always interferes with our
feeling loved and loving others, it makes happiness impossible.
We Teach Our Children the Lie
That Other People Make Us Angry
Every time we express anger at our children, we’re strongly
implying that they made us angry. We make it quite clear—with our
words, sighs, rolling eyes, tone of voice, and so on—that they are
responsible for how we feel. In order to remove all doubt about that,
in fact, we often say, “You make me so mad.”
In so doing, we are teaching our children a terrible lie, that other
people can make us angry. This lie has enslaved most of us all our
lives, as illustrated in the following story.
One day I heard two of my children, Joseph and Rachel,
quarreling in the next room. Walking into that room, I said to
Joseph—randomly choosing one of them—“You look pretty mad.”
“Yeah,” he said, “who wouldn’t be? She borrowed my shirt
again, and she didn’t put it back. So I had to look all over the house
for it until I figured out that she had it.”
“So she made you angry, right?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically, and surprised that I would question
such an obvious conclusion.
“So let’s do this,” I suggested. “Let’s go down to the hardware
store, get a large brass ring, and fasten it through the hole we’ll drill
through your nose. Then we’ll attach a big chain to the ring and
hand it to Rachel.”
“What?” he said, obviously confused.
“You wouldn’t like being Rachel’s slave?”
“No.”
“But you already are her slave, Joseph. Any time she wants to,
she can do something to make you mad. So, effectively, she owns
you. Do you want to keep being her slave?”
“No.”
In our society, it is almost universally accepted that other
people make us angry, and we pass this belief on to our children.
Regrettably, this belief makes our children captive to the behavior of
every person around them, which is far from a desirable condition.
Later in this chapter, we’ll prove that other people never make
us angry, and in Chapters Six and Eight we’ll discuss how to handle
arguments between our children.
BECAUSE OF ITS CONSISTENTLY DESTRUCTIVE
EFFECTS, ANGER IS ALWAYS WRONG
In Chapter One, I said:
Since happiness is the central goal of life, a behavior is right
when it contributes to that goal—in other words, when it leads
to being unconditionally loved, loving, and responsible. Any
behavior which interferes with those conditions is therefore
wrong.
Because anger always interferes with our feeling unconditionally
loved, loving, and happy, anger is always wrong. I am not saying that
when you’re angry, you’re evil, nor am I saying that you shouldn’t
be angry—in a given moment, anger may be the best you can do. I
am saying that because anger detracts from our primary purpose for
being alive—because it is uniformly destructive, and keeps us from
being happy—it is wrong. It just doesn’t work. Anger is wrong in
the same sense that saying 2 + 2 = 5 is wrong, or that when you get
a flat tire on your car, replacing the tire with a kitchen sink would be
wrong.
We also established in Chapter One that our primary goals are
to love our children and teach them to love others. In the presence of
anger, our children cannot feel loved by us, and so, for yet another
reason, anger is wrong. When we’re angry, we cannot be loving,
effective parents.
Take a moment and tattoo these words on the inside of your right
upper eyelid, where you’ll always remember them: When I’m angry,
I’m wrong. Everything else we give our children—entertainment,
money, a great house, the best education, and so on—will not make
them happy if they don’t feel unconditionally loved by us, and they
cannot feel loved when we’re angry at them.
Because anger always interferes with our greatest purposes
in life—to feel loved, to be loving, and to be happy—anger
is always wrong.
You might be tempted to think, “But what am I supposed to do
when they misbehave? I have to correct them, don’t I? Sometimes
they only pay attention when I’m mad. When I speak calmly, they
just ignore me. Sometimes I have to get angry, for their own good—
so they’ll listen.”
That reasoning is seductive, but we must never forget that when
we’re angry, our children don’t feel loved, and Real Love is the
most important gift we’ll ever give them. When we’re angry, we’re
wrong. Period. It’s true that when we get angry, they do sometimes
move more quickly and accomplish the individual tasks we demand
of them, but the long-term effects are devastating:
• First, if they consistently respond to our anger with obedience,
we’ll have children with clean rooms and good grades but
who—without Real Love, the one element most important to
genuine happiness—will be deeply unfulfilled and miserable
in the long term.
• A second outcome, however, is even more likely. Eventually,
most children resent the constant whip of anger as a motivation,
and then they quit responding to it with fear and compliance.
Instead, they protect themselves by withdrawing, acting like
victims, and getting angry in return, as George’s son, Dan,
did.
Anger is always wrong, and it’s never effective in the long
term. That does not mean we should be permissive, which is an
equally terrible mistake in parenting. Throughout the book, we’ll
be discussing the most effective ways we can teach and love our
children, avoiding both anger and indulgence.
WHY WE GET ANGRY
If anger is so destructive—to us personally, to our children, and to
our relationships with them—why do we continue to get angry?
Why do we continue to use a behavior that never gives us the results
we really want? We continue to get angry at our children because:
• we’re empty and afraid ourselves.
• our children don’t fill our enormous expectations for their
love.
• anger is a response we’ve learned from our parents and others
throughout our lives.
We’re Empty and Afraid
As we described in Chapter Two, anger is a Getting and Protecting
Behavior. We get angry only to fill our emptiness and to protect
ourselves from fear, conditions that exist because we do not have
sufficient Real Love. Anger is absolute proof that we are empty and
afraid.
When we’re already empty and afraid from not feeling enough
Real Love, we become much more afraid when confronted with
angry or disobedient children. What are we afraid of?
• We’re afraid of losing control over them. Without sufficient
Real Love, we enjoy the sense of power we get from
influencing or determining what our children do. That’s not
a pretty thing to see about ourselves, but it’s still true. When
they behave badly, we feel helpless and weak.
• We’re afraid of losing their respect (another form of power,
and also praise).
• We’re afraid of losing their approval and affection (praise).
• We’re afraid of looking like bad parents—to our children and
others (loss of praise).
• We’re afraid of losing the peace and quiet we enjoy (pleasure
and safety). We hate the simple inconvenience that always
accompanies an angry child—we have to deal with his or her
anger, which usually isn’t easy or fun.
In other words, when children are angry we’re afraid of losing
the Imitation Love we get from them, a “love” we have no right to
demand. And then we respond with our own Getting and Protecting
Behaviors, one of which is anger. With anger we feel better in
several ways:
• We feel stronger, more in control, less helpless.
• We often succeed in commanding their respect.
• If we consistently manipulate our children to do what we
want, we feel competent (praiseworthy).
• We create the illusion of being disciplined and strong parents,
earning the praise of other parents.
• We achieve the peace and quiet we crave (pleasure and safety).
Of course, all these effects are superficial and transient—as are
the effects of all forms of Imitation Love—and when they wear off,
we have to work to get them again. No amount of Imitation Love
can ever make us truly happy.
They Fail to Fill Our Expectations for Love
Another explanation for our anger is the expectations we have of others.
If we don’t feel sufficient Real Love—as most of us don’t—we’re
empty and afraid, a condition we cannot tolerate. It’s only natural that
we then expect the people around us to soothe our pain and fill our
emptiness, and when they don’t, we can become quite irritated. How,
we reason, could other people—especially those close to us—just stand
by and fail to relieve our obvious discomfort? Without meaning to, we
heap some of these expectations for love—Real and Imitation—on
our children, and when they don’t fill them, we resent it.
Anger is always preceded by an expectation of some kind. We
get angry at people only when they fail to fulfill our expectations.
You never become angry at your neighbor, for example, for not
taking out your garbage, while it’s easy to conceive of getting angry
at your son or daughter for not doing the same task. The difference?
Expectations. You don’t expect your neighbor to take out your
garbage, so when he doesn’t do it, there’s no disappointment or
irritation.
We get angry at our children because we have expectations of
them. What do we expect?
• Obedience (power, safety)
• Gratitude (praise)
• Respect (praise, power, safety)
• Cooperation (power, safety)
• Affection (praise)
Certainly these are qualities children need to have if they want
to be happy, but rarely do we insist on these qualities in our children
solely for their benefit. When we don’t have enough Real Love in
our own lives, we demand obedience, for example, to feed our own
need for praise, power, and safety. We need gratitude to confirm our
own worth (praise). We demand respect to confirm our position of
power over our children.
The Powerful Need for Our Children’s Love
On many occasions, I have asked adults, “Does anyone love you
unconditionally?” and a common answer is this: “Yes, my children
do.” That belief, however, is almost always inaccurate, inappropriate,
and dangerous. Our children are not responsible for loving us, and
with rare exceptions they’re also incapable of doing so.
Most of us place considerable responsibility on our children to
make us feel good. We prove this every time we’re disappointed in
them or angry at them, because on these occasions we’re declaring
that they are responsible for our happiness or unhappiness—and
we’re mostly unaware of how often we do that.
Our happiness is not determined by the behavior of our children.
Our happiness is a result of how much unconditional love we’ve
received over a lifetime of experiences with parents, teachers,
friends, and spouses—and by how loving we are toward others.
Most of us, however, were not unconditionally loved, and without
Real Love we have become unhappy as adults and parents.
But now it is not our children’s responsibility to give us the Real
Love we need. Children need to be loved by us. They need to be
filled up with the unconditional love required for their happiness.
Children become whole only when love is initially a one-way
flow, from us to them. That can’t happen while we’re demanding
something from them in return.
Our Children Can’t Love Us Unconditionally
We want to believe that our children love us unconditionally, but if
they haven’t received enough Real Love from us—as few of them
have—how can they give it to anyone else? In most cases, when
we expect love from our children, we’re asking them to give us
what they’ve never received sufficiently themselves. Their task is
impossible, and the burden is crushing.
Love can be unconditional only when it’s freely given. The
giver of unconditional love can’t be empty or afraid. When people
are empty or afraid, they can only manipulate other people to get
what they want or protect themselves from being hurt. Almost
without exception, our children are both empty and afraid: They
badly need us to love them, and they’re scared to death of losing our
love. These are natural conditions for a child, but they make it very
difficult for children to give us Real Love.
We tend to love our children more when they’re good—when
they do what we want. They can feel that our approval is not
unconditional, but it feels better than nothing, so they do their best—
in the beginning, at least—to earn more of it by giving us what we
want: gratitude, respect, obedience, affection, and so on. We feel
good when we get those things, and understandably we then believe
that our children are “loving” us. But they need our approval and
love far too much to give us anything without expecting something
in return. They give us what we want so we’ll give them the “love”
they desperately need. Although it’s unconscious, our children trade
Imitation Love with us, and we gladly participate in the exchange,
all of us just doing our best to survive in the absence of Real Love.
Is it ever possible for a child to unconditionally love his parents?
Yes, but only after that child has been consistently and unconditionally
loved himself for a long time. Few children have been loved in that
way, and no loving parent would expect such love from a child. When
a child can love his or her parents, it’s just a delightful bonus for those
parents, not something they have a right to expect.
How We Manipulate Them for Imitation Love
If we don’t have enough Real Love in our own lives, we will make
attempts to get Imitation Love from the people around us, and we
will tend to do that most with the people who are closest to us. Later
in this chapter we’ll talk about the various ways we manipulate our
children for Imitation Love.
Failure to See the Expectations We Have of Our Children
Most of us have expectations every day that our children will love
us and make us happy. Often we express them in subtle ways.
We don’t say to a child directly, for example, “I need you to love
me.” Instead we say, “Give Mommy (or Daddy) a kiss.” Without
thinking about it, we thus place an enormous burden on children
to give us affection so we won’t be disappointed, and they feel that
obligation. As they sense that we have any expectations for them to
make us happy, they can’t feel unconditionally loved—even if our
expectations are unconscious.
How can we know whether we have selfish expectations of our
children? Again, disappointment and anger. These feelings mean
that we didn’t get something we wanted. Our disappointment and
anger prove that we’re being selfish, and we experience these
feelings in response to the behavior of our children so often that
we’ve come to accept them as normal. We justify ourselves,
claiming that disappointment is acceptable—even unavoidable—
when a child makes certain kinds of mistakes, or is disobedient, or
is disrespectful, and so on. When our children behave badly, it is
our responsibility to correct them, but disappointment and anger are
never a part of loving and effective teaching.
I’m not saying that children shouldn’t be respectful, obedient,
and grateful—far from it. They need these qualities in order to be
happy, but they acquire these characteristics far more easily when
we just love and teach them. Children don’t learn real respect—and
certainly don’t feel Real Love—when we expect and demand it
from them. We’ll talk more about how to love and teach children in
Chapters Five and Six.
We become angry at our children when they don’t fill our
huge expectations for them to love us. Those expectations
are inappropriate and harmful.
Why We Have Children
Without Real Love, we try to fill our emptiness with all the praise,
power, and pleasure we can find. We lie, attack, act like victims, and
cling in order to earn the attention of other adults, but we soon find
those efforts exhausting, and we discover that the Imitation Love
we get is unpredictable. Because children are so dependent on us—
because they desperately need us, and because they feel obligated
to us by all we give them—we learn that we can use them more
easily and consistently than other people as a source of Imitation
Love. Adults resist our manipulations and require more from us
than children do. And we feel safer around children: They don’t
ask us why we don’t get a better job; they don’t tell us to be more
responsible; they don’t suggest that we lose some weight; they don’t
make us feel unattractive; they don’t see our fears or intimidate us
in as many ways as adults do.
We don’t like seeing this, but a significant part of the motivation
for many of us to have children is that we feel alone, and we hope
children will love us and make us happier. That’s understandable,
but we are often selfishly using our children to make us feel better.
Elise and Chris had lived together for two years. Both came to
the relationship without experiencing much Real Love, and each
expected the other to make him or her happy. Naturally, the result
was disappointment and bitterness. As their relationship began to
fail, Elise thought a baby might bring them together again. Without
telling Chris, she stopped using her contraceptive and became
pregnant. Soon after that Chris left the relationship completely and
moved away. After he left Elise said to a friend, “Well, at least when
the baby comes, I won’t be alone.”
What a fate! Even before his birth, this child was given the
responsibility to make his mother feel loved. That’s a burden no
child can carry and be happy, but that’s the job most children are
given, and it destroys them.
We Get Angry at Our Children
Because We Learned That Response from Others
In a given situation, we have a natural inclination not to do what’s
most effective but to do what we’ve learned. Most of us can easily
recall how our parents and others responded to us when we were
quiet, clean, responsible, and cooperative as children. They smiled
at us, spoke gently, and in other ways indicated how pleased they
were with us. But we also remember what happened when we made
too much noise in the car, fought with our sister, and dragged dog
poop across the living room carpet. The smiles and kind words were
instantly replaced with frowns, sighs of exasperation, and words
spoken in a harsh tone. It certainly wasn’t intentional, but we were
clearly and repeatedly taught that when people make mistakes, the
natural consequences are disappointment, irritation, and disapproval.
It’s little wonder that we learned to repeat the same pattern with our
friends, classmates, co-workers, spouses, and children.
NO ONE EVER MAKES US ANGRY
Earlier in the chapter, I mentioned that in our society it’s almost
universally accepted that other people are responsible for making us
angry. When we’re mad, we’re usually blaming someone for causing
that feeling. All that blaming and anger never make us happy, but
we keep doing it. Why? Because other people—being flawed
human beings, and having their own needs to fill—unavoidably and
regularly inconvenience us, which we believe is the same thing as
causing our anger. Our reasoning might go something like this:
• All was well in my world. I was fine.
• Then that bone-headed, inconsiderate, selfish fool _____
(whatever he or she did to “make” you angry).
• Immediately I became angry.
• Because I would not have become angry if he had not behaved
in that way, and because my reaction immediately followed
his behavior, it’s obvious that he caused my anger.
Because anger is so destructive, and because blaming others
only makes the continuation of anger a certainty, I will present here
several proofs that other people are never the cause of our anger.
These will also stand as proofs that our children never make us
angry. Take your time with these. As you absorb them and allow
them to change your thinking, your world will change, and you will
gain the ability to give your children great personal power.
Proof 1
The Self-evident Proof:
We Always Have a Choice
As human beings, we have a position unique in the universe.
Although there is certainly much in this world that is beautiful and
awe-inspiring—the stars, planets, oceans, mountains, trees, birds,
fish, sub-molecular intricacies, and so on—we alone have the ability
to determine our own course. The behavior of everything else is
determined by gravity, instinct, the weather, training, and DNA, but
we human beings can actually comprehend our condition, ponder
it, and make decisions that will change our course. In fact, we’re
quite jealous of that ability and will defend to the death our right
to exercise it. We have fought many wars against those who would
claim to tell any of us what we can or cannot do.
As proud as we are of our ability to make our own decisions
about everything else, why is it that we are so quick to claim that
other people can make us angry? Whenever we think or say “You
make me so mad”—a common expression indeed—we are giving
up our right to determine how we feel, and we do this quite often.
We claim that we can make our own decisions about everything
else but not about how we feel. Why is that? Because we claim
the ability to make choices only when it suits us. We like being
responsible for choosing what we eat, and what we wear, and
where we live, and whom we’ll marry, because we like the
consequences—the rewards—of those choices. But we don’t like
being held responsible for our anger. We’d rather blame that choice
on someone else.
Rain makes the ground wet. The sun makes the grass warm. The
ground and the grass have no choice in the matter. But we human
beings are not dirt or grass. We do have choices—about many things,
including about how we feel. When people treat us badly, we make
decisions about how we will respond. In the absence of Real Love,
our ability to respond is certainly impaired—sometimes severely—
but we can still choose to limit our Getting and Protecting Behaviors
(including anger) to some degree. The more we understand about
the behavior of other people, and the more loved we feel, the more
able we become to make wise and loving choices. Self-control and
Real Love enjoy a powerful synergy, which we’ll discuss in Chapter
Four.
Proof 2
It’s Your Emptiness and Fear That Lead to Anger,
Not What Someone Else Does to You
(Two Dollars vs. Twenty Million)
In Chapter One I asked you to consider what it would feel like if you
were starving and I took your last two dollars, the money you hoped
to exchange for a loaf of bread. You were angry, and understandably
you blamed your anger on me. But then we imagined a different
scene. Again I took two dollars from you, but this time you had
twenty million dollars in the next room. Your anger was either
eliminated or greatly reduced, proving that your anger in the first
scene was caused not by me but by your lack of twenty million
dollars.
As I said in Chapter One:
When we have enough Real Love in our lives, we feel as though
we have twenty million emotional dollars with us all the time.
With that greatest of all treasures, the little inconvenient things
people do become relatively unimportant. With Real Love, we
have everything that matters. Without it, we become afraid and
protect ourselves with anger. Our anger is caused by a lack of
Real Love in our own lives, not by what our children or anyone
else does in a given moment.
Proof 3
You Can’t Claim That Someone Makes You Angry
If Anyone Else Does Not Become Angry
When That Person Does the Same Thing
I once went with some friends on a canoe trip down a stretch of
river that included some challenging white-water rapids. My friend
Gene was less experienced than the rest of the group and nervous
about the adventure, so I invited him to go with me in my canoe
and assured him that he’d have a great time. During our passage
through one of the more difficult rapids, two of the men in another
canoe were goofing around and intentionally bumped their canoe
into mine. Gene was startled, lost his balance, and fell out of the
canoe. Of course, that tipped the canoe over and threw me into the
water, too.
Gene was already anxious about this outing. He’d never canoed
a river this rugged, and now he found himself bouncing between
large rocks while gasping for air in the cold, churning water.
Understandably, this had become a terrifying experience for him. I
hurried to make sure that Gene was all right, and when he reached
the calmer waters I found that he was fine physically, but he was
furious at the two men who had bumped into our canoe. Clearly, he
blamed them for his anger.
Unwittingly, he had proved that other people don’t make
us angry. The exact same thing happened to both Gene and me:
We were both bumped by the other canoe, dumped into the cold
water, and forced to swim through the rapids down the river. Our
reactions, however, were strikingly different: Gene was enraged at
the men who had run into us, while I found the whole incident rather
humorous and invigorating.
What was the difference? Gene was simply unprepared for what
happened, in at least two ways. First, he was physically unprepared.
He had no experience with such situations—through no fault of
his own—so when he was bumped by the other canoe, he didn’t
know what to do, lost his balance, and fell into the water. He was
also emotionally unprepared. He had not felt sufficient Real Love
in his life, so he was already unhappy, and the slightest mishap was
enough to push him over the edge. When he became frightened,
he immediately reached for the Protecting Behavior he had always
used—anger. It was the only thing he knew to do.
Because I was physically prepared for canoeing, being bumped
by the other men was not overwhelming to me, although I was
still thrown in the water because of Gene’s reaction. Because of
that inconvenience, I could then have reacted with anger to all
three men, but I had been prepared emotionally by years of being
unconditionally loved. Because of that love, I didn’t feel empty
or afraid and therefore had no need to use any of the Getting and
Protecting Behaviors, including anger. I was not a better man than
Gene, just better prepared to react to that incident.
We see examples all around us of people reacting differently to
the same events. In World War II, for example, millions of people
were imprisoned and killed in concentrations camps, by the Germans
and by the Japanese. From the many oral and written accounts made
by survivors of those camps, we have learned that many of those
people understandably became very angry and bitter because of the
unspeakably hateful treatment they received at the hands of their
captors. Some of those inmates, however, chose not to become
angry. Instead, they forgave their tormentors and even learned to
love them. They saw the terrible effects of anger and hate—on
both perpetrators and victims—and they refused to give in to those
feelings. Victor Frankl spoke of such people in Man’s Search for
Meaning, as did Corrie ten Boom in her book, The Hiding Place.
Some of us get angry when other people are inconsiderate toward
us, but others of us do not. Clearly, the problem is not the people
who are inconsiderate. If that were so, everyone would become
angry when he or she were treated badly, but that does not happen.
In fact, if you get angry when I do something, and we can find even
one person in the world who does not get angry when I do that same
thing, then I did not make you angry. You made a choice. Anger
is always a choice. In any given situation, some people choose to
become angry and others do not.
Proof 4
When Imitation Love Makes Your Anger Go Away,
You Can’t Claim Someone Else Caused Your Anger
One day I was having lunch with my friend Larry, and he mentioned
an incident with his son Jordan. Larry had clearly told Jordan never
to use Larry’s expensive video camera, but Jordan ignored his
warning, and while Larry was out of the house, Jordan used the
camera, dropped it, and damaged it. Larry was furious at his son,
and during our conversation he used the phrase, “Sometimes that
kid makes me so mad.”
Me: If I gave you a million dollars in cash right now—and a new
car—would you be less irritated with him?
Larry: (smiling) Yes, I guess I would.
Me: Then Jordan didn’t make you angry.
Larry: I don’t understand.
Me: If a million dollars would make your anger go away, then
obviously the real cause of your anger is the lack of a million
dollars, not Jordan—right?
Other people never make us angry. Anger is always a
choice.
In our society, we commonly greet people by asking some
variation on “How are you?” A frequent reply to that query is
“Fine” or “Good.” What we almost always mean by that response
is that things are going well. We mean that our supply of Imitation
Love is adequate for the moment, and that is what keeps us from
being angry. But if we’re running low on praise, power, pleasure,
and safety, watch out! That’s when we become irritable. When we
don’t have enough Imitation Love, people who would ordinarily not
bother us suddenly become enormously irritating.
Once again, it’s not the individual behaviors of the people
around us that make us angry. Anger is our reaction to the emptiness
and fear that always accompany the lack of Real Love. When we
have sufficient Imitation Love, we can often temporarily ignore the
emptiness of not feeling loved. When we run out of Imitation Love
and get angry, a new supply of Imitation Love usually makes our
anger go away.
Proof 5
When Real Love Makes Your Anger Go Away,
Then It’s Obvious That the Lack of it Was the Real Cause.
Earlier in this chapter, George was irritated with his son, Dan, and
he was certain that Dan had made him angry. Over the following
months, however, he learned to tell the truth about himself—
which we’ll discuss in the next chapter—and he began to feel
unconditionally accepted by wise and loving friends. As George felt
loved and happy, he no longer had a need to demand respect and
obedience from his son. When compared with Real Love, Imitation
Love soon loses its appeal.
As George felt unconditionally loved, he lost his need for anger,
which is a Getting and Protecting Behavior. He quit being angry
even though Dan’s behavior remained the same for quite some time.
And thus he proved that Dan had never been the cause for his anger.
If Dan had really been the cause, George would have continued to
be angry when Dan’s behavior didn’t immediately change.
I have observed the effect of Real Love on the lives of hundreds
of people, and I can tell you that George’s story isn’t the least bit
unusual. As we feel unconditionally loved, we lose our anger—
perhaps not all at once, but it does go away eventually.
THE FREEDOM OF BEING RESPONSIBLE
FOR OUR ANGER
We blame people for our anger because it seems easier than taking
the responsibility ourselves, a technique we learned from birth.
When I blame you for my anger, however, I’m stuck. I’ll be angry
forever unless you change. That’s unfortunate for two reasons: It’s
very impractical to have my happiness chained to your decisions,
and it’s simply untrue that you cause my anger.
When I realize that my anger is a reaction to the emptiness and
fear caused by a lack of Real Love in my own life, I can now do
something about it. I can tell the truth about myself and get the
unconditional love I need. I can quit being angry at my children and
instead be a loving parent to them—an infinitely better choice.
After understanding that other people don’t cause our anger,
we can take the next crucial step of teaching this principle to our
children. And then they too can experience the freedom that comes
from take responsibility for their own anger. I suggest that you
become familiar with two or more of the above proofs and use them
in teaching your children in family meetings and in situations where
they become angry.
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