Train up your child in the way he should go...train them to love, and to be angry and sin not

Isn’t Letting Them Speak About Their Anger Permissive?

Think of it this way…would you expect a very young child to express anger in a mature way. After all, they are still ‘immature’.

“But isn’t that why you would make them stop being angry, because they are immature?”

Remember what happens when your child must stuff their anger…passive aggressive behavior. Anger will come out. Pick the way you want it to appear and then train them to manage it.  (I am not saying let them pitch tantrums.)

It Sounds So Disrespectful!

Here’s a question to help you determine if it really is disrespectful.  Ask yourself,  “What is my child’s attitude toward my authority most of the time?” (from the book, The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman)   Let’s say 90% of the time your authority is respected and your child is angry and letting you know it now. Good! Now train them how to work with that anger.

What if you’re angry because it sounded so disrespectful from the way you were brought up? It’s your turn to mature in the ‘anger arena’ by controlling yourself.  Passive-aggressive anger is a very manipulative anger and it’s the worst of all angers. In the long run, the child suffers the most from it as a teen and adult, not the authority figures in their life.  

Anger Comes Out Verbally or Behaviorally

Not allowing anger to come out brings passive-aggressive behavior.  There are exceptions to this:

“A child who is not upset about a particular event or relationship and is just loudly being angry most of the time is expressing anger to manipulate their parents and get their own way.  This is unacceptable. ” Angry verbal expressions motivated by a desire to upset and hurt others are inappropriate and must be corrected.  Handle those words like any misbehavior.  But in the correction, practice the basics: be pleasant but firm.”  The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman

Letting your child bring their anger to you and tell you about a particular problem gives you an opportunity to train her. If you cannot be pleasant but firm while training them in this situation, step away, calm down. Don’t wait a long time and when things are stable between both of you again, do these three things:

1. Tell them you are NOT going to condemn them.  When your child is very responsive to authority, they may feel guilty about what they did. Unless they know you won’t condemn them, they may never express their anger to you again.  This equals a loss of opportunity to train them how to handle their anger.
2. Tell them the things you noticed that they did right. You might say, “You did let me know that you were angry, and that is good.  You didn’t let your anger out on your little brother or the dog.  You didn’t throw anything or hit anyone. You simply told me that you were angry.”  This is what good training is for the angry child.
3. You want your child to have a positive anger response.  Instead of screaming at them about being angry, which is inappropriate anger for you as the adult.  Train them through the anger. 



One Crucial Element in Training your Child to Manage Their Anger

That one crucial element is your unconditional love for them let’s them know they are loved no matter what.  When they truly feel loved, they are more responsive to your training.  You cannot be loving your child and treating them poorly.  You don’t want your child to be the angry adult who has come to the conclusion, “If they loved me, they would not have treated me the way they did.”  This is where the scriptures come in for fathers:   

“Fathers provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.”  Colosisians 3:20-21

 and “Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4

These scriptures would not be in the Word of God unless there was a possibility of it happening. God never gave fathers the right to be bullies towards their children. He did call fathers to love their children, teach them how to love and how to “be angry and sin not.” 

Your child will be angry because we live in an imperfect world, they are immature and need to be trained in how to be ‘angry and sin not.’ 

Hear their viewpoint to understand their concern/complaint.  This helps you to know whether they were wronged or misunderstood. 

Gary Chapman notes in his book, “Processing anger and then training your children to deal with it in a mature way is one of the hardest parts of parenting.”

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