We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:5

Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

Attributed to Margaret Thatcher, among others

I like to write about topics that make me look good: challenges I have overcome, difficulties through which I have persevered, and victories upon which to look back. However, this is not one of those topics. This is a sin I struggle against every day, especially when I am with my children a majority of the day.

A Snapshot of My Anger

I have a three year old, a two year old, and a three month old. There are too many times every day that I get frustrated with their responses or non-responses. I detail some of situations that make me angry below, but the spark for the fire of my anger is irrelevant. Despite the situation or circumstances, I am responsible for my own emotions and for my reactions to those emotions. In the moments that their actions annoy me (Proverbs 16:12), I yell at them “STOP DOING THAT!!!” or “GO AWAY” or “YOU ARE MAKING ME ANGRY!” (As though it is the fault of my toddlers that my emotional reactions are out of control.) My voice is naturally loud, so when I’m intentionally yelling, I can only imagine how frightening that is to a small child, especially one who depends on me for their every need. I slam cabinets, slam doors, hit the kitchen counter with spoons, and I yell…all in fits of rage.

In those moments, my two year old, who is one of the most empathic people I know, comes and apologizes to me, when I’m the one who was yelling at him. He thinks he did something wrong when I refuse to exercise self-control. In these moments, I realize how much I am hurting him and my daughter, especially when her emotional responses mirror my own.

And when I’m honest with myself, I wouldn’t speak to anyone else this way. It doesn’t matter how many times my coworkers ask me the same questions or how much my friends do or say annoying things. I would never consider it acceptable to yell at them. So why do I allow myself to treat my children worse I treat other people?

“In your anger do not sin” : Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 

Ephesians 4:26-29

Allow me a moment to be exceptionally clear: yelling at my children with the intent of frightening them into submission is abusive. In my mind, I prefer euphemisms like “losing my temper” or “seeing red” or any other description that allows me to avoid saying out loud that I am abusive when I yell at my children, even more so when I yell at them every day.  

We Must Know Our Thoughts

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

James 1:19-20

In order to take my thoughts captive, I first have to know what I’m thinking. It takes significant self control for me to calm down and be self-aware enough to realize why I’m angry before I respond in that anger. I believe there are situations in which we are all more likely to lose our temper: fatigue and hunger are among the most common. When I am tired or haven’t eaten in a while, I give into my anger much more quickly. I have to be on my guard during these times more than others, but the only way to be on my guard is to be aware that I’m tired and aware that I’m hungry and consciously decide that I will be even more patient during these times than I would be in other times.

There are also situations that are unique to me where I know that I’m also more susceptible to fits of rage, and I detail those below:

• The first is a dark room. This is one I have only recently realized, but when there is not enough light in the room, I get anxious and annoyed easily. This quickly morphs into anger and reaches full vent on my children, especially if they are trying to climb on me and sit with me while it’s dark.
• The second one that is often the hardest for my three children is when I am being touched too often. Love languages are not gospel, but they can be useful for understanding our friends and ourselves. Any survey I have ever taken shows that physical touch is almost nonexistent as a love language for me, so allowing my kids rub back, hold my arms, sit on my lap, especially all at the same time takes self denial on my part and can easily be a situation in which I get angry and yell.
• The third one is when the kids touch things or play with items that I have asked them repeatedly not to touch, which can be things like Afa’s cologne, the baby’s car seat, or my jewelry. If I have asked them multiple times not to mess with it, I expect them to remember that and have the self control to follow through, keeping in mind they are two and three.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but these are the three that we encounter most often. What are some situations unique to you that make self control more difficult than normal? Heat? Cold? Ingratitude? Messes? Sunshine? Lack of sunshine?

Preparation for Success

But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

Colossians 3:8

Knowing my thoughts is the first step to taking them captive, and the second is taking action based on this knowledge. Using the three examples above, here is how I proactively set up our day so that I demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit more often.

• Darkness: This is one of the situations that is easy to fix, and I am shocked at how much calmer I become: I keep the lights on. I keep all the lights on anytime I am in any room in our house, even in the middle of the day. This undoubtedly increases our utility bill, but it sets me and the children up for success. I could save $5 a month and be even more irritable toward my kids – or I could simply turn on the lights. Other easy-to-fix ones – if it’s hot, get a fan. If it’s cold, get a blanket. If it’s textures in your clothes, change clothes. Don’t make it unnecessarily hard on yourself to be kind to others.
• Touch: I don’t like to be touched, and my three children are happiest when they are clinging to me for dear life; so this one takes more effort than just turning on the lights – it requires working out a solution that meets everyone’s needs. It is a situation in which I have to practice self-denial, but there are some boundaries that I communicate to the kids. When I am eating or nursing, the kids cannot sit on my lap, and they have to let me eat breakfast and have a cup of coffee before we start climbing, wrestling and playing games. Through the day if we have been playing lots of games and I notice I’m starting to hate the feeling of being touched, I tell them I need five minutes. And the expectation is that they give me five minutes without touching me at all, not even a hand on my knee. These boundaries help me return to a calmer space when my anger is rising inside.
• Repetitive training: This is also more difficult than turning on the lights. In our house, there is an expectation that the children will obey the first time. There is also grace because they are young with very little impulse control and because God has incredible grace on us. I set us up for success in this area by creating a “Yes Space.” (https://www.theparentingjunkie.com/how-to-discipline-a-baby/) Our living room is our Yes Space; anything they can reach in this room, they can touch. It allows my toddlers the ability to fulfill their need to explore, jump, run and play without me standing over them, saying no repeatedly and getting angry that they aren’t obeying. It frees all of us to enjoy each other. The more that I keep our Yes Space free of items they should not have, the better our days go. It’s much easier to shut the doors to the bedrooms and remind them these are not appropriate areas to play than it is to remind about 1,346 items they are not allowed to touch throughout the house.
  • For us, this meant getting rid of furniture and toys. Fewer possessions means fewer things to destroy.
  • A friend gave us a baby swing that I had been greatly looking forward to using, but the older kids kept climbing in it. When I realized how much conflict the swing was causing, we gave it away. Problem solved.
  • We arranged our rooms so that we could store more items in the bedroom closets and less in the living room to allow the children space to play.
  • Take some time to redesign one area into a Yes Space.

Does It Always Work?

Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.

Proverbs 29:11

After I have realized what some of my anger triggers are and then set us up for success, our days are going to be perfect, right?? No more anger. No more yelling. No more fear. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but my sin still exists even when I have set up my environment in the best possible way. I have learned to pray every day that God help me control my anger. I am also in the process of learning to breathe. Rage wells from my abdomen and out my mouth so quickly, and that is when I yell at my children and say things that I regret. If I choose to capture those angry thoughts in the moment and take a really big, really deep breath INSTEAD of saying a single word, it almost always give me the one second I need to make a more righteous choice.

A method that one of my dear friends uses when her children are having a hard time is to have them say the word that they need, which might be “patience,” “love,” “self-control,” or other words that would be helpful in the moment. I can use this for myself, and even have my children say the word with me. If I take a big breath and then say “Ok, everyone, let’s say ‘self-control,'” that forces both me and my children to calm down for that small second before the situation becomes explosive.

I have been actively and daily working on controlling my anger and exercising patience and self-control. When I yell, which still happens almost every day to my shame, I apologize to my kids and ask for their forgiveness. I do this not only because I have sinned against them but also to model the response they need to have when they hurt someone else. There have been times when I have wallowed in worldly sorrow around this sin, which has led me into sadness and even more anger. My godly sorrow leads to repentance, and every day I work toward being a mom that my kids do not have to fear.

As a final note: it is important to evaluate the expectations you have of your children based on both their age and stages of development. I might want my two year old to sit and play with puzzles for 30 minutes because it would make my morning easier and because I told him to, but that doesn’t mean the expectation is reasonable for him, even if it is reasonable for my three old. And even if it is reasonable for my three old, that doesn’t make it reasonable for someone else’s three year old.