Question: I am kind of a quick tempered person. I have two children, a boy who is 6 and a girl who is 4. I was always scared of my dad who was the family disciplinarian and I never wanted to walk in his footsteps with my own children but I can see that they are scared of me because I am quick to get angry and, as my wife will always tell me, what is worst is that my anger is unpredictable and seems to come out of nowhere. I often feel regret after yelling at my children for being too harsh but regret’s not very helpful since I can’t stop at the heat of the moment. I do not use corporal punishment at least. I am willing to change but not sure how to start. I want a happy family not a scared and dysfunctional one.

David Johnson Says...:

I commend you for your courage in facing your anger issue. Parenting is THE most difficult job we will ever face, largely because we care so much for our children, our emotions are always involved at peak levels. Managing and making sense of them is very difficult and important.

First of all, your unpredictable anger does indeed come from somewhere. It will take detailed self-exploration that requires several sessions with a psychotherapist. Consider bringing your wife along. You may find things will go much quicker with her help.

Here is an example of the sorts of things you may learn about yourself. Anger in men often reflects underlying feelings of vulnerability. Boys are often shamed for vulnerable feelings because it is thought they aren't manly. They often compensate by adopting anger as their favorite feeling, an manly emotion of strength. Perhaps you are afraid of how your children will grow up. Perhaps you worry their behavior has to shape up quickly before they head off to school or they will find their future compromised. Perhaps you see some of your less desirable traits in your children and worry your children will suffer like you did. So you become excessively persistent and insistent to squelch out the offending behaviors. Or perhaps you are simply overwhelmed with their age appropriate behavior. All you want is peace and quite after a long stressful day at work.

Whatever the underlying issue is, you must ferret it out and learn to address it appropriately. You will learn that your angry behavior can be controlled. Your belief and fear that you can't control it makes it beyond your reach. It will take lots of practice and a willingness to look yourself in the mirror unflinchingly to master your anger. Once you learn what feelings underlie your anger and you begin to master the "heat of the moment," you will discover some concrete ways to address and express your feelings by learning new skills and expanding your knowledge of child care.

You will also learn to listen to your children, understand how to respectfully address their concerns as well as your own, and negotiate a win win solution.

Question: I was bullied for being overweight when I was in middle school and I also lived with a lot of emotional abuse and teasing at home from my mother my entire life so anyway I know how badly being bullied feels. I am a supervisor of 28 people in a call center environment. I just had an HR review meeting because of accusations from more than one person that I was bullying my staff. I am shocked. I do not consider myself a bully but I am very quick to get angry when people fail to meet my expectations and I take meeting performance goals very seriously. Obviously I need to change my management style but I get so angry when people slack off or screw up and I don’t know how to keep that hidden. How can I learn to repress my anger?

David Johnson Says...:

Here is a wake up call for someone who is listening.  I congratulate you for recognizing the fit. The way you talk about your anger as a means to hold your employees accountable makes it appear to be a valid complaint. Anger is never a means to an end in the context of any sort of relationship.

The solution is not repressing or suppressing your anger. First, you need to recognize it for what it is. Anger is a message from your body that someone has been disrespectful or crossed your boundaries. The problem is that supervision is not about respect. It's about coaching, encouraging, mutually setting goals and helping your employees problem solve how to get there. It seems pretty clear that you have a sense of ownership about job outcomes. At one level, that is a good thing, you likely will be held accountable for your employees' performance. On another level, you need to retain objectivity when working as a supervisor in order to plan and execute the appropriate strategy. Your anger is preventing you from doing so.

The fact is, you can choose to use your anger to do whatever you want. With practice and time you can learn to take your anger and use it to listen to your employee politely. You can also use your anger as a barometer for your boundary issue with your employees and motivation to persist at discovering the problem.

If you doubt your control of your anger, remember the last time you avoided an ugly and risky conflict with someone by gritting your teeth and smiling to cover your anger, or seeming to ignore the combatant and walking away silently grumbling? Anger is most often misused in the context of a power imbalance. A bully intimidates his victim, a husband intimidates his wife or vice versa, or an employer intimidates his employee. Seldom will a bully take on an equal or certainly not a superior. You have identified with your childhood tormentors and find yourself in an uncomfortable position.

In addition, it appears that your experience with anger has way too much influence on your behavior. Anger doesn't make anyone act angry, you have to make the choice to do so. But, it sounds like you may have never learned this. Your experience with anger is that it was a dangerous emotion that lead to your abuse. It also appears that you attributed your abuser's behavior to their anger. So, to you, being angry IS behaving like a bully. Breaking this habit will take some time. You will need counseling and anger management training to learn a new way of responding to your anger.

What is this anger about? Do you take personally your relationship with your employees? Is their performance a reflection of your performance? Then you are set up to be either miserable on the job or making your employees miserable. It looks like it is the latter. Suppressing your anger will make you miserable. You have an issue with respecting your employees. You are crossing their boundaries. They are responsible for their performance, your job is to maximize their performance. You undermine your role and your job by being openly angry at them. If they screw up, it's not your screw up. You just have some more work to do. Are you worried about how your performance will be seen by your supervisor? I think you just got the message about how your performance is interpreted from HR. Congratulations on getting the message right, now get some help to adjust your boundaries and redirect your anger.

Question: Today my kids basketball coach played the starters all game, even when they were down by 12 in the fourth. My boy is 8 and he lives to play and it just crushed me to see him wanting to play so bad and that d*ck coach just playing starters. 8 year olds. So I went down to ask him to play my son but something happened between the bleachers and the sidelines and by the time I got there I was raging and I just punched him. Now we’re kicked out of the league. I wanted my kid to play and now he can’t play all year. What kind of dad am I. Sh*t like this has been happening to me my whole life. I mean well but f**k it up. My exwife says I am an a**hole and I guess she is right. I don’t want to be an a**hole dad. What do I do?

David Johnson Says...:

We all have some difficulty with anger. It is such a powerful motivator that expression is difficult to suppress. Some go so far as to never allow themselves to become angry. Ultimately that is a mistake and may lead to a passive social style that ends in feeling like they never get their needs met. This could be a major contributor to depression for a lot of passive people.

On the other side of the spectrum are people who believe they can't control their anger. At some level we all know we do control and are responsible for ourselves. Flip Wilson made everyone laugh with his excuse "The Devil made me do it!" We laugh because we know that is a lame excuse. But those with anger problems truly believe at some point they lose control, and sure enough their experience makes is seem true.

We are who we believe we are. If we believe we can handle the situation and we do a pretty good job. If we believe we deserve what we want to are willing to do whatever to get it done, we've set ourselves up. If we believe we can't control our anger, we surely will not. Anger gives us the power to control the situation momentarily. Using the anger inappropriately has consequences.

It is evident that you didn't respect the coach because you believe he wasn't treating your son fairly. But you are nearly helpless in this situation. The coach makes the decision and you need to respect him as a well meaning volunteer who carries a difficult responsibility. If you approached him respectfully, you have a chance to influence his decision. If you force your opinion on him, you will lose all influence. But you went even further and got your son kicked out. It probably felt good momentarily to have the power to hit the coach. But soon after you discovered you lost all influence on the situation.

You need to get into counseling before your anger does more damage to your life and your son's. Seek out an anger management specialist. I recommend that you take anger management classes that are readily available and see the counselor.

You have control over your behavior. Your decision to act inappropriately comes in the context of blinding emotion. You need to be able to recognize you are set up for trouble, stop yourself, and give yourself the time you need to decide a more effective approach. You need to repeatedly practice the skill of redirecting your anger into appropriate assertiveness and an ability to retreat without aggression. That skill is not easy to develop, so you will need help. Your persistence and patience will benefit not only your life, but enable you to provide a more appropriate role model for your son. You have already done well to recognize it is your problem to solve. Now you need to follow through for you and your son.