Can you see this angry child as a scared child? Image by foamcow via Flickr.

Today in our online parenting class that started last month we completed Session 7 in the course which deals with Chapter 9 in Beyond Consequences, Logic & Control Volume 1 on Aggression. Our goals for today’s session were:

1. To help participants identify anger as fear. An aggressive child is a scared child.
2. To help parents understand that aggression is a survival behavior, triggered when feeling threatened.
3. Equip parents to identify their own fear reactions when their child is aggressive.
4. Teach techniques that can be used to create safety and decrease the creation of more fear and stress.
5. Help them realize that aggression is not a personal attack against them. Help them shift their belief that their child is rejecting them.
6. Help them understand that the core drive of aggressive behavior is not control, it is protection.

We helped parents learn tools to help them prevent unsafe situations by connecting with their own fear and then working to stay regulated to help their child ’s nervous system shift out of survival.

I did a role play with Heather as the parent. I was a young child that was asked to take out the garbage, was defiant then overwhelmed and quickly turned aggressive, yelling and throwing things and looking for a knife. It was very easy for me to play the part, especially during the first half when she played the typical controlling parent.

As a child I remember a lot of yelling and screaming in my house. I am really sensitive to people’s tone of voice and hate arguing. I would avoid conflict at all costs, and hearing angry voices usually made me flee and cry. When I first met my husband I couldn’t even listen to Chris Matthew’s Hardball on MSNBC when he had it on.

So the louder and more insistent she got, the easier it was to be rebellious and say no and then lash out and it was tempting to shut down but that wasn’t the role play we were doing. But instinctively my hands came up to my ears and I told her to shut up, leave me alone, I hate you. She still had her voice raised (not much, but to a sensitive individual it was like screaming) so it felt natural to operate from my reptilian brain and lash out by throwing things and looking for that knife.

What a difference it was when she switched to a Beyond Consequences parent. Instead of aggravating me further she calmed me down and connected with me. It was a very intense class today.

One of the resources Heather suggested was Dr. Federichi’s book, Hope for the Helpless Child. She just did a weekend seminar with him called “Weekend of Solutions” for families who have extreme cases of aggression.

In our July 09 class, many of the parents have children who are aggressive. It is rewarding to see the progress they have made and the support they are getting by reaching out to each other in our private support group. After seven weeks of working with them, they are really opening up to each other and I am thrilled to see the connection and caring in the group.

I am so happy to be able to facilitate peace and healing for these families who need it most and feel like I’ve truly found my purpose (other than being the best wife and mother I can be). By resourcing them with the best information and tools available that I know from personal and others experience WORKS, I am helping to stop the “generational trains” a(s Heather calls them) of abuse, abandonment, fear, neglect, hatred and misunderstanding both in families and in the world.

Today Heather explained again with more detail on the brain science of why consequences and logic do not work with your child who is acting out of that primal state of survival.

Have you even been scared as a driver/passenger in a car and then gotten angry at the driver or other driver?

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