I’ve blogged a great deal about the tantrums, rages and explosions here in my house. I hope I’ve never imparted a feeling that I handle this well all the time. I get emails asking me how I’d handle this situation or that in my home and truthfully it’s hard to tell without a great deal of background information.

One thing I’ve learned slowly is the need for me to always remain calm. Or to appear calm. Sometimes that only means that the child will escalate the rage in a blatant attempt to force me to react, such as breaking a window willfully right in front of me. That really does anger me but I can’t empower a controlling child by responding negatively.

This is very hard for me to do. I’m loud and volatile at best and my temper often flares around here. It’s taken me twenty years to learn to measure my breathing, look at the offender with cool eyes; usually I just look at the bridge of their nose since that centers me somewhat. Eye contact is often inflammatory around here.

I walk away so as not to yell what I feel in the heat of the moment because it wouldn’t be pretty. I generally don’t deal with that person at all until I’ve emotionally gotten a grip. Sometimes it takes hours for me to weed or clean or tend to something else, before I’m certain I won’t scream back hatefully and treat them the way they’ve treated me.

It is very difficult to have one’s house damaged when one fights so hard to manage money to pay for the dern house that’s getting destroyed. It’s hard to love kids who act so unlovable at times, screaming their rages and anger at me when I’m the only one who’s ever cared for them.

I suppose the only hope I can offer up to parents is the experience and knowledge that eventually these behaviors fade, unless the child is seriously disturbed then it just gets worse. But severe mental illness are a small percentage and the ‘normal anger’ dissipates, and I’m left with literally some sheepish kids, embarrassed at many of their previous shenanigans, anxious to repair the damages they’ve wrought and usually able to do so knowing I’ve always forgiven them everything they’ve done.