Be honest… when was the last time you lost it at your child?

I mean 😡 crazy 😡 mad 😡 shouting 😡 yelling 😡 loud…

For me it was last week in the car.

I lost my temper, BIG TIME.

We’d spent all day out at a water park and it was meant to be a special treat.

It cost an arm and a leg as well, but since it was for the kids, I was prepared to pay for it.

At first the day was fun. My daughters were excited, racing off to try the slides and lazy river.

Then, they both wanted to do different things with me at the same time, couldn’t agree and ended up both crying.

That set my teeth on edge, but I kept calm.

We had some more fun, splashing and laughing on the various rides.

Then they started whining that they were hungry, so we got food – expensive, over-priced fast food – which they ate about 2 mouthfuls of and then said was disgusting.

Expensive food that I had to pay for…

I was annoyed and I could see how if they didn’t eat, things were only going to get worse later on, but I kept calm.

By the end of a long, intensive day we were all pretty whacked and I was looking forward to a relaxing evening and an early bedtime.

Then in the car, they started bickering.

We calmed it all down and I kept calm too.

Then they started fighting.

We stopped them fighting and I kept calm.

But then as we drove down the road we saw a massive advert for the water park we’d been visiting, and I said “oh look girls, that’s the slide we went on today”

And then, from the back seat, a voice cut through the air—loud, sharp, and dripping with indifference:

“I couldn’t care less.”

And I lost it.

I turned around and shouted at them both about how I’d never had an experience as a child like the one they’d had, about how ungrateful they’d both been for what we’d done for them, about how disgraceful their behaviour was throughout the day.

I almost threatened never to take them anywhere like that again, but fortunately, my anger was already starting to quieten, and I know enough about parenting not to make empty threats in any case.

But the damage was done.

Silence filled the car.

Then I heard the sobs.

I glanced in the rearview mirror—their two faces, tears running down their cheeks. That’s when it hit me: my words had landed harder than I intended.

My anger, my rage, started to subside. I went from vengefully feeling “they deserved that” to feeling guilty about the anger in my voice.

Similar moments from my own childhood came back into my mind.

I felt the guilt of wondering if my children would remember my Angry Voice the same way I remember my parents’

If this kind of guilt feels very familiar to you, I want you first of all to understand you are not alone.

And more importantly, you can DO something about your anger if you don’t want it to be the way you’re remembered.

Take a look at this video from Dan Siegel.

He’s one of the world’s top child psychiatrists and in this video he admitted the No. 1 reason he got triggered by his kids—and it hit me HARD.

Watch the video here

It’s exactly why I lost my temper that day. Click the link above—his insights might just change how you handle anger forever.

The most important message we should all learn is we have the right to our own emotions , including our anger, and when we learn that, we can learn so much more about how to handle them.

And be the best possible parent for our children when to handling our yelling.

With love,

Patrick

P.S. I had some amazing reactions last week to my Friday emails which I am calling our Friday Parenting PowerUps. Hit reply and tell me: What’s one moment of yelling that you wish you could take back? And what do you do now to handle those moments differently? I read and reply to EVERY message. Patrick.