Parenting Advice From Joy Berry: Anger and Other Uncomfortable Feelings

My foray into writing living skills books for children began after a yearlong search for materials to use in a summer program I was directing. I wanted to offer classes that would help children live more happily and successfully.

I came across a lot of books about feelings. What bothered me most about these books was the fact that they never told the reader how to handle an uncomfortable feeling. Instead the message was, “Everyone has uncomfortable feelings, so it’s understandable and okay for you to have uncomfortable feelings too.”

Along with this approach was the tendency to encourage kids to express their feelings—to get them out instead of keeping them bottled up inside.

While all of this was good advice, I found it to be incomplete. Kids need to get their feelings out, but they need to resolve them as well.

I have always resisted the tendency to categorize feelings into “good feelings” and “bad feelings.” Instead I prefer to call them “comfortable feelings” and “uncomfortable feelings.” I also like to say that while comfortable feelings are pleasurable, uncomfortable feelings can be more productive because they often motivate us to do something that needs to be done.

This is especially true of anger. Anger is a great motivator. Historically, anger has motivated people to make some very positive changes. However, in order to insure that the changes motivated by anger are positive rather than negative, anger needs to be handled properly. This means that the resolution cannot be hurtful or destructive.

The book that I’ve written about anger is aimed at children, but the steps that it advocates for resolving anger (and other uncomfortable feelings) are for people of all ages.

Step One: Define your emotion.
Step Two: Acknowledge and accept your emotion.
Step Three: Decide what to do.
Step Four: Do what you have decided to do.