Anger
A disturbed child may have internalized infant rage and not internalized (taken in and made a part of himself) a powerful, loving parent. He often identifies with evil and destruction and is drawn to fire and gore. The parent and trained therapist must help the child process these feelings through a three-part process: locate, validate and accept.
“What are you feeling? I bet you do feel — I can understand you feeling that way.” The child’s unresolved anger or conflict will become evident in an event, often-intentional destruction or violence. These events are the child asking for your help. It is very important to process feelings as quickly as possible after an event. When working with the child to develop an awareness of feelings, the initial simplified choices are: mad, sad, glad or scared.
Almost daily ask your child. “On a scale of one to ten. how mad are you right now?” “One” being a tiny bit mad and “ten” being mad enough to kill. Be prepared to handle the child admitting to a “ten”. There should be no shock, no surprise, or tension in your eyes. You need to be powerful enough to handle the full range of your child’s feelings. If his depth of anger is to a killing rage, how large will his capacity for love and joy be?! I have found it to be boundless in healing children! The rage is typically directed at the mother. Even if a child has been abused, assaulted or raped by the father or someone else, it is the mother whom the child blames because the mother did not keep him safe. Sometimes a mother isn’t there and has no idea but the child will hold her accountable. This happens even when they had a different mother when they were hurt or left. Mom number one hurts them; Mom number five pays for it. The father will often not
notice anything wrong with the child because it is the mother who is under attack. The child will often triangulate the parents by acting sweet and pitiful for “Daddy”.
