Thursday, September 22, 2011

I Want The Angry Monster To Go Away!





Even though Ace has promised that he will study in our home-school (aka Police Academy), ever since his toys from SGP came over, he has been very distracted by them...

Everyday, from the moment he reaches home, all he wants to do is play with his toys and nothing BUT play with his toys. Ask him to do homework, and it will often end up with me either nagging at him or shouting at him.

So leh, he pek chek.. I also super pek chek...

Then he got angry and started banging things on the table and pushing the table away and I reminded him that it is normal to be angry.. BUT it is not acceptable to me that he acts out his anger...

Sensing that I am right (and partially taking this as a good chance to call for attention I think), Ace told me that he is unable to just feel his anger and not act it out... The more he tried to feel his anger, the angrier he got... it was like he got into a vicious cycle and he looked as if he was about to pull out his hair..

Suddenly, he broke out into and outburst...

"I hate the angry monster! Mummy, can you ask the angry monster to go away.. I don't want to be angry anymore! Go and die you angry monster, I will kill you... and kick you... you stupid angry monster.. I want you to die.. go away!"

I reminded him that those are words of anger and whenever he speaks angry words like these he merely makes the angry monster even stronger and therefore, he will feel more anger and be over taken by his anger... "Besides," I added, "Everyone has a angry monster inside them.. even you, me, daddy... everybody.. and it is not possible for the angry monster to disappear... it is merely however possible to either choose to change the angry monster into love by feeling the anger to burn the anger away...."

"But I don't know how to just feel my anger..." I told him he can feel it in his heart.. or I can hug him and send him love to erase away the angry monster...

After I hugged him for a full 5 minutes, he said, "Mummy, I think the angry monster haven't go yet.. can you hug me somemore..."

(And I remembered how my teacher says tat psychologically, anger cannot last more than 7.5 minutes.. anything longer than tat it is because you invest in the anger and want to stay angry...) But I decided to just hug him...

After lots of hugs, he became peaceful again and was incredible hulk no more...

"Next time I am angry, mummy... can you hug me again?" Ace asked me..

I told him I can hug him but he has to tell me he is angry and ask if I can hug him politely instead of screaming and shouting at me or throwing things at me.. This is EQ.. and emotional awareness.. a very useful skill...

Anyway, I have been mindful to give him more hugs throughout the day.. thankfully, since that episode, he has no more "incredible hulk" episodes anymore... and instead of listening to me only 10% of the time, he slowly normalize to listening to me at least 80% of the time... PHEW...

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