The other day I was making several baked potatoes in the microwave when my oldest son asked me why I had to poke the potato before baking it. At the time I thought nothing of it, I just responded, "so it wouldn't explode." This morning as I was preparing a sweet potato to put in the oven, I started poking the potato and thought about what my son had asked me. Since a recent blog post on anger had been on my mind, I thought about how we too are like a potato. A potato has moisture in it and when heated it creates steam. If no holes have been poked in it, there is no way for it to escape and it will explode.
How many times have you seen someone explode in anger? They let something build up inside and then when heat is applied, they explode to release the inner turmoil they are feeling. What is left is a mess. Sometimes it can be clean up, but most likely it will leave damage behind that can be unrepairable.
Proverbs 14:29, "[He that is] slow to wrath [is] of great understanding: but [he that is] hasty of spirit exalteth folly."
My youngest son now is beginning to show us when he gets upset. He gets told "no" and he puts on his pouty face and scrunches up his eyes, tilts his head back and walks away crying. He usually walks all over the place or finally plops down on his diapered bottom wallowing in his self pity. There are times I want to laugh, but I don't want to encourage him that that is the right way to handle it.
It's hard to admit, but don't we too as adults do that at times? We walk around upset at something and finally with a huff we sit on our duff, crying, waiting for someone to come along and give us pity and nurse our resentment. If we don't watch it we can stew on it too long and then one day it explodes out of us like that baked potato I was talking about.
We must move on and learn to get over it quickly like Ephesians 4:26 says, "Be ye angry and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath." Don't let little things: resentment and bitterness go on. Deal with it the day it pops up. If you just nip at the weed that has started to grow, the root will still be there getting bigger. Then one day when the right conditions are there it will show itself and be bigger then before and harder to pull out.
I know I am switching gears a little but I want to know what is the biblical way to deal with anger in children? 1) Do you let them have there tantrum and sit and watch it. Wait until the have finished and then step in to correct. 2) Or do you interrupt it trying to calm them down? I know when I interrupt one of my child's tantrums it only gets worse and he can't hear a word I say. It does me no good to discipline when he is in the middle of his tantrum.
Something to think about.
No comments:
Post a Comment