A Little Boy's Heart and the Anger Lesson

My 9 year old son, Clayton, has always had problems controlling his anger. He never knows what’s going to make him angry and he doesn’t ever know why things make him angry; he says it just happens and that he has to just let it out. We’ve done a lot of different things to try and help prevent anger, control the anger, and redirect the anger. He sees a behavioral modification therapist who has worked with him for years on learning how to identify his emotions and react to them. He counts backwards and forwards, has his own breathing techniques, knows when to leave the room when he’s at a friend’s house and he’s had enough, and he’s always remorseful after he loses his cool. But, I really don’t want anger to control his life forever. I am always reading these blurbs or parenting advice columns and I’ve read the “Good and Angry” book but I honestly more often than not wind up losing my cool too when he starts screaming that he hates me, or that I don’t love him, or that his life is so unfair, or starts throwing things, or hits the wall, or threatens to kick the cat. One day, something clicked for us and I’ve been asked to share the experience.

On this particular Sunday afternoon, we were on about the 10^th angry episode of the day. He was angry because he had to do homework, angry that he had to read a book, angry that I made him hand over his iPod, angry that the cat got in his way. He threw a laundry basket because it was next to him, and it just kept going on and on. I was getting frustrated because he was just getting so angry for what I considered to be minor issues that are just a part of life. I remembered that I had read a Facebook picture recently that gave me an idea on how to illustrate to him how his anger affects him and those around. The story I borrowed called for a wooden fence, a hammer, and a supply of nails. We live in an apartment and don’t have a fence but we needed a piece of wood for the project. I decided to take it one step further and use something that I made for him out of love.

Back when he was a toddler, I made a growth chart for him out of a 1x6x12. I painted it a pale yellow, added the ruler measurements, painted the dates of his doctor appointment height measurements since birth, and added drawings of his favorite animals on it. Every once in a while, he stands against it and I mark his height with a sharpie or a paint brush. He loves that board and he loves that I made it for him and it’s always fun for us to look at it and see how much he’s grown since I made it.

I brought the board and my toolbox to the living room and laid the board on the floor, handed him the hammer, and opened the box of nails. I asked him to think about what was making him mad right then. He looked at me like I was insane and I just told him “It doesn’t matter what is making you mad. Just think about it and take a nail and pound it in with the hammer.” He did one nail. Then another and another and another. He started mumbling out loud what was making him angry. Pretty soon there were about 20 nails in the board. I saw that this was soon going to be a waste of the limited supply of nails so I suggested he needed to hammer them all the way in, not to just stop when it was stuck. At one point, he actually nailed the board INTO the floor and I heard him mumble “good thing I plan on being a pilot because I’ll never make it in anger management.” That was so funny to me and it made me realize how much kids hear about anger management but probably don’t even really realize what the concept entails.

He continued for about an hour. I sat with him for a while and listened to his mumblings then I decided to leave him to it and started doing other tasks, coming back occasionally. He said he was done at one point and I just told him “Ok, come back and do it every time you are angry.” He came back periodically throughout the afternoon and by dinnertime, there were about 50 nails in a two foot section on what was once that pretty board that I spent hours creating. I brought him into the living room and asked him if he wanted to know what the purpose was of the activity and he seemed open to it so we sat down on the floor in front of the board.

I rubbed my hand on the unblemished parts of the board and sighed. I told him that I remembered how it felt to paint it and make it pretty and cool and to remember each stage of his life that I marked on that board. Then, I told him “that’s what your heart was like when God made it…it was smooth and pretty and He put all of His love for you into your heart. See what happened to this board every time you had a mean or angry thought? You hammered a nail into it. It doesn’t look as pretty now does it?” He just looked a little sad and shook his head “no” and rubbed the part that was without nails. Then, I told him, “Every time you get angry and react in a mean way, it’s like you’re pounding a nail into your heart that God made for you. It probably makes Him just as sad to see the damage that your anger does to your heart as it does for me to see the damage that your anger did to my gift of love to you.”

His immediate response was to try and start taking a nail out. Originally, I had intended this to be an ongoing project but he seemed kind of engaged so I decided to keep the lesson going. But, I wanted him to learn another part to the lesson before he started taking the nails out.

I leaned the board up against the wall so that all of the nails were sticking out through side facing outwards. Keep in mind this board was only 1 inch thick and most of the nails were much longer than 1 inch. I instructed him to stand next to it. He looked at it warily and moved closer but not close enough to actually touch it. I told him to stand right next to it and to wrap his arms around it like he was going to hug it. Once again I got the “you’re insane, Mom” look and he refused. I then told him, “that’s how I feel when you get mad at me and yell and scream and when you tell me you hate me. And that is probably how your friends feel when you’re angry and taking it out on them or being mean to them. Your angry actions and words are like nails sticking out of your heart and no one wants to get close to you. The more nails you have sticking out of your heart, the less people want to be around you. Someday, you might not have anyone who wants to stand next to you and give you a hug.” That made him look really sad and then he was VERY intent on getting those nails out.

I gave him back his hammer and told him he could start pulling out the nails. He worked a while, started sweating, and then started getting frustrated. Many of those nails were crooked, bent over, and completely flush into the wood. He started digging through his toolbox and using pliers, screwdrivers, and other tools to try and pull those nails out. At one point, he looked up at me and said, “It’s way harder to get these nails out than it was to pound them in when I was mad. What does that mean?” I just looked at him and asked him what HE thought it meant. He thought about it while he worked and said that he thought it meant that it was a lot harder to take away the things you do when you’re angry than it is to do the things you do when you’re angry. I was like “SCORE, he gets it!” I told him that he was very right and he said he was sorry he did that to the board I had made for him and that he was sorry for being angry all the time and that it made him sad to think about his heart that God made being full of nails. I told him about God and forgiveness and that it’s important to really be sorry and that God would forgive him but that it means more than just being sorry afterwards. We talked about thinking before hammering if something is really important enough to be angry about and that he would need to come up with better ways to get his angry out. I asked him if he knew what he could do when he does get angry. He said “I could ask God to help me not get mad and if I mess up then I should ask Him to forgive me and really mean it.” I asked him if he had any tools to help him figure out how to get the nails out of heart and he responded “the Bible? I bet each chapter could be like a different tool. I’m just not sure how to read them and use them.” We talked about learning how to use the bible together to find the answers because we are both pretty new at this and he agreed to try it. Another “SCORE!”

He spent a couple of hours getting those nails out and making a pile of broken and bent nails. He made a big production to of throwing them all away. After throwing them away, he got sad all over again when he saw all of the holes that were still in his board. Another part of the lesson was talking to him about how he cannot ever fix those holes. They are going to be there forever. No matter how hard he worked to pull out all of those nails, the remnants of his anger will always be there. We talked about how all of his anger episodes are always going to be a part of his past and his history but it’s up to him to stop hammering the nails in.

Throughout this past week, I’ve reminded him about the nails. I pray that this is a lesson we can continue to use in our life. I don’t want him to grow up to be an angry man. I don’t want him to grow up to be a man with a callused heart who causes pain to others. I want him to grow up with a healthy and happy heart and appreciate the beautiful heart that God gave him. Hopefully, together we can learn about the tools that God gives us and keep the rest of his life and his heart from being damaged by the pain that uncontrollable anger brings.

~Julianna Bullard

February 2, 2013