This article offers general information for education purposes only. If you are concerned about your child’s emotional reactions, please seek professional help. Aggressive behavior or self-harm may signal a need for professional intervention.

Introduction

Your preschooler is outraged and in a tantrum.

Your child is furious and just told you they hate you.

Your teen hasn’t spoken to you all day.

With each of these scenarios, the child may have been set off by a reasonable parenting choice. Sometimes, the right parenting decision will result in an angry child. Or, maybe the child is reacting to a parenting misstep. How can we understand the difference? How can we know that we can proceed with confidence, or that we need to change course? This article outlines parenting actions that are sound and yet may evoke anger in kids. I also cover parent behaviors that angers kids and should be avoided. By understanding the difference, parents can make informed choices about whether to stay the course or repair their misstep.

Understand the Long Game

The importance of the long game was driven home to me early in my career, when my focus was on treating anorexia nervosa. Again and again, I witnessed the colossal storms of rage in teens that were directed at parents. These parents were coached in treatment to take a stand against the starvation behaviors. Most of the families had enjoyed warm and close relationships prior to the anorexia taking over. Understandably, the parents were deeply rattled by their teen’s anger. They were terrified that by taking measures to save their teen’s life, they were also ruining their relationship forever. When these parents prevailed in their stand against starvation, however, the teens were more likely to show good treatment outcomes. The previously positive relationship was restored once the teen was no longer in the grips of anorexia.

Palm Tree Metaphor

Why do palm trees survive hurricanes? One reason has to do with their distinctive root system. The roots sprawl horizontally and form a root ball. This root architecture functions as an anchor that helps the tree withstand extreme winds.

Parents create a relationship anchor starting in infancy. By six months of age, we can tell whether an infant is securely or insecurely attached. About two thirds of infants come to be securely attached. Securely attached infants have parents who are responsive and sensitive to their needs. When parents persist in operating as a secure base, children are more likely to show positive developmental outcomes. By establishing an attuned relationship early in development, the parent-child relationship is more likely to withstand future challenges. Just as it’s hard to topple a palm tree, an anchoring parent-child relationship is likely to prevail against emotional storms.

Understand the Priorities

Despite advances in understanding child mental health, parenting has gotten more confusing. Messages in the popular media showcase material that leads many parents to believe that we’re not supposed to let our kids get angry or anxious. And if they do get upset, that parents are supposed to fix the child’s emotional state. Fear of a child’s negative emotions tends to lead to parenting pitfalls. In an effort to restore peace, parents might back off on limits or become overaccommodating.

Kids and teens who struggle with emotion dysregulation are at a higher risk for long-term mental health problems. Young children who struggle with self-regulation have a seven fold higher chance of future mental health troubles. They may evolve into teens or adults who grapple with problems such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, self-harm, and suicidality.

Understand the Extinction Burst

That is a scary list! This is why the priority is always to reduce the chances of mental health problems over the long term. By ranking long-term mental health first, parents might have to endure short term spikes in kids’ negative emotions. This is because of a phenomenon called the “extinction burst.” Every problem behavior serves a function. The function might be to escape a demand or to reduce anxiety.

With intervention, we teach the child more adaptive ways to cope with vulnerability. As part of this, we may adjust our responses so we aren’t reinforcing the child’s maladaptive responses. When we change our behavior, kids are likely to escalate with what has worked in the past. The burst might involve screaming, threats, and insults. This pattern is almost inevitable before the child starts to incorporate healthier responses.

The Importance of Parents as Protectors

Dr. Francheska Perepletchikova, psychologist and founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Children, emphasizes the importance of parents as their child’s mental health protectors. When parents try to be friends with their children, they compromise their power as protectors. Even worse is when parents fall into the role of “servants,” or accommodators. In this case, parents overaccommodate to avoid the child’s anger. This signals to the child that the parents are afraid and that the child has power over the parents. This is not a pattern that supports anyone’s mental health.

Parenting Traps that Undermine the Role of Parents as Protectors

Parent accommodation

Parent accommodation refers to behaviors by parents to reduce children’s distress about engaging in age-appropriate activities. The child might be struggling with anxiety or other emotions when faced with certain demands, however reasonable. Accommodation also happens when parents relent to a child’s unreasonable demands in order to avoid or stop the child’s anger at them. The choice to avoid the child’s anger or anxiety might feel like the right thing to do at the time. However, when these patterns predominate, the child’s growth and independence might be undermined. Parent accommodation can disrupt the long game, which is to raise children who develop into well regulated, functioning adults.

There is an interesting study from 2012 that looked at what happens when parents decide to reduce unhelpful accommodations. The study involved the families of 27 young adults who were struggling to launch. The young adults lived at home, did not work or go to school, and depended entirely on their parents to provide resources. Most of these young adults were socially isolated and spent much of their time on screens.

In the study, parents worked with therapists to reduce unhealthy accommodations. In many cases, parents took steps to reclaim their own lives instead of orbiting around the young adult. Other examples included reducing financial support and no longer doing their young adult’s laundry. In just about every case, the reaction from the young adult involved a huge spike in anger towards the parents. In some cases, this was short-lived. In others, it went on for weeks. There were a couple of cases when the reaction persisted for several months. As long as parents stayed the course in reducing the accommodations, however, each young adult eventually started coping productively. The anger towards parents resolved as the young adults made strides toward independence and mental health.

Permissive parenting

The gold standard for parenting involves attention to the relationship while also providing structure and holding kids to certain standards. It’s our job to teach our children the rules and prosocial norms needed to grow up into competent adults. Permissive parenting refers to warmth and responsiveness but without structure, expectations, and limit setting.

Decades of research has informed us about what happens when we are loving but fail to hold children to certain behavioral standards. Permissive parents may succeed in avoiding conflict with their children. However, children of permissive parents tend to be less able to manage their actions and emotions. They are more likely to show low academic achievement and lack a sense of personal responsibility. They may even develop a sense of entitlement due to having few restrictions placed on their behavior. As adults, these children are more likely to have problems with issues such as substance abuse and job stability.

What About Parenting Missteps?

Of course, there are parenting traps that cause distress in kids and should be avoided. The occasional slip up is less concerning than a persistent pattern of counterproductive parenting behaviors.

Intrusive Parenting

Intrusive parenting is a concept developed and studied by psychologist Brian Barber in the 1990s. Intrusive parenting is synonymous with psychological control. Psychological control refers to efforts to control a child through emotional tactics. Psychological control is not about reasonable limit setting using appropriate discipline. Rather, psychological control involves intruding into the child or teen’s personal domain. Children whose parents are intrusive are more likely to become anxious and depressed.

Examples of psychological control by parents include:

Criticism of character and choices
Guilt tripping
Silent treatment
Expressions of disappointment
Questioning family loyalty
Comparing the child to others
Overprotectiveness

These parenting behaviors tend to impinge on kids’ psychological autonomy. Teens are much more likely to resent their parents when they try to control their internal world. They are less likely to resent expectations around chores and social responsibilities.

Invalidating Parenting

Validation is foundational to a connected parent-child relationship. When any of us feel validated, our nervous system calms down. When we feel invalidated, we can become disorganized and escalate in distress. An invalidating home environment is one of the biggest predictors of long term mental health problems, especially among children who were born with sensitive temperaments. Responses that are dismissive or minimizing of a child’s distress are invalidating. Invalidation can also take the form of parents being too quick to jump to problem solving. Kids need to know that their parents can tolerate, understand, and validate their inner experiences.

Dysregulated Parenting

One of the most powerful parenting skills is emotion regulation. A dysregulated parent cannot raise a well regulated child. “Flying off the handle,” yelling, or other expressions of adult tantrums tend to have a negative impact. Parents of challenging kids are more vulnerable to having their own meltdowns. This makes sense, because these parents are more likely to feel helpless and stressed. Thankfully, there are many great ways to support parents in becoming more effective and regulated. When a parent’s mental health improves, the child is likely to improve as well.

Punitive and Unpredictable Parenting

We should not spring punishments on kids. For example, it would be unfair to suddenly decide that your child can’t go to the sleepover birthday party because they were rude to you. This is an unpredictable and overly harsh response. It is also ineffective. Consequences should be predictable, reasonable, and delivered calmly. The child knows exactly what the rules are and what happens if a rule is broken. The parent plans ahead about consequences. Kids are less likely to resent consequences that are delivered in a fair-minded and predictable manner.

Unrealistic Parenting

Many child behavior problems stem from a mismatch between the child’s skills and what the environment expects of them. We always want to work within a child’s “zone of proximal development.” Within this zone, there are tasks that children can do on their own and tasks they can do with assistance. We want to be sure that we are matching our support with the child’s need for assistance.

For example,children vary in what age they can get dressed independently. Getting dressed involves many steps. A child needs to decide what type of clothing is needed given the weather and setting. Then, they need to pick out clothes that are appropriate and comfortable for their sensory needs. Then, they need to put on their clothes and close any fasteners. Within the zone of proximal development, some children can sail through these steps. Others may need varying levels of adult support. Kids are more likely to stay regulated when they are given the level of assistance that meets their developmental needs.

What Can We Do When Kids are Mad?

There may be times when you know you made the right decision but your child or teen is mad at you. When kids are mad, continue to offer gestures of love, affection, and attention. We can show our love without communicating that we are desperate to resolve the conflict. If a teen decides they aren’t talking to a parent for a time, that parent needs to imagine themself as an unshakable, steady presence - even if the parent feels hurt! While we might give space, we never want to withdraw from the relationship. We need to be unrelenting in the ways that we show we care, regardless of our kids’ anger.

Summary

Effective parenting inevitably involves at least mild conflict with children. Just because a child is mad at a parent, it doesn’t mean that the relationship is under threat. Parents can learn how to feel confident about a parenting decision, even if the child or teen becomes angry or anxious. Parents can also develop the wisdom to know when they’ve misstepped and need to repair with their child.

Parent Coaching Services at Child and Teen Solutions

If you are looking for individualized parent support, send us a message to learn more about our services. We offer a team of licensed mental health providers who can help with problems such as emotion dysregulation, defiant behavior, aggression, anxiety, and parent-child conflict. We work with families of young children up through young adulthood.

When is Conflict with Your Child Okay? A Parent Coach’s Perspective