It has often been useful for angry people to look in a mirror. The great transformation in themselves has disturbed them.
—Seneca
Anger might feel deserved or appropriate, but it almost always looks awful.
The next time you are out, try watching for other parents who are getting angry at something their kids are doing. Observe the crowd at your son or daughter’s next soccer game. Track that family traveling on vacation at the airport. Pay attention to the group at the big family table across from you at the pizza place.
It’s as close to a look in the mirror as you’re likely to get.
How do you think you look when you tell your child way too loudly, “Sit down. I told you already, sit down!” when they bounce around with too much energy? How do you think you look as you grab their arm in frustration and jerk them closer to you in line? Do you think you sound good when threatening to take away some basic privilege of theirs—like a tyrant— because they’re not behaving exactly as you like? Or when you shout at them to hurry up at the airport? You think you don’t look like a monster when, after the argument escalates beyond your ability to manage with words, you slap them across the face? You look terrible. You look as awful and shameful as the people looked when you saw them do the same thing in public, to their kids, as you tried to avert your gaze. No one looks good angry. Worse still, that image can etch itself into our kids’ brains for a long time.