I can't control my tears. When I feel any strong emotion: joy, anger, embarrassment, hurt, disappointment, tears come. I can't stop them. I've tried. If the emotion is just a little strong, I can sometimes yawn the tears away or maybe stretch my eyes to make them stop. Growing up these uncontrollable tears were a source of extreme embarrassment, which created a double problem. It was terrible to start crying in math class when I couldn't figure out how to do a problem, but even worse to keep crying from the embarrassment of people noticing the first set of tears. Even before I really believed in God, I would pray that nothing would cause me to cry.
While the tears were at times nothing short of horrifying, they had the unexpected bonus of not allowing me to bottle up or stuff any strong emotions. I still regret that I can't command my tear ducts to stop, but as an adult I take more things in stride and tend to feel the strong, tear-inducing emotions less. So the public tears are more infrequent and more appropriate when they do come.
I started pondering my tear reactions two weeks ago, after dealing with H and her temper.
H has the temper that stereotypically accompanies her hair color. When she gets frustrated or embarrassed or angry, she doesn't cry, she gets mad. Sometimes she gets mad at herself, sometimes at other people. Often the reactions are extreme enough that she has to go to her room for cool down. At first, I tried to teach her that she could hit her pillow if she wanted to. But, a pillow was unsatisfying to her and such a suggestion lent itself to reinvention in other physically harmful ways that we don't want to promote. About two weeks ago, H actually threw the wooden stool at the wall while in her room.
So now I have been pondering, what's an appropriate thing to do when angry? I don't want her to stuff it or deny it. Sure, if it is anger as a result of selfishness it would be nice if she could just repent and move on, but that is not a realistic expectation for a 7-year-old. I cry when I get angry (weird, I know). Tom leaves the situation, walks for five minutes and can then usually cope. H isn't old enough to walk around the block. And removing herself from the situation into the comforts of her room is apparently not enough for her little temper. Now what? I'm taking suggestions.
