Love and Anger: The Parental Dilemma

Nancy Samalin explores anger, the most treacherous area of parent-child relationships. Her goal is not to eliminate anger - which is normal and inevitable even in a loving parent - but to help parents express it without hurting their children. Samalin identifies the hidden triggers that generate frustration and fury in even the most well-meaning parents; provides alternatives to hitting, bribing, and threatening; and explains such valuable techniques as:

• Saying "I'm mad," not "You're bad"
• Exiting instead of exploding
• Expressing anger without hurting self-esteem
• Getting out of the middle when kids fight
• Restoring good feelings after a blowup

This book is an indispensable tool for guilt-free parenting -one that will help you discipline your children lovingly, effectively, and consistently.

Publishers Weekly

Drawing largely on issues raised in her Parent Guidance Workshops in Manhattan, Samalin ( Loving Your Child Is Not Enough ), writing with freelancer Whitney, emphasizes that anger is as normal a part of family life as is love. Today's parents, often encouraging freer expression of feelings within their own families than their own parents permitted, are frequently derailed by the rage their children--and they themselves--reveal. While stressing the universality of anger in open, close relationships, she examines various ways anger surfaces in families, discussing, for example, sibling rivalry, the problems of single parents, power struggles, problems of separation. Infants, toddlers and teenagers express--and evoke--anger in different ways. Samalin's anecdotal and down-to-earth approach, including a compassionate consideration of the fury that threatens to lead to abuse, aims at helping parents elicit acceptable expressions of anger within their homes. To this end, she offers flexible guidelines, such as delaying discussion until the heat of rage has passed and keeping focused on the issue of the moment rather than dredging up past incidents or making dire predictions. First serial to Family Circle, Redbook, Health and Parenting; author tour. (June)