Kids, have you ever come home and gotten your feelings hurt because your parent yelled at you for something that didn’t seem fair? What did you do? Pout? Yell back? Do something you know your parent would get mad about? Well, that’s what a lot of people find themselves wanting to do.

But the thing is, it really won’t help. It will just get you yelled at again, or worse. How can you handle this in a better way?

Try this: Don’t take it personally.

What does it mean to take something personally?

It means that when someone gets irritated with you, you believe it is somehow your fault and that you did something wrong. When you can’t figure out what you did wrong, you get angry and upset. Well, think of this…

· Maybe your parent had a bad day at work.
· Maybe your parent got stuck in traffic on the way home.
· Maybe your parent’s boss yelled at him or her unfairly.
· Maybe a check bounced or your parent is facing some sort of financial trouble.

There are all sorts of reasons your parent may be in a bad mood, and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, you got to be the target of your parent’s anger.

You do that sometimes, too. You get mad at a teacher, so you yell at your parent. You get upset with a friend, so you kick the dog… and so on.

Instead of getting mad, let’s try this:

1. Think about what you did or didn’t do, and if you are pretty sure you did not deserve to be the target of your parents’ frustration, just shrug it off. Give your parent a hug. Tell them it’s going to be ok. See what happens.

2. Think of times when you felt like you got to be the target of someone’s anger.

a) What did you do about it?

b) What could you have done differently? c) How might you have felt differently afterward?