My sister and I share a really troubling memory from childhood. She was probably around 15, and I was about 12.

I was on another floor when it began, but I remember coming down the stairs to see my mom in a rage at my sister. She was screaming about how awful my sister was. She grabbed a lamp and smashed it. She picked up one of the chairs and threw it into the door, putting a hole in the door. I stood in the middle of the stairway in shock at what was happening.

Then my mom cornered my sister in front of the broken door and started hitting her. In my mind, I can still see my sister balled up on the floor with her hands over her head, helpless, trying to protect herself from the person she was supposed to be protected by.

At that point, I ran down the remaining stairs. I grabbed my mom by the shoulders, trying to pull her off my sister, yelling “Mom! Stop!”

This seemed to snap her out of her rage, and she went away.

What caused such anger?

I always thought whatever my sister did to trigger that episode must have been pretty bad. But recently, I asked her what she’d done. The answer surprised me.

She had been watching a TV show when mom came down to ask her to do a chore. My sister said she would do it as soon as the show ended, which would have been only a few minutes from then. And mom lost it.

Now as an adult, I recognize my sister probably sounded annoyed when she spoke. And I’m sure our mom was tired of fighting with us to get us to do chores. Maybe something else in mom’s life wasn’t going well… we’ll never really know. But it was obviously not because my sister wanted to wait a few minutes before doing a chore. That happened all the time without drama.

The aftermath

What we do know is that we will never be able to erase the memory of that day. Nor will we ever fully understand how it—and other incidents like it—affected us psychologically and changed how we felt about our mom.

What I can tell you is how it made me feel… scared, trapped, unsafe. Aware that the person I was dependent on was unstable and potentially dangerous.

No one wants to make their child feel that way, and I know it’s not what my mom wanted. But it is what happened, because she was unable to control her anger.

Managing anger

We all get angry sometimes, and of course children are masterful when it comes to pushing our buttons. But there is no excuse for turning on them in anger. It is never productive and always causes damage, both to them and to our relationship with them. Unfortunately, once you give in to the anger, it’s impossible to control your behavior and you end up saying or doing things you regret.  So it’s essential to develop strategies for stopping yourself before you get to the point of no return and find yourself hurling furniture across the room. You don’t want your kids having those kinds of memories of childhood.

In this fantastic article,  Aha! Parenting offers specific strategies on how to keep your cool when you start to see red. And that’s really the key… stopping the anger avalanche just as it begins instead of riding it down the hill and leveling everything—and everyone—in your path.