Join Vince, Gina and Nicole as they delve into the complexities of anger in young men, uncovering its roots in fear, failure, and confusion while discussing strategies for healthy expression and resolution.
Hosts: Vince, Nicole, and Gina
Topic: This episode unravels the complexities of anger in young men, exploring its roots in underlying emotions such as fear and confusion, the impact of familial and societal dynamics, and effective strategies for healthy expression and management.
Discussion Points:
Decoding Anger:
Parental Influence on Anger:
Anger as a Protective Mechanism:
Strategies for Managing Anger:
The Power of Validation:
A Call to Action:
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End Note:
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Welcome to Causeway Conversations, where we help young men get their lives on the right track through mentorship, coaching, and therapy. If your son is stuck, you found the right support.
Speaker 2:
We've seen, over the years, anger-displaying clients in many, many different ways. So that's what this episode is about. So we have a lot of parents calling in who can communicate that their son is experiencing anger, but it's not always as volatile as this. And so that's why they come through the doors at Causeway and see if we can help. So Vincent, your experience working with young men, what do you think their anger is often communicating? What's the underneath emotion?
Vincent:
I think it's fear, mostly. To me, anger is the outward expression of unresolved fear. It's also a way to communicate when you can't articulate with words what your experience really is. So fear, confusion, those are typically the sources-
Speaker 2:
Well, let's talk about fear, what do you feel like our clients are experiencing fear about?
Vincent:
Yeah. It could be any number of things. Most often, failure, probably. If I marry myself to a goal and move towards it in pursuit of it and fail, that's going to say things about me, it's going to communicate things about me to other people. I think fear of failure is a big one. I think fear of abandonment, fear of being alone, is another big one. We've talked about that in some previous episodes in terms of isolative guys and their tendencies to not attempt relationship so as to not be rejected in relationship. So the preservation of self in the face of possible rejection, while it only promotes more isolation and more loneliness, is a driver for what the behavior is.
So I think those are a couple good sources to start in terms of where it comes from. The confusion piece too, not knowing how to articulate what they're experiencing, not knowing where to go, what to do, how to do it, who to go to for help, things like that. So I think when guys are in the absence of clear directionality and a way to go about doing something, anger is an easy outlet to purge your emotional reservoir.
Nicole:
I see anger as just a very normal and natural human emotion that we're all going to experience. And I think a lot of times, with the young men that come through, is that they don't know what to do with that, the intensity of it. Whether it's based on fear, whether it's coming from another emotion besides anger... Because typically, anger is coming from another emotion, like you talked about. They don't know actually how to channel it and to express it in a way that's constructive. And a lot of times, the truth is, they probably shouldn't know that at age. We got to cut them a little slack. They have to be taught how to do that. And we all have moments where we don't express our anger in a way that is healthy or constructive.
But to me, it's a natural human emotion, I think that's the first thing to remember. And that's something I think parents have to remember, that it's okay that your kid's angry, that's not a problem, how can you help him be with that anger or teach him to manage it in a way where it's not explosive, or it's not throwing a chair, or something like that.
Speaker 2:
Again, I work with many therapists, so that probably someone educated was telling me to validate it sometimes actually help. So as a mom, to say, "I see that you're feeling angry, and I totally understand," that makes sense based on the circumstances, almost to help their son just feel not so isolated or alone. Like, Am I weird or am I an outlier for feeling this way, right?
Nicole:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Interesting. Okay. I have fear, guilt, and shame here as things that anger is communicating. Can you walk me through what your experience is with young men experiencing anger... we talked about fear a little bit, but how about guilt or shame?
Vincent:
We see this a lot in guys who have made mistakes of various shapes and sizes, and I think who fear sharing that information with their parents, sharing that information with loved ones, fear how people will view them. One example that comes up for me in spades is guys who get jammed up academically while they're away at college. To say I've dealt with hundreds of cases like this would be an understatement over 12 years of doing this, but guy goes away to school, particularly freshmen who go away to school. They're so excited about the transition. The workload associated with the courses are sometimes more intensive than they anticipated. Sometimes, they're managing how to decide whether to go to class or not go to class, "Do I need to be there? Do I not?" It's really the only time, the first time, that they've had their true independent academic process without mom and dad's oversight, checking in on you, making sure you're going to school, coming home from school, doing your shit upstairs, et cetera.
So they have the autonomy now to manage that for themselves. And we see a lot of guys, who, because of their executive function limitations, because of distractibility, because of social implications, and partying, and whatnot, they don't manage it well, they don't manage it well. But because of the shame associated with it, they don't go to people and communicate where they are and that they're jammed up. So we have guys who we work with while they're away at school, who we don't know the scope and the severity of their academic issues until the record comes out and the transcript comes out at the end of the semester and these kids come home.
Speaker 2:
So you've been working with them all semester, and then you find out at the end of the semester just when the parents find out?
Vincent:
Yeah. Oh, yeah... well, usually, slightly in advance of when the parents find out-
Speaker 2:
Because they need you to help them out-
Vincent:
Yeah. We have guys who I've hacked into the school web portals, doctored their grades in the web portal, making it look like they got three A's and a B, and they got four D's and an F instead. But guys who are that smart, by the way-
Speaker 2:
Wow. Yeah. Think how smart you have to be to do that.
Vincent:
It's so shame-inducing and guilt-driving for them to talk to their folks about it, go to their folks about it, troubleshoot the situation, even come to us with it, that they'll just ride it out to see if they can mop it up themselves. And then almost without fail, they can't. And then that information eventually comes out... it always comes out, whether they try to conceal it or not. And so now, you've got the parents who are obviously out of their mind-
Speaker 2:
Angry.
Vincent:
Yeah, they're angry, obviously out of their mind, and then the kid is so ashamed that he didn't communicate sooner, that he didn't seek help, that everything is fucked now and he is got to figure out a way forward. And none of those things have to be true. But I think the shame comes from the desire to fix it oneself and the inability to do so. And then sitting now with the natural consequences of a situation that could have been entirely unavoidable, I think, seems foolish, every which way.
Nicole:
I think anger is an externalized emotion for men, that's the social norm. And so I think it's easier in a lot of instances for young men to have outward anger because it's what we've been socialized to believe is okay, or they've been socialized to believe is that's part of being a guy like, "I can be angry," and things like that. I also think anger is... you asked about shame and guilt, I think all of those things, anger functions as a protective mechanism, again, because there's this lack of ability of how to handle that intensity of emotion, and or the inability to be vulnerable, because they don't know how to be vulnerable. And then if they're vulnerable, what does that even mean? Does it mean they're weak? And so rather than look weak, I want to look strong. So let's be angry rather than let's cry and show that I'm really struggling with this. So I think it protects a lot of young men from the depth of their emotion because they haven't learned actually how to navigate that.
Speaker 2:
If I can add to that and then ask a question. So we have a young man growing up in this house, a couple of them, and one of them's in the middle of puberty, which makes this house quite interesting sometimes. And so he sometimes presents anger, just exactly what you're talking about. And I'm trying to figure out how to allow him to feel, "Whatever it is you're feeling, I want you to feel it, because I want you to be able to exude emotion as an adult, and for your wife, later on, at some point." But that's hard when there's anger coming in your direction as a mom. So what kind of strategies can you give us to help us navigate that within the house? Particularly when it changes the air of the house, then everybody's angry, one person's angry, a fight erupts, now everybody's angry somehow. It just works like that. So yeah, what could we do?
Nicole:
I think exactly what you said, the first place is allowing room for it. Because a lot of times, what happens in families is there's not room in the family system for there to be anger. And so they try to squash it because it's so upsetting to the parents, or the siblings, or what have you, that they don't even make room for the expression of a natural emotion. The first step is exactly what you said, is allowing for that, is acknowledging it, it's like-
Vincent:
Validating.
Nicole:
Validating. Yeah. Like, "Hey, honey, I know you are really angry right now, I see you. It's okay." To me, that's step number one.
Speaker 2:
So what's not to do then?
Nicole:
What's not to do-
Vincent:
I think diminishing it or labeling it as incorrect or inappropriate, "Son, what the fuck are you so angry about anyway? Why are you getting angry? This is stupid. Why are you getting angry?" That's what not to do. You've diminished him. You've made him feel small, made him feel like his emotions aren't valid, and you haven't given him that runway to express why he's actually angry underneath that so you could do something with it. So you basically put the lid on the jar. You actually want to draw out the content and the meaning that's underneath. Everybody's angry about something who's angry. And so nobody gets angry for no reason. And it's important for whoever is a bystander to that, or a supporter of that, to try to draw out what is the root cause underneath, because there usually is one, and I believe, actually, there's always one.
And so if you can stay patient and be next to your kid and validate the emotion, maybe not the behavior, but the emotion, or even the sentiment, you can just get your kid to continue talking. And as he continues to talk, maybe you'll get closer to the answer of what lies underneath.
Nicole:
And I think the calmer that you are, the better. And that's really, really hard to do. A lot of the families that we see coming through Causeway, the parents, oftentimes, their default is to meet them in that elevated, heightened state of anger, just like you roleplay right there. And it's not going to be helpful. So in those scenarios, what I ask parents to do is calm down, you use your voice, get really, really calm. Don't get your voice high-pitched, or anything like that, and you can acknowledge, you can validate their anger. And if it starts to get out of control, meaning, the behavior itself is starting to get... throwing things, and everything like that, of course you can say, "And we're not going to do it this way. It's okay that you're angry, yes, and we're not going to smash the window. Here are your options of how you can manage this, but it's not going to be smashing the window."
Vincent:
Yeah, absolutely. That's 100% right. And I'll roll with that for a second, so anger's pattern behavior. So people who are angry often are angry, and parents get angry too. Oh, by the way, to Nicole's point, when someone goes high, go low, I think that anger is important to confront with a "punch a bully in the face" kind of framework, wherein if someone is aggressing in an angry way... I experience this quite a bit as someone who's an advocate for people, particularly when parents are getting angry at their kids and being verbally abusive to their kids, or to my staff, or to me, I've always hit that direct line right up front and punched that bully right in the face back verbally. So I remember we had a guy, we had a father in the center... This is not that long ago, by the way.
Blue collar guy, big, big personality, had a lot of money, let everybody know about it, obviously, as guys who have a lot of money sometimes do. I remember we had a newer guy on staff at the time who was no longer with us, this might be part of the reason why, in fact. And so he was new to the organization, new to the team, and dad was a pain in the ass, which is fine, dad can be a pain in the ass and want to make sure that he's getting a good return on his investment, so to speak. That's fine. But what's not fine is that, at some point in the conversation, dad picked up his credit card out of his back pocket and threw it on the table in the direction of my staff member, and said, "My fucking son owns you."
And threw his credit card at my guy standing adjacent to me and proceeded to belittle him in front of me, and he was getting more angry as he spoke. And I said, "I'm going to stop you right there." I said, "You have a right to say whatever you want here." And the more he yelled, and the more he screamed, the calmer I got. And just like this, in a whisper voice, I said, "You have the right to criticize us in any way that you like. You have a right to come here and get good service and get a good value, and you have the right to stop at any time, but I also have the right to make sure that you treat my people with respect. And I got to tell you, if you ever pull anything out of your pocket and throw it on a table in front of me or one of my staff, I'll fucking throw you out of here myself."
Speaker 2:
Did he tuck it in?
Vincent:
And he said, "You're right. I'm sorry." Just like that. Probably 6'4", 275 pounds, I'm about 5'9", 185. And so I think it was just the surprise factor, quite honestly. A bully who's angry never expects to get punched back by anybody, ever. And so I think it's not about me being a big guy, or strong guy, or anything guy, it's just me holding him accountable for his bullshit behavior. And so I think, sometimes, righteous anger, and anger that is channeled in a very intentional, focused direction can be highly instructive for people. And it's important to hold people accountable for their shit behavior in a way that is firm, but in a way that is very calm and very, very intentional. Now, I was just as angry as he was, right?
Speaker 2:
Oh, I bet.
Vincent:
Maybe more so, honestly. But I think it was also, in good faith to my staff, necessary that I was angry, and necessary that I conveyed my anger in the right way at the individual who perpetrated against my team member.
Nicole:
See, and I think that's also the difference between being reactive and being responsive. It wasn't this, "Okay, I'm going to meet you-
Vincent:
Where you are. Yeah.
Nicole:
You knew that you had to say something. I know you, and I know there was a fire in your belly, and you channeled it in a way where it was direct. And to me, that's not punching a bully in the face, that's mature anger. That's the ability to be like, "Okay, yeah, I can feel this, I know I'm angry and I have something to say, and I'm going to say it because I'm not going to tolerate somebody being abusive to me or to my staff."
Vincent:
Ever. I guess I see it as punching a bully in the face because I see it as neutralizing a threat. And I think it's important at certain times, particularly if you're in a position of leadership. It's necessary to neutralize a threat, particularly in those situations.
Speaker 2:
For sure, when you're protecting your people especially. Okay. So back to strategies for parents. So we talked about not meeting the anger with anger. What advice can you give to a parent to regulate their own nervous system when that's happening?
Vincent:
I want to go back though for one second because I missed one that I wanted to share. I'm going to speak in terms of fathers and sons, because I think this is really, really critical in terms of the hierarchy in the household, and the power dynamics in the household. And I've seen this go sideways for many, many years. I believe that when a son feels like he has a power dynamic or a power advantage over his father, it completely flips the framework of the household. And I've seen this for years in terms of sons aggressing towards their fathers, physically pushing their dads, telling their dads to go fuck themselves, telling their mothers to go fuck themselves, absent the father's intervention in that process, mostly out of fear of escalation. So dads turn a blind eye to those situations, and make it so that, essentially, the inmate is running the asylum, and is driving the behavior in the household.
We had a little one of those very recently in this house. So my wonderful twelve-year-old son, who is wonderful, and we have a great relationship, but he's testing, like twelve-year-olds do... So he'll walk by me, he'll give me a little chest bump from time to time, throw me a shoulder, just to make sure I'm paying attention. And a lot of it's done in play, mostly because he knows I can and will whip his ass at the drop of a dime. But he's testing. And so we were at a public function, in fact, we're at his brother's concert for school. And the particulars don't really matter, but essentially, I said, "Hey, it's time to go because we're leaving as a family and we're all going to go grab food together." And he said, "No, I'm going with Nani. Me and Nani, we had a plan before and we got to go." And I said, basically, "No, that's not happening."
And I put my hand on his shoulder, and he pulled away from me. He shirked and pulled away from me. And so I very gently, and kindly, and politely whispered in his ear, "I'm not going to repeat what I said," but I convinced him to change his ways and his behavior. And again, calm, intentional, so as to not escalate the situation. But I believe that as a-
Speaker 2:
Hang on, we have to know what you said.
Vincent:
Okay. Well, what I whispered him was, I said, "I will jack you up against the fucking wall in a nanosecond. And I know you think we're in a public place, and that I won't, but I promise you, son, I will. And so I'm not asking, I'm telling you that you're going to walk with me to the car right now." And he did. Now, what is the most important part about that is really twofold. One, I absolutely don't want to do that, under any circumstances, and he knows that. But he knows that I will, if he does some wild shit. So the threat of that looms very heavy. And two, the real reason why he listens to me is because of the 12 years of relationship that we have so as to supersede that. So I'm not just a guy dropping down from the ivory tower telling him I'm going to whip his ass if he doesn't go in the car.
We have years and years, and hundreds, if not thousands of hours of intentional relationship, so that when he's acting out and being disrespectful, my words actually matter to him. And that's what drives the bus. So when fathers are being threatened by their sons, where their sons are physically aggressing towards them, where they're being violent, threatening violence, breaking shit, et cetera, I understand why people take a more passive approach. I do. I just think that you can't put that back in the bottle once that situation starts. And to me, some of the worst behavior that I've seen young men engage in has come from believing that their fathers, specifically, will not police their behavior should they act out in a more significant way.
Speaker 2:
In your experience, are young men looking for their fathers to police their behavior?
Vincent:
Always. Always. Yes. I think-
Speaker 2:
Parents? Plural? Or just-
Vincent:
Parents plural, yes, but to me, the mother-father dynamic is very, very different. We see it in this house. We see it in this house. Your job in my... this is just my opinion and it's highly gendered, but I believe there's-
Speaker 2:
But it's what works for us in this house.
Vincent:
It's what works for us in this house. And I think it's what has worked... I've seen it work for two parent, father-mother dynamic households, historically. The mother as nurturer, caregiver, supporter, lover, emotional reservoir, particularly for a young man, obviously, with some feedback and tweaking, and so on and so forth, to do that well and do that right. And the father as the sharpener, the accountability metric, the one who polices a young man's conduct and character, the one who elevates his son, holds him to account, and drops the hammer when it's appropriate.
And again, it changes in different kind of households, different permutations, et cetera, but when we have that intact frame, a father has a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate his love and affection and unconditional support for his son by demanding more of his son. "I love you so much that I'm going to demand your best, and I'm not going to settle for this bullshit garbage. And I'm definitely not going to settle for your disrespect. And I'm definitely, definitely, definitely not going to settle for you being physical with me or regressing towards me in any way, shape, or form." And you don't have to be a guy who works out six days a week to have a firm presence with your kid, or to hold him to account.
Nicole:
I think it's important to punctuate something that you said that's really important contextually when you were describing with your son, is that you have 12 years of relational equity with your son. So that's where the challenge comes, is that a lot of times, when they're coming in, there is an embedded, ingrained pattern between, let's say, a father and a son that has occurred over decades sometimes. And so even when a dad is going to transition into holding their son accountable, they don't have the leverage or the influence because they haven't. And so it's also knowing and reassuring the parents that you've got to stick with it. This is not going to be one time that you hold your son accountable and say, "This is not acceptable. I love you too much. I know you're more than this," and whatever the words are, that that is not going to shift overnight. Parents have to have the fortitude to know that what got them where they are at has a history, and to start to rewrite that history is going to take some time.
Vincent:
Yeah, such a good point, it really, really is. And I think I have the benefit of having a pretty good relationship with both my boys. And I'm present, I'm their coach, I'm their buddy's coach. So there's a lot of tentacles in terms of those differentiated roles that I even play for them. But not every dad shows up in that way, most don't. If your kid's in the chair and or you're with him, alongside him, there's a pretty decent chance that there's a fracture there or that the relationship has ebbed and flowed over time. I do think it takes work, patience, it takes iteration, so trying something, adjusting, modifying, course correcting, moving, that stuff is really productive and helpful. But as long as there is love, consistency, patience, those qualifying factors, you can get to where you got to go. But I'm not going to suggest it's going to be simple, or quick, or there's going to be returns in spades. Sometimes, relational reintegration takes years to solidify.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's like you're chasing someone's heart. You're pursuing them, if you're going to be patient in that way. So let's talk to the parents who don't have that right now, who don't have the foundation of relationship well done over the last 10 years. Like, okay, day one, hard to go cold turkey, I'd imagine, go from all anger to no anger, but what do you tell parents who don't have any relationship there that they feel like they can lean on?
Vincent:
I'll speak to the moms first because I have focused a lot of the content on fathers specifically. I remember I had a mom, probably five or six years ago, in my office with her husband sitting next to her sobbing, just absolutely sobbing. "I don't even know my son anymore. He's in his room, he never comes out. He hates me. He thinks I'm so fucking annoying. I can't do anything right," all the things.
Speaker 2:
By the way, every single mom listening to this podcast is like, "Well, thank God, it's not just me."
Vincent:
Yeah, I know, it's not. It's not. And I think that's a little bit of medicine and wisdom too. To every single mom, your 16 through 22-year-old kid automatically fucking thinks you're annoying. You could be the coolest mom in the history of the world... I'm married to the coolest mom, in my opinion, in the history of the world, and I guarantee you, when our boys are 16 to 22, 23, they're going to think you're annoying. That's just what it is developmentally. And me too, by the way, my kids are going to think I'm annoying too, from 16 to 23. By the way, it's how you know you're doing your fucking job. If your kid thinks you're annoying, you're doing your fucking job, all of you. So there's truth to that. So the mom was sobbing and basically saying, "I don't know what to do, and my kid hates me, and he thinks I'm annoying," etc.
I said, "Well, how many times have you gone into his room just to observe and sit next to him?" "Well, I never go into his room. Why would I ever do that?" "So you could fucking learn about him. So you could learn about him, and learn what to do, and learn what not to do, and learn what he likes and learn what he hates, whatever." And, "Well, what if he kicks me out of his room?" "Then try again in another day and a half, and then try again in another day and a half, and then try again four days later." "Well, how long should I keep trying?" I said, "Well, try what I'm suggesting. Politely ask to enter into your kid's space. Just go sit on his bed, see what video games he's playing, see what he's doing on his internet, see what he's playing around with on his iPad." And I said, "After you do that a thousand times, then come back to me and tell me it didn't work."
Because there has to be that consistent, persistent bucket drop of relational infusion, and bucket drop of curiosity, bucket drop of care. That's what's needed to cultivate relationship in the face of lack of relationship, a persistent willingness to continue to lean in, irrespective of what comes in your direction. Because I think these kids are waiting, waiting for their parents to just throw the rag in and fucking quit. That's how they feel about themselves. They feel such like shit about themselves that they're just looking for their own parents to validate how big a piece of shit he is. And so you as his mother especially, need to confirm to him that you will never quit, that he could slam the door in your face 10,000 times and you'll come back Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, the following Wednesday. And it doesn't matter, you'll never be deterred from trying and wanting to have a relationship with your kid.
Nicole:
So in a scenario where, since it's about anger, you got a young man, mom or dad goes in to do what you are saying, and every time the young man screams, and yells, and is completely says horrible things to their mother or father, that they should just die, they're of no use, how would you coach them around that?
Vincent:
"I'm sorry you're so angry today. You must be really hurting. I just wanted to let you know that I love you and I'll never stop." And leave, walk out. Next day you go in, "Fuck you. Get out of my room." "Well, I'm happy to. Just wanted to come in and say hello, and then I love you." Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. So do you need supreme patience, and is it going to be difficult to eat shit? And are you going to be motivated to do it the next time? Yes, yes, and no. But I think that's the medicine, because if the thesis is, this guy thinks he is such a piece of shit in his own guts that he's waiting for his parents to give up and quit on him, then the only medicine can be consistency of love. And so that has to be perpetually rendered even in the face of adversity, even in the face of anger, even in the face of yelling and screaming, even in the face of doors get slammed.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. I was talking to my friend Chrissy actually, shout out to Chrissy for this advice, but I was talking about feeling like, "But if my son thinks I'm annoying, how many times can I keep doing that?" She gave me a pretty good call out too. She was like, "Well, are you loving him for what you get out of the relationship, or are you loving him so that he can feel love?" And it was a really big call out, by the way. It's always good to have a friend who can put you on front street. Everybody go find a friend who's going to put you on front street. Because as the mom getting the door shut, and as the mom leaning in with nothing coming back, feels horrible. I haven't been rejected that many times in my entire life.
But her words really ring true. It's like, "Well, what are you doing it for? Is it for you to be loved, or is it for him to be loved?" And I think that if moms can re-center that in their minds... and we think about love sometimes just as a give and take, but in terms of the parent relationship, I think sometimes, particularly when a young man's struggling, it has to just be the give, and know that my heart can get filled in another way from-
Nicole:
You nailed it out of the park. One of the other things that I think is critically important is that your son is not there to fill you up emotionally. That's not their responsibility-
Vincent:
Not his role. It's not his role.
Nicole:
Yeah, exactly. So Chrissy, preach.
Speaker 2:
Ironically, she is a preacher.
Nicole:
What do you know?
Vincent:
There you go.
Speaker 2:
Wow. Good stuff.
Vincent:
That's good.
Speaker 2:
Okay. So we talked about strategies for parents. Don't meet anger with the same energy or reactivity. Do whatever it takes to regulate your own nervous system.
Nicole:
And that's going to be different for different people, like what that looks like. But what I will say is, sometimes, it requires stepping out of a really heated situation so that you actually regulate yourself, like you let your heart rate go down, and things like that. Sometimes, you got to take a little bit of a time-out because your sympathetic nervous system is so high, and in that 10 minutes or 15 minutes that you step away, there are plenty of breath practices that you can do that literally regulate your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. So that's my go-to-
Speaker 2:
Like, literally take a breath.
Nicole:
Literally, breathe in and out of your nose. Do that.
Vincent:
Do that.
Speaker 2:
Okay. Next on my list. Don't smash anything with a baseball bat. I
Vincent:
Don't know if I agree with that.
Nicole:
I know, I put that on there.
Vincent:
Yeah, I'm going to debate that.
Nicole:
All right, let's go.
Vincent:
Because-
Speaker 2:
You have to take the authority back?
Vincent:
I think that it's helpful and healthy for your kids to be able to know that you could absolutely lose your fucking mind at any time. I think it's a good accountability metric. I'm not saying you wield it always, but I'm saying there's definitely been some egregious enough shit that your kids should see your anger. I'm going to tell a story. We were getting on the kids about picking up after themselves, and had been for a while. And I think it's important that kids contribute in the household, and understand the things that they're doing to be a part of something bigger matter. Also, it was frustrating for me being the guy who picks up everybody's shit all the time. So I would warn everybody, "Hey, guys, pick up your stuff. Pick up your stuff. Pick up your stuff. Pick up your stuff. Pick up your stuff." Ad nauseum, ad nauseum.
And then finally, there was one day I came home from work and there was stuff everywhere. I'm talking about soda cans in my kid's room on the floor, I'm talking about clothes scattered throughout the house, just strewn on the floor, stuffed animals everywhere.
Speaker 2:
Where was their mother?
Vincent:
My daughter had all her art supplies, and slime, and glitter, and everything. It looked like a bomb went off in the house. And so I grabbed everything that I found, put it right on our kitchen island, brought everybody together, "Kids, get your ass in here." Everybody comes downstairs, and I say, "What do you guys see?" I'm under control. "What do you guys see? "Well, it's my dolly." "It's my baseball glove." "It's my lacrosse ball." "It's my art supplies, my pen," it's my this, it's my that, all the way up and down. And I say, "Yep, yep. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is." And then I asked them, "What do you think it's doing on my kitchen island?" "Well, I don't know. It was there." "I wanted to show you all everything that I'm now going to put in a garbage bag in front of you, and you're going to follow me out to the trash can and watch me drop it in the trash can." My daughter immediately starts bawling, immediately starts bawling.
Nicole:
Of course, she does.
Vincent:
Because there's this doll, and this stuffed animal, and this whatever. And I said, "I've spent the last couple of weeks communicating to you why it's important to pick your stuff up, and why it's important to help us keep this house the way that it is. And apparently, nobody wants to listen. And so I'm here to demonstrate to you that at any point, at any time, if you continue to throw your shit all over the place, this can absolutely happen, and will." And fill two garbage bags filled with their belongings and drop them in the trash can outside. So it's the softer equivalent, I think, of hitting something with a baseball bat and smashing it. And it conveys the idea that I mean what I say. So I mean what I say. When I say pick your shit up, I mean pick your shit up, and I'm going to eventually find a way to get you motivated to do it. But I think it's really important, maybe most important, for parents to demonstrate that they mean what they say to their kids and it's not just noise.
Nicole:
That's a beautiful example. I like that better than the baseball bat. Because I get your metaphor of needing your kids to know, "I'm talking business," like the baseball bat thing. I get that. And I think the way that you harnessed your anger in that moment still wasn't... it wasn't crazy, it wasn't hitting something with a baseball bat. And so I got to be honest, I disagree with you in the sense that I don't think it's ever appropriate to get so angry that you do something violent. I don't believe that at all. I think that's no bueno. But what you-
Vincent:
I'm going to push back on you. I'm going to push back on you. I think it's a penalty-crime situation in my estimation. So the penalty will fit the crime if anyone harmed her, him, anybody else who lived there, I'm going to be violent. It's not a suggestion, but that's a penalty-crime situation. So are there things that my kids could do that would make it so that I would actually put a baseball bat through their television? I bet there are. I bet there are. Have you harmed another person using your television or your internet to do so, or your video game console to do so? Did you bully someone online and cause somebody to hurt themselves, because you bullied someone online? So there are absolutely things that would make it so I put a baseball bat through your video game console, or television set, or so on and so forth. But in my opinion, it would be a penalty-crime situation. And I wouldn't do it unless the penalty fit the crime.
Nicole:
We will just agree to disagree.
Vincent:
I think we'll agree to disagree.
Nicole:
Yeah. It just would not be my approach-
Speaker 2:
I'd like to go on the record.
Nicole:
And it wouldn't be something that I would condone in a parent who was in my office that I was helping to create relationship with their son.
Vincent:
I'll give you another one that is a real one. This is a real one, in my own home. If one of my sons said something to their mother that was abusive, disrespectful, or was not to be tolerated by me, it would be a penalty-crime situation. I would grab my son by the collar of his shirt and put him up against the wall in a microsecond, and he knows it. And I think, again, right, wrong, agree, disagree, from my perspective, that's penalty-crime, because she's not only your mother, but she's everything to me. And so no one here, including myself, is going to speak to her in that fashion. I don't do it, you won't see me do it, and so you're not going to do it. And I'm not going to tell you I'm going to knock his teeth out or harm him, but I think a quasi-verbal physical threat in an instance such as that... I mean, I've had kids calling their mothers names, that you could never even repeat on this podcast, right in front of their fathers who sat there and did nothing.
Nicole:
Oh, I've seen it.
Vincent:
And so from my perspective, my handle, well, not ideal, I'm sure, is far above the guy who sits there passively and doesn't say shit because he doesn't want to piss his kid off.
Nicole:
Yeah, 100%. I don't think it's an either or. It's not an either or. I think what's interesting about our conversation right now is that it allows for the nuance. And what it also speaks to is because I look at you, why I'm challenging a little on it is because I don't think you even need to do that because of your presence.
Vincent:
Maybe. Maybe.
Nicole:
You don't even need to reach the level where you would ever do that because your presence and your tone of voice is enough.
Vincent:
It's [inaudible 00:38:53].
Speaker 2:
But that goes back to 12 years of relationship, or are you just saying his presence in the room?
Nicole:
Well, I think it's a both end. People who know you for a hot second know not to mess with you when you are in a place of seriousness and directness, and you don't have any relational equity with that person, people know it. You don't even have to do the proverbial fucking bat swing because, let me tell you, you carry an energy of, "I'm going to hold you accountable to your best self, and sometimes, I'm going to be fierce with you." That's what you embody. So it's a both end with your kids, but some people just have that. And I think with the dads that who are the more passive and don't say anything, it's getting them to a place of being able to be like, no, get in your divine masculine now, show up, and how are you going to speak to your son who just spoke to your wife like that, in a way that is not passive, that gets the message across? And I would just caveat it, doing it slightly differently.
Speaker 2:
So when is important do you think for a parent to give their son space versus address what's happening? How do you know?
Vincent:
I think if someone is actively angry, space is incredibly, incredibly helpful. We've learned this in our own stuff, you and me, right?
Speaker 2:
Things we've learned through $100,000 of counseling.
Vincent:
So that's an easy one. So you get to a point where you have a really hard time moderating self and composing yourself when you get to a certain level. So neutral corners take space, but set a clear point to reengage the conversation. So whoever is the more level-headed person, hopefully, it's the parent, "Hey, listen, this is getting out of control. Let's come back together tomorrow." Or, "Let's come back together tonight, or let's come back together in a half hour, let's just take space because this is already getting out of control and this is going to continue to get worse unless somebody makes a smart decision."
Speaker 2:
Has there ever been a time where a parent's anger negatively impact their kid?
Nicole:
There are so many times that I've seen with families that it's just when there is typically when one of the parents has their own work to do, and some of that anger is being projected onto their kid, when it actually doesn't have anything to do with their kid. So it's like the penalty and crime thing, where the kid might have forgotten to do something and it wasn't something massive, and the way the parent responds is through shaming, or anger, and all of this kind of stuff, and that's not helpful. It's just simply not helpful. And a lot of times, when I've seen that, there's stuff underneath the surface for that parent related to that anger that has been unprocessed, or not talked about or worked through, that then gets projected onto the son, and it's simply not helpful.
So any anger that's projected from a parent onto a son is not helpful. And you have to help families make that distinction. That's the work, is when is it okay? "Ooh, did they deserve that level of anger? Did the son deserve that level of your vitriol? Tell me how do you think your son interpreted that vitriol? Because I'll tell you how I interpreted the vitriol sitting here," and I will use myself like that. And again, I can say, "I know I'm not embedded in your family. You've been doing this for a long time," I said, "but I got to tell you, when I was sitting here and I was hearing this and watching it, let me tell you what my experience was." And that sometimes stops people.
Speaker 2:
And are people typically dumbfounded by how they're coming across, or do you think that... When you said that to her, did she know that-
Nicole:
So I'm thinking of actually a case recently where it's with a family, but it's specifically with a dad and a son. And I had to say to the dad that, "I have to be honest with you, if I were your son, I would experience you as only critical and judgmental, and not wanting a relationship with me." And he was shocked. He's like, "How is that possible when I am in therapy? I'm in family therapy, I'm spending all this money on my kid, how can he think that I don't care about him or want a relationship?" I said, "Because you criticize him and judge him in everything that you say. So if I were your son, I would feel like you didn't want a relationship with me and didn't find any value in me." And he's like, "Well, then you have to teach me how to speak to my son because I don't understand how I'm doing that."
Speaker 2:
Well, first of all, good for you, dad, to actually want to learn, instead of just throwing your hands up in the air and saying, "I'm doing everything I can."
Nicole:
So he was shocked that that was his son's experience.
Speaker 2:
All right. So while we're talking about anger, let's talk to me about a time that you've ever been angry at your client.
Vincent:
I often get angry at clients, and I'm sure that's not a surprise to anybody. The easiest example... did I tell the surgeon example yet?
Nicole:
I don't think so.
Speaker 2:
No.
Vincent:
No. Okay. I think I just told the story recently. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
You told it to me. Go ahead. Nicole was going to like this one.
Vincent:
Yeah. So I would preface it by saying, most often at work, the situations where I actually get angry, and will curse, and will scream, and will be visibly angry and discernibly angry, are around issues of safety. If I feel like parents are putting their kids in unsafe situations, or behaving in a way that escalates the level of risk in a situation, I will absolutely fucking lose my shit, and have, and will continue to. By the way, this is, again, an intervention situation, this is probably eight or nine years ago now, younger kid, probably 15 or 16, but very impacted on the mental health side. And this was a mental health primary case, and so we saw this as a pretty acutely risky situation. Kid had threatened to harm himself, had already been hospitalized, and so we were making a move to send this kid away to treatment. The day before the intervention, his father leaked the news to the kid.
Speaker 2:
But dad was aligned before?
Vincent:
Allegedly aligned, but whatever. He positioned it as though he was aligned, and then the next day, he leaked the news-
Speaker 2:
And leaking the news to the young man, obviously, blows up the intervention?
Vincent:
Well, that means the whole point. The element of surprise is the most important component in making sure that a young man is extracted from a situation safely, that there's transport folks involved, that there's a clean line to the destination. There's a lot of elements there that are really important, but discretion is the key ingredient to all the things. And so the dad was an emergency surgeon, very, very, very bright guy. So it wasn't as though he didn't understand it, but I found out that he leaked it to the kid because he was worried about how the kid was going to feel. And so we had a meeting immediately the next day. I was in the office at 7:50, ready for my 8:00. I cleaned everything out, didn't put the kids on the bus, just went to the office.
Dad comes in with the ex-wife, and I was on a fucking mission. So I said, ":You're a surgeon, I understand." And he said, "Yeah, I work at the hospital." And I said, "Yeah. So I have to imagine that there's a process to preparing for surgery. You have to scrub in, get the room ready, get the scalpel, get all the things, line them all up, get all the instrumentation going, get the monitors going, get the whole thing ready to go." He said, "Oh yeah, it actually takes quite a while to do that." I said, "Yeah. Okay, cool." I said, "So let me ask you a question. You're going in, you're going to do a surgery, you're going to, I don't know, take out somebody's small intestine, and you're just about to dig in and start doing your job, how the fuck would you feel if I walked into your ER, grabbed your fucking scalpel, and started hacking up the client while he was on the fucking table?"
I said, "You abso-fucking-lutely came in with your scalpel and started hacking up everything right in the middle of my process. What were you thinking? Because not only did you blow up my process, but you put your kid in danger by doing so." I was furious. And he, again like, "Listen to me," berate him, and scream at him, and swear at him for 15 minutes, and profusely apologized to me, because he knew I was one hundred million percent correct. So I do get angry, far less than I used to, by the way. But any situation where a kid is put in more danger or more risk than he should be because of the irresponsible actions of a parent, somebody's going to hear it from me. That's it.
Nicole:
Where we send them.
Speaker 2:
To where we send them. How about you? Have you ever been angry at a client?
Nicole:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think, again, this is probably a slightly gendered thing about how women handle, anger and how men handle anger, and things like that. And there have been several archetypes that have come in of fathers that I've seen who see nothing redeeming in their son. And I have gotten into a few power struggles with these dads, and I can feel the insides of my being on fire wanting to eviscerate them, wanting to do that, and also knowing that I probably don't have the influence where, if I did that, it would have any impact. So I've just been direct in my languaging, calm in my languaging and forceful in my languaging, internally, I'm a bit on fire. But I've sometimes said things... I remember, one time, I had a couple in my office. And it wasn't about their children, but they were working on their relationship.
And the wife was really looking at ways to connect with her husband, and they found bike riding in common. And so they were going to the biking store, and she picked out her bike, and all of this kind of stuff, and all he could do was criticize her about it and say, "Nope, she didn't deserve that bike because it was too expensive." Money was an issue for them. They're retelling me the story, and I was irate. And I looked at this dad, this husband, and I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker 2:
No, you didn't.
Nicole:
I did. I did this. This was early on in my career, just out of... I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" And he looked at me, he said, "Excuse me?" And I said, "Your wife is handing an olive branch to connect with you, and all you can do is tell her she can't have a bike that's too fucking expensive, and you have $5 million coming your way tomorrow?
Speaker 2:
Give me a break.
Nicole:
And he looked at me and he said, "You are completely out of line."
Vincent:
Wow. Wow. He didn't even own it. He didn't even own it.
Nicole:
And I said, "You know what? I am out of line. That was completely out of line." I said, "Would you let me try to say it differently to you?" And he said, "Yes." I said, "I saw your wife here with open arms opening her heart to you. And what I saw in you was a hand like this," I said, "and that's not going to create the type of relationship that you said you wanted to have with your wife. How does that land?" He said, "I can take that in."
Speaker 2:
Oh, wow.
Nicole:
Yeah. It's also, I had owned my piece, that wasn't appropriate. It didn't land well. And so then I had to take my ownership, which then I think also allowed him to-
Speaker 2:
Allowed him to take his ownership. He showed the vulnerability.
Vincent:
That's really good.
Nicole:
Yeah, I was mad, I was fit to be tied. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I bet.
Vincent:
But that was an example for you where throwing a pitch that he would swing at was correct, and firing out full of piss and vinegar didn't really get you very far, probably because of his ego and defendedness, but when you softened it in a way that he could uptake-
Nicole:
In that moment, I really learned though too, how you frame something is incredibly important. And if you frame it in a way that a person can't receive it, and it's also... that was about me, I was angry.
Vincent:
You were pissed.
Nicole:
That wasn't appropriate. They don't have to hold my anger, I had to learn that that can happen in a session.
Vincent:
Yeah, that's good. That's a great example.
Speaker 2:
And honestly, I think for the parents listening, we can hear that too, and own that there's infinite times that we've just popped off at our kids, or just been frustrated about literally anything, anything and all of the things, and just come off a little bit harder than we want. I had to apologize to Vince the other day. I was like, "I snapped at you twice today, and neither of those were actually about you." And he was like, "Oh. Oh, so I'm not in trouble?" "No, actually, I was coming to apologize for just being rude." And he was like, "All right, we're good, Mom. We're big. We're big." I think we can learn a lot from what you just said. And even the role of the therapist in the room, experiencing the anger you felt just totally naturally, but then taking it and making it better so that the client could actually hear it, that's tremendous work. I could never do that.
Vincent:
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Causeway Conversations. We hope you found our discussion on these important challenges insightful and valuable.
Nicole:
And if you're looking for more guidance, support, and inspiration, be sure to follow Causeway Collaborative on social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, where we share resources, success stories, and updates. And if you want to reach us directly, email us at info@causewaycollaborative.com
Vincent:
And don't forget to hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never an episode of Causeway Conversations. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more.
Nicole:
For those who prefer a visual experience, our podcast episodes are also available on YouTube. Just search for Causeway Collaborative and hit the subscribe button.
Vincent:
Thank you all for joining us on this journey of growth and discovery. Remember, we're here to support you and your son every step of the way.
Nicole:
And until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.