I coached Little League baseball for over twenty years and I have had many angry children on my teams.    It was more than rebellion, but a deep, abiding, residual, boiling anger.   The first time I met them they were angry.   I hadn’t done anything to make them angry…they just were.

They also were angry at their parents, teammates, umpires, strangers – their anger spilled out wherever they were.   They didn’t trust authority, were suspicious of any kindness to them and never developed healthy friendships on the team.    What happened to them?

God has given parents a simple, but clear directive in raising their children.   In my opinion it is the most comprehensive text in the Bible on parenting.    Though it is simple, it is not easy to fulfill.    Here it is – “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”   (Ephesians 6:4)

The first part of a parent’s responsibility is the most important because if ignored the other three tasks will not be received by your child.    God instructs us to “…provoke not (our) children to wrath…” (Ephesians 6:4).

The word “provoke” means “to be angry as you are journey alongside someone.”   It has the idea of making a person angry in the daily routines of life.   It may happen because of something you do to them or that you fail to do that you should do.    The word “provoked” also has the idea of evoking and stirring of feelings; it is a term of emotion.

Let me pose a very personal question.   Are your children consistently angry with you?   Do you have adult children that are angry with you after many years?     My prayer is the following posts may help you to eliminate things that are causing your child to be angry and help you to realize why your older children have simmering anger against you from years, even decades, ago.

Though a father is responsible for overseeing the training of his children, he is not to use his authority as a tyrant.    God is warning dads (mothers, too) not to be severe in their leadership as they influence their children.    This is the foundation to everything else you do as a parent.

Angry fathers discipline with an attitude of revenge from being embarrassed rather than correcting for the child’s benefit with a heart of loving concern.      Discipline given in anger does not work for the long-term and causes a child to pull his heart away from his father.    An angry parent produces angry children.  

The focus of a father is not to make his children obey him so that his life would be more comfortable.   He is not to be a dictator that organizes everything to his benefit.   Rather all that he would ask and expect of his children are for the benefit of the child.  

One of the issues that has escalated is in our culture over the past thirty years is the presence of angry, malicious children.   When I say “children”, I mean that in the literal sense.   They travel in gangs, rob and physically attack and harm people.   They murder their parents, family members, and friends.    You can see the anger on their countenance at an early age.

Four generations. Mom raised me to love the Lord as I did Ashley. Now, she and Bryan are doing the same for Brody. Anger can also be passed down from generation to generation.

My mother was a secretary in the public school system for over thirty years.   She loved her work, but retired a few years before she wanted to do so.    She worked at a high school and told me that she had become frightened as she watched the anger of teenage young men and women become more pronounced within a five year span.   Mom told me, “Rick, it got so bad that I was afraid to correct them.   Each year the respect of the kids for adults grew less and they became more angry”.    She saw the faces of thousands of kids over those few years before she retired and she was concerned for her safety.

Mom at her post as secretary at Butler High School. She loved her work and friends there.

Before you accuse me of being cynical and not liking teenagers, that is far from the truth.   Though I am in my mid-50’s I love young people very much.   Currently I work with them several times a week in our church and it is a great joy.    But I see it in young people that attend our church sometimes, too, when they walk in and sit down.    A dour expression, arms crossed, legs extended, no warmth or friendliness, and a spirit that communicates, “Leave me alone; I don’t like you and I don’t want to be here”. 

God’s first direction to parents is to not make their children angry.   It isn’t always the parents’ fault that their child is angry, but most of the time it is.    We are not to give them an occasion to make them angry. 

He’s not just writing about teenagers here, but children.   Effective parenting begins with creating an atmosphere in your home of encouragement, not one characterized by anger, fighting, shouting and arguing.

When Paul wrote this truth to the Ephesians it was a new concept to them.   At that time children were expendable.     It is difficult for us to comprehend how children (and teenagers) were treated in that era.

A Roman law called “the father’s power” gave him absolute power over his family.   This included the ability to sell his children as slaves or even to execute them.    As long as the father lived he had this authority.

For example, when a child was born he was placed at the feet of the father.    If he reached down and picked him up, the child stayed in the home.   If he turned and walked away, the child was taken away.   Those rejected by the father would be taken to the public forum, a meeting place, and in the evenings people would come and buy the boys to be slaves and the girls to raise as prostitutes.   

Children were not only unimportant, they were seen as obstacles.     A letter written in 1 B.C. from a man named Hilarion to his wife, Alis, showed the callousness people in that time had against children.    Here are his words to his wife, “…heartiest greetings.  Know that we are still, even now, in Alexandria.   I beg and beseech  you to take care of the little child and, as soon as we receive wages, I will send them to you.  If…you have another child, if it is a boy, let it live; if it is a girl – expose it”.

Seneca, a philosopher during the Roman Empire, said, “We slaughter a fierce ox, we strangle a mad dog, we plunge a knife into a sick cow, and children who are born weakly and deformed, we drown”.    Children were not valued. 

This type of behavior had been perpetuated from generation to generation.    It had become the norm.   While it is repulsive to us today (though we as a nation endorse and practice the crime of abortion), we tend to justify our being angry.   I think that those patterns, too, are passed from generation to generation until it becomes the norm.   Someone has to break the chain.

Many adults still carry wounds in their hearts from angry parents when they were children.    You will never go forward until you release yourself from the tether of hurt to your past.    That means you will have to fully forgive one or both of your parents.     Sometimes the parents that hurt you have already passed away, but you must do so if you would have peace in your life and would not be in bondage to an angry spirit.

About ten years ago a car pulled into our church parking lot after a Wednesday evening service.   Most everyone had already gone and there were just a handful of us talking outside.   I noticed the car which was far away from us and didn’t think anything about it.   I thought it was just someone that had stopped to make a phone call.

Suddenly the car lurched forward at a high rate of speed as they drove by us, barely missing some of our young people.   Incredibly the vehicle pulled into an apartment complex across the street and I saw a young man and young lady get out and go into one of the buildings.

I called 911 immediately and requested an officer to come and investigate.   If someone had been standing a few feet closer the driver would have hit them.   The police arrived and I pointed out the door where I saw them enter across the street.   From a distance I watched them interview the two that were in the vehicle.

The officer came to me and asked me what I wanted to do and I said, “Sock it to him!   He almost killed some of our kids out here!   Whatever you can charge him with, do so.”   We had ample witnesses to what had happened and the person had absolutely no way to deny what had happened.

I learned from the officer that the young man was trying to impress his girlfriend and stupidly did so with his driving antics.   They were both teenagers.   Though still intent on pressing charges I asked to talk to the young man that was driving.

He returned with the policeman, his head down, shoulders stooped and feet nervously pawing the ground.   I talked to him kindly, but firmly, trying not to lecture him as I knew he was in a lot of trouble already.    I have always had a heart for teenagers, especially those that had struggles.

He didn’t say a word.   He just listened as I talked while he stared at the pavement.   Finally, he lifted his face, looked me in the eye, and softly said, “Hey, Coach”.

I didn’t recognize him.   After asking for his name I remembered him very well.  I had coached him ten years earlier over a three year period of time.   He was one of the most angry kids I had ever coached.     He always had a chip on his shoulder, was negative, wouldn’t listen, and never had a smile on his face.

Paula and I had become friends with his mother during those years.  She was the only parent in the home and struggling mightily to help her son to do right.    She was always grateful for my trying to help her son, not just as a baseball player, but as a person.   I loved that kid.   Later he went on and played baseball at one of the local high schools.    I would go to some of his games just to let him know I cared about him.

After talking with him, I asked for his mother’s cell number.   I walked away, called her and explained what had just happened.  She apologized, cried and shared how she was unable to help him to do what was right.    I took the officer aside and told him to read the riot act to  the kid, but that I was going to try and help him.

We talked a couple of times after that.  I kept in touch with his mother, but didn’t feel we were making progress.   I knew that ultimately anger is a symptom and people aren’t helped long-term by managing their anger, but resolving it.   He needed Christ in his life, but wasn’t ready for that by his own admission.

A couple of years later I was reading the paper about a robbery at a business in our city.   They caught the person and it was this same young man, now in his mid-20’s.    His anger was now going to lead him to prison.    Unless he has come to salvation since then he is still angry and will be when he is released.

My heart is broken for him, his mother, and the waste for what could have been.   Perhaps if he had a father that had not abandoned him it would have been different.    I never dreamed when I was coaching a ten year old kid with a bad attitude that I was watching someone that would self-destruct and devastate his mother.    Angry children grow up to be angry adults and not only destroy themselves, but others, too.  

This begs a crucial question: how do parents cause their children to be angry?   In the following posts I’ll give seven ways we frustrate our children and create anger in their hearts. Each is a part of a deadly concoction that poisons the atmosphere of our home.   The fruit of it are children that have been provoked to wrath.    We cannot comprehend the sure destruction if it is not corrected.   It all starts in the home.