How to Respond When Our Kids Act Like Monsters
The Age of “Mine, Not Yours!”
It’s Easter weekend, Saturday around noon. We’ve just pulled into the driveway after an adventurous Easter Egg Hunt at a nearby church.
My car’s ingredients: 7 Year Old Girl, 4 Year Old Boy, Crappy Plastic Toys, Sugar, Vegetable Emulsifiers, Butterfat, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and Partially Hydrogenated Oils.
I grab my backpack and water bottle for a quick trip into the house so I can be hands-free when I escort the tired ones into our home.
When I get back to the car, I hear screaming. Approaching the door to one of the kiddos, I see the older one kick the younger one square in the chest and he goes down.
Now they are both screaming.
Jesus Christ!
My nervous system flares up with ingredients like: Unfair Domination, Unnecessary Violence, and It’s F**king Easter—the joyful rise of God’s son after his crucifixion (or the joyful hunt for chocolate bunnies, depending on your belief system).
“Okay,” I grab my daughter and pull her out of the vehicle so she isn’t within reach to deliver the next blow to my son, now lying on the floor of my car.
“Are you hurt?” I ask her.
“He made my candy fall to the floor and I couldn’t get it!” she says.
Got it. Not hurt. Just egoic pain.
“I’m sorry he did that. I saw you kick him in the chest and I need to check if he is okay. Please go into the house. We can talk about everything that happened when you guys have calmed down.”
“But it’s still in the car!” she screams.
“What?”
“My candy!”
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You load kids up with sugar and what do you expect, right?
Except… I didn’t let them eat any candy that day. This is something else. Something deeper.
It’s that egoic monster part of all of us that says, “that thing you are withholding from me? It’s mine. I want it back now. And I will do anything to get it from you.”
“I’ll get your candy, please go in the house now.”
I’m getting impatient. The part of me that sees zero logic is having a hard time empathizing.
I go to my son.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“No, she pushed me!”
“I saw that. It’s not okay that she treated you that way. Are you hurt?”
“Yes!” he replies as he stomps a foot on the floor.
I can tell that he’s not quite “emergency room” hurt, but his ego is bruised too. He doesn’t like when his Goliath sister dominates him. It messes with his early ideas that boys are tougher than girls.
Today he told me, “boys can be rockets and girls can be princesses.”
When he says that kind of thing I usually ask him questions like:
“Why is that?”
“I’ve never heard that before. Does that sound true to you?”
“Is that all they can be?”
In the end he says something like “I don’t know” and I say something like “hmm, I see it differently.”
We finally get in the house and they move their energy through words.
“He’s the worst brother in the world!”
“You’re a stupid, stupid butthole!”
“I hate you!”
“I’m gonna take all of her candy!”
Meanwhile, I’m finding that balance between:
following my agitation into fight mode by shouting at them myself and
simply letting all the energy in my body be useful in keeping their bodies away from each other, as needed—like playing goalkeeper without any pads.
I use a loud voice to say, “I’m here to protect you both. I’m not going to let either of you hurt each other.”
These extremes are so confusing. My kids will laugh together, dance together, play ninja turtle pizza party, be generous sharing the last piece of bacon or offer each other a hug goodnight.
And then, they have this other extreme which is… monstrous.
What Does the World of Storytelling Offer Us in these Moments?
In the book The Seven Basic Plots, Christopher Booker lays out his theory that the core purpose of all stories is to help humans learn to release the grip of an overactive ego.
In stories with happy endings, the main character defeats an antagonist who is trying to control something or someone for selfish gains. As a result, the community is better off at the end—i.e. more integrated and full of life in some way.
For example, in The Princess Bride, a farm boy becomes a hero when he saves a princess by displaying greater willpower over a prince who was trying to force her to marry him—Prince Humperdinck attempts to control the bride he has chosen for himself.
On the flipside, in stories with tragic endings, the main character is trying to control someone or something and won’t let it go. In those stories, the community is worse off—i.e. there is more disintegration as life is squeezed out.
For example, in The Great Gatsby, an eccentric playboy lost in a fantasy tries to reunite with a former crush who is married, leading to loss of life in the community, including his own. Gatsby’s unrealistic and obsessive longing leads to his own demise.
In either case, a monster appears:
In happy endings, the monster is someone opposing the main character.
In tragic endings, the monster is the main character, at least by the end of the story.
The character we call the “monster” in stories still has human qualities—such as being passionate but unsympathetic, or intelligent but manipulative, or strong but oppressive—because monsters are always based on the human ego gone wild. But beyond their humanity, it’s the overactive ego that pushes them into the realm of monsters as they endanger themselves and others around them.
Such as kicking your younger brother in the chest because he made your candy fall to the floor.
Here’s another way to frame the core lesson that purposeful stories give us for living: finding alternatives to behaving like a monster leads to the development and integration of the mature self and community.
This makes being able to identify monstrous behavior important, primarily in ourselves.
As parents we are models for our kids—they are looking for clues as to what to do with that monster energy in them. When they see us transform monster energy into something else, it doesn’t mean they will automatically do the same. But they do “see” another possibility and “feel” the difference so perhaps one day, they can learn another way themselves.
If they never see another way, they will have fewer options to choose from to eventually mature from the grip of their ego. Ideally, they have models in their home to recall as needed for future decision-making moments.
Let’s explore one of those monster types that Booker identifies—the one that had a hold of both of my kids…
The Avenger
The Avenger is the monster type who declares, “I want that back—I have been wronged.”
In this egoic monster state, we become fixated on a loss and claim the right to exert our power in order to balance the scales of justice. But unlike lawful justice, the Avenger feels no concern for the wellbeing of others, including the dignity of the one/s they believe created that loss for them.
For example, in Nightmare on Elm Street, a troubled child molester is burned to death by an angry mob and comes back to haunt and kill them in their dreams. The monster, Freddy Krueger, is seeking revenge for his loss of dignity and life.
Or in Rambo: First Blood, John Rambo, a skilled and vengeful Vietnam War veteran, wages a one-man war against a small-town sheriff and his deputies who have mistreated him, showing no regard for their lives as he seeks retribution.
NOTE: What does it say about a culture’s developmental stage when so many movies feature ‘avenging’ protagonists with an ego gone wild that we feel justified to root for? Is it that we need to channel our stress and egoic tendencies and watching others is a healthy outlet? Is it only healthy for the actors that get to move the shadowy energies in a way that does no actual harm?
Easter Monsters
My daughter had her identity wrapped up in her candy. When my son took the candy away, she felt a loss and a sense of injustice. Her kick made perfect sense to her—she was just balancing the scales.
Then when my son was kicked, he lost his sense of pride. She took his identity as a tough boy away. His avenging declaration that he would take all her candy made perfect sense to him—that power grab would balance the scales.
All of the monster archetypes have one thing in common—they all encourage us to see through the lens of ownership with no regard for people around us.
This ownership lens can be distilled to a one word sentiment…
“Mine!”
Notice how when you see this controlling behavior in others, you might activate a controlling part of yourself (as I have, many times), beginning with using the label of “monster” either aloud or unconsciously. If they are the monster, that means you are the hero and your actions and words to control them are justified.
And this is how a family or a society disintegrates. One monstrous act begets another, one ego triggering another’s ego, while everyone is thinking themselves to be the hero. This pattern only stops inside the individual who chooses to address it—through their own discipline and maturation process.
If we wish to respond to egoic behavior in a way that shifts the pattern, we must be sure not to respond from our ego. In other words, when we instead seek dignity for the one acting like a monster, we must consciously deviate from the narrative that otherwise leads to a community where things are worse off.
It begins by not allowing the label to hold—i.e. not labeling others as “monsters” or attacking their character, but instead condemning their actions and stating our boundary (i.e. what we will do):
It’s not okay to kick your brother.
It’s not okay to take your sister’s candy.
I can see that you are both feeling a lot.
I’m here to protect you both from hurting each other.
Sadly, when we criticize and label characters, we seek to humiliate and dehumanize to justify our next actions—and nobody benefits. However, when we criticize actions, there is room for reconciliation and dignity for all involved.
In order to take the mature story lesson to heart, rather than focusing on controlling those around us, what if we try understanding more about the Avenger monster archetypes in ourselves?
Here are some suggestions to get you started...
Self-Observations
The next time you read a story or watch a movie with a monstrous character, take note of the moments while the monster is most overactive in their ego. In those moments, pause the story, grab a pen and paper to write down your responses to these questions:
What do I notice in my own body?
What thoughts appear in response to the monster’s actions?
And then reflect:
How have I behaved through that same monster archetype in my day-to-day life before?
What is the relationship between my past behavior and my reaction to that character?
Given what I notice, what action/s might I take?
Final Thought
Puffing his chest out, my son might say: “Dad, if a bad guy steals our stuff, I will get it back.”
And that’s the stage he’s in. He’s four years old. His ego is developing quite well. He won’t be in that stage forever. Of course, if I’m activated from his behavior, I might respond to him from a place that fears this is a sample of his future adult self.
But no. He’s just being a monster today, not forever.
Great article! I work with kids as a therapist, the kids are often brought in for troubling monster like behavior, I really like this perspective, I m gonna share it with some of my families. We are fed mostly the hero side and rarely look for empathetic views of the monster. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.