Anger Management

Hello helpful community!

Maybe you can give me some great advice (as usual) on how to manage this issue.

Preface: I'm a father of a 3-year-old boy and a 1-year-old girl. I absolutely did not expect the flood of love that washes over me every day, and I find it amazing how much I love these two little people and how much this love keeps growing. I never expected I would feel so much joy and pride in such tiny humans, but here we are.

At the end of the day, I always have to give them a kiss goodnight, thank God for how happy and healthy they are, and say a little prayer.

I love them to death!

I was not raised as a happy kid. I had what I thought was a loving and caring family, but being brought up in the '80s and '90s, my parents focused on their medical careers, working late nights. I was brought up the old-school way; my parents didn't communicate well and didn't express love often.

When I misbehaved, my dad would mainly yell at me and ground me. He hit me a (very) few times (once when he caught me lying). I don't blame him for that. I think that was how things were done at the time. Whenever he would punish me (when I deserved it), he would get really, really angry, yell at me, and scare the sh#t out of me.

However, I feel my parents had the best intentions. They brought me up to be my best self, never settle for average when they knew I could do more and better. They taught me to always be a good person with good manners, respect everyone and everything around me, study hard, and follow whatever career I enjoyed.

I also had a lonely childhood. I was bullied in school and had no friends. Only when I went to college did I find good friends and start really living life—going out, going to parties, dating, etc.

Fast forward to today: I obviously have some unresolved childhood issues that I'm working on with a psychologist. I stopped going a year ago.

I could never imagine making my kids go through the same type of parenting I went through; however, I've already felt the past creeping up and yelled at my son for stubbornly doing something I asked him to stop.

I've always had anger management issues and would mainly deal with them by lifting weights, going for a run, or just putting on a podcast and walking by myself for a while to dissipate the steam.

However, with two small children, being sleep-deprived, managing a career, paying a mortgage, and dealing with what life throws at you, I don't have the same ability to decompress. So, I've already had two specific instances where I yelled at my oldest child, which brought me back to my dad doing the same thing. I don't want my kid to go through the same.

I think I'm 99% in control of my anger, but those two times I lost it, it was stronger than me. I didn't even feel it brewing—it just happened, triggered by my kid's bad behavior.

I know that this is absolutely a reflection of my insecurities, but what I need to know is how do you manage this anger and keep it in check?

Thank you.