An ancient science-backed way to chill your kid’s anger

I’ve always said that the only thing you’ll ever accomplish by holding onto anger is ruining your own day.

But that doesn’t mean you should suppress or ignore feelings of anger — and you definitely shouldn’t be encouraging your kid to do that, either.

So how can you teach your kid to properly cope with anger?

Abraham Lincoln famously wrote “hot letters” where he’d unleash his fury with a pen, put the letter to the side, cool down, and finally label it “never sent, never signed.”

But it turns out, an old Japanese anger management method with a similar vibe just got some science-backed validation.

It’s called Hakidashisara.

Hakidashisara is… what now?

You have to hand it to the Japanese. They’ve got a ton of great self-reflection principles, including Ikigai (which we teach in all of our Prequel programs).

But I’ve recently discovered the ancient tradition of Hakidashisara, which is a lot of syllables that basically say “shed that anger, man”.

In a traditional Hakidashisara ceremony, which takes place annually at the Hiyoshi Taisha Shinto Shrine, participants will:

• Write down the things that have made them angry on a ceramic plate.

• Smash that plate to smithereens. 👊

I already feel better just writing that. 😌

But before you unleash your kid on your grandmother’s china with a pack of sharpies, there are some less destructive ways to achieve the same result.

A modern approach

Earlier this year, some researchers at Nagoya University decided to put this ancient principle (with a modern twist) to the test.

They manufactured a situation with a group of test subjects, (who were university students), where they purposefully gave them unfair and insulting feedback on an assignment.

These students were, understandably, quite angry. 😡 

The students were then asked to write those feelings of anger down on a piece of paper, and were given the option to either keep that paper or throw it away.

The students who opted to throw the paper away reported a significant decrease in their anger compared to those who held onto their piece of paper.

"We expected that our method would suppress anger to some extent," lead researcher Nobuyuki Kawai said. "However, we were amazed that anger was eliminated almost entirely."

Turns out, the act of writing down angry feelings, then physically disposing of the paper on which those feelings are written, is just as beneficial as smashing stuff.

And less destructive, too.

So the next time your kid is overwhelmed with anger (which will probably be sometime later today if they’re a teenager), try this technique with them.

And if they still feel the urge to break stuff, take them to a smash room, like this one in Phoenix, owned by one of our Prequel BETA Camp mentors.

It can’t hurt. 🤷