The Drama of Childhood

The Mad Song 

by Mr Rogers

What do you do with the mad that you feel?
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world feel oh so wrong
And nothing you seems very right
What do you do?
Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or you see how fast you'd go?

It's great to be able to stomp
When you've planted the thing that's wrong
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song
I can stomp when I want to
Can stomp when I wished
Can stomp! stomp! stomp! anytime
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling was really mine
Know that there's something deep inside
That helps us become what we can
For a girl to be someday a lady
And a boy can be someday a man

I had moments of being a very angry child. Don't ask  me why; to this day I couldn't pinpoint the cause. The only thing good about it was I got it out of my system that by the time I was a teenager, I had no angst left. So I never bothered with any teenage rebellion.


I now realise that I lacked the vocabulary to express how I felt even though I read a lot. The books that I devoured was chockful of adventures and fun, but there was barely anything emotional. It would have been nice if I had a frame of reference for my feelings that I could actually understand, and it looked like children who had the opportunity to watch Mr Rogers in his neighbourhood, got this advantage.

Fortunately for me, my mother had an excellent collection of Reader's Digest with sections addressing good emotional and mental health and how to condition yourself to be a socially acceptable human being. Not to say that my family did not show me an excellent example for being a good person, it's just that I'm so thick that the lesson didn't penetrate well until in my 20's. And I'm still a work in progress.

So teach your kids to express themselves in a respectful and positive manner. It is a learned behaviour, just like courtesy.

Or spree killing at their high school.