Anger Management

The other day after my son and I were coming back from an enjoyable adventure at "Book Park" in a part of town we only get to maybe once a year (it's full of bakeries, coffee shops and over-priced stores) my son decided to have a meltdown.  I'm not exactly sure why.  He wanted me to make a left turn onto a bridge that would require me to go the wrong way on a one way street.  Obviously, I couldn't oblige.

As I tried to settle him down, I can't remember exactly how I said it but I said something along the lines of, "I think you have anger management issues".  He then somehow connected that to one of his favorite baseball players.  About a month ago, this player got in a argument with another player (and rightly so, as the other player hurt him) and hit him.  He got thrown out of the next 4 games.  We used the fact that my son heard this on the radio to teach my son that hitting is never ok.  We hadn't talked about it in over a month.  My son told me that he got in trouble like his favorite baseball player did and he didn't use his words.  He made this connection from so long ago.  I kind of laughed to myself thinking that I'm sure that baseball player did use some words, but fortunately not words that my son heard.  He amazes me sometimes how he does actually learn lessons and consequences (anyone who has an active pre-schooler can probably relate that sometimes it feels like you're talking to a brick wall, or to an energetic ball that never stops long enough to actually listen).