Don’t Tell Me To Calm Down 😠

Hi friends,

A special welcome to all our new friends we met at Capital Camp!

There was something electric about being in a place with so many interested, interesting folks who are thinking deeply about how to build strong families alongside meaningful work.

To everyone we met: thank you for the warmth, curiosity, and stories you generously shared with us. And to our longtime listeners: you would’ve loved it. Don’t sleep on Capital Camp 2026! And stay tuned for the recording of our talk, “Culture Eats Parenting for Breakfast”, which we’ll put out soon.

This Week: What Anger Is Trying to Tell Us

If we’re serious about building resilient family culture, we have to talk about the emotions that actually show up in real homes — and anger is a big one.

For both of us, anger has been tricky. We’ve tried to calm it, redirect it, send it to its room… but we hadn’t really named its purpose. So we started asking: What can anger teach us? And how can we work with it, rather than against it?

In this episode, we explore:

• Why anger shows up so fast — especially in families with young kids

• Brené Brown’s concept of anger as an “indicator” emotion

• The difference between containing anger and suppressing it

• Why “go calm down” and “count to 10” don’t work when someone is activated

• Greg’s take on men, covert depression, and how “flatness” turns into irritability

• Danielle’s take on mom rage — and how many girls are never given space for “acceptable” ways to express anger

• How anger can be used to fuel change (hello, Rosa Parks and Taylor’s Version 👋)

Two goals for working with anger in family culture

1. Contain it, don’t suppress it or let it take over

2. Turn anger into insight (and use it to make change)

Why this matters:  When we normalize anger as part of being human, we turn it from something to fear into something to understand. And that understanding can become a family superpower.

👇 Check out the episode:

TMIT 35: Don’t Tell Me To Calm Down – Turning Anger into Insight as a Family
Spotify | Apple | YouTube

Gratefully yours (recovering from a trip while trying to show up for our kids at the same time is hard!),
Danielle & Greg

Capital Camp Recap Videos: