Powerful video of a mom calming her angry 5-year-old kid by repeatedly telling him 'I love you'

Editor's note: This article was originally published on October 2, 2022. It has since been updated.

Anyone who's seen a child seeth with anger knows how hard it can be to calm them down. A video of a mother calming her angry son with a heart-to-heart talk is winning hearts on the internet. Destiny Bennett's 5-year-old son was shaking with rage as he headed out of their home but she decided to calm him down by telling him how much she loved him, and slowly he started to calm down. Bennett, a mom-of-three from Las Vegas, Nevada, used her love for her son to relax him, showing the power of positive parenting in shaping a child's world views and character. What Bennett didn't realize at the time of the incident was that the sweet moment was captured on their door camera.      

Bennett said her son, Cash, had trouble controlling his anger and expressing feelings, meaning he bottled up that rage. Bennett told Bored Panda that her son is very emotional and often carried that anger with him as he dwells on it, causing his rage to intensify. On that particular day, Cash was angry because his brother claimed a ‘special’ LEGO that he wanted. His anger intensified over half an hour and Bennett decided to try a new approach. None of my usual calming techniques were working that I use to help him regulate his emotions, so I suggested we take a walk to help him reset. On our way out of the door, he threw a toy on the floor and slammed the door, which immediately frustrated me. This is what led to the moment seen on the video.”

There's nothing quite as disarming as love and Cash couldn't just hold onto all that rage after his mother told what he meant to her. “I love you very much. Do you know how much I love you? You don’t know how much? I love you more than this much. [extends arms],” Bennett can be heard saying in the viral video. “I can see how angry you are. And I want you to feel better. I want you to love you enough to see how angry you are and want to feel better. Okay?”

She goes on to explain that not everything goes our way but doesn't at any point discount or invalidate his feelings. “Sometimes feeling better is getting the things that we want, but sometimes we can’t get the things we want. And it’s okay to be angry. But then we have to be able to let it go and understand that we’re not going to get it and we have to find another way to make our body feel better. I need you to love you. Okay? I love you," she says before they share a hug. "Let’s have a good day today, okay?”

She posted the video on TikTok where it viral, garnering over 4.4 million views and 1 million likes. “We have talks all the time. I think that the fact that we have strong communication is what made this moment normal and comprehensible to him even in that moment,” explained Bennett. “I have been affirming to my kids how much I love them and how amazing and capable they are since they were babies.” Bennett also added that she makes it a point to tell Cash she loves him every night before he goes to sleep.

She explained on Instagram that there's no right way of handling a situation like that. "Every technique doesn’t always work and I don’t always know the right thing to say. Sometimes I have to use every fiber of my being just to stay calm and quiet my inner trauma," she wrote. "Sometimes I’m on the verge of crying myself because I don’t have all the answers. And In those moments all I can do is put all of my effort into connecting with my child I’m that moment and making sure they feel my love. This was one of those moments. People just couldn't enough of the video and many wished their parents had done this with them when they were younger.

You can watch the powerful video here: