May 31, 2006Out of the Mouths of Babes
Several years after my husband and I separated, my wonderful, adventurous, then 8-year-old son met me at the door one day and looked me right in the face when he said, “Mom, I have something to tell you that’s going to make you angry. But, please don’t yell at me. I hate it when you yell.” Meryl, out of the mouths of babes, is all I can say. From that point on, he learned to approach me with this little phrase and that was all it took for me to gain control of my emotions and be able to reasonably talk to him about whatever negative situation he had gotten himself into. It did not mean he did not get punished if he did something he knew he should not have done….but, it actually made the punishment more meaningful and effective. And I became a happier person because I wasn’t yelling and screaming and building my own level of anger.
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I totally agree. I learned the most valuable and important lesson in my life when my daughter, then in Junior High, responded to my coming home, entering the front door and the first thing I said was “why haven’t you cleaned the kitchen?”. She stood there with tears in her eyes and said to me, “why did you have to yell at me before saying hi and hugging me? Are the dishes more important than I am to you?”
Her response will forever be inbedded in my mind and the way I respond when meeting people for the first time. I will ask how they are, how their day is going (or went) and allow them five minutes (or however long) before I respond with MY needs. What a valuable lesson for a parent, or human being, to learn.
Comment by Jennie Sanchez — May 31, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
I am very impressed with the son and daughter (in the two separate stories above) for their remarkable wisdom. But I also admire their mothers who were willing to listen – even when their child’s message could not have been not easy to hear. How many of us are prepared to do that?
I would like to add a comment about the concept of “punishment” mentioned in the initial story. Having had a mother who was hell-bent on punishing me and my siblings, I was determined to find something more constructive with my own children. I was convinced that we had learned nothing of value from punishment.
And so I got my daughters involved in solutions instead of rehearsing the problem – even if it was their own behaviour. In other words, we would ask, “How can we change this so it’s better?” This not only helped me to be calmer and more constructive with them when they misbehaved; it also meant they participated in their own solutions.
My daughters are highly successful professional women now – and we still use the same process in problem solving – whether it is to do with our relationships or with wider issues.
I can vouch for the fact that being solution oriented rather than problem oriented is really empowering.
Comment by Sheilah Bockett — May 31, 2006 @ 3:18 pm
Wow. Great statement. It is much better to be solution oriented that problem oriented. Thanks, I need to be reminded every so often
Comment by Vanessa O'Connell — June 7, 2006 @ 1:33 pm